How to spend a long weekend eating in NYC
Part I: A long, food-filled crawl through Manhattan Chinatown.
Hello and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! This week, we present part one of our travel guide to NYC, a multi-part series on where to eat if you’re visiting for a long weekend. This travel guide was made for a reader who asked for suggestions on where to eat and I thought I’d share it with you all. There’s way way too much to eat on here – so take it as a loose guideline. As always, read past posts here, and please follow my Instagram, @fivethingsiate.
Day 1: Manhattan Chinatown
Manhattan Chinatown is not by any means the “best” Chinatown (see Flushing, Queens and Sunset Park, Brooklyn) but it is historic and an iconic place to visit. It’s also easily accessible and a close walk from the Brooklyn Bridge, which is where I suggest you visit before the tour. Note that this is the most tourist friendly and gentrified Chinatown, which isn’t such a bad thing for a visit.
This tour starts at the Brooklyn Bridge, simply because I think that it’s an iconic New York City landmark that everyone, tourist or not, should walk across on a nice day once. That being said, it probably doesn’t make sense to go across it and then double back (or maybe it does, so you *really* work up an appetite), so perhaps this only makes sense if you’re staying in Brooklyn. Or, you can simply peep at the bridge, take a photo, and decide it’s too crowded and/or windy for you. Either way continue walking West across City Hall Park and up Broadway until you hit Canal Street, and start walking East towards Chinatown.
Along the way, stop at Canal Street Market, a food and arts/retail market. It’s the perfect place to shop for trinkets and also try snacks. This is an example of a sort of gentrified/cleaned up Chinatown that caters to tourists and visitors, but also features a lot of legit vendors. Make sure to check out these stalls:
Joe’s steam rice roll (gluten free) The OG snack that started this newsletter. Shrimp party is my favorite order.
Lazy Sundaes My favorite boba shop! A mini chain. It’s so good and they have kitty stickers on them.
Then, walk down Canal Street to Chinatown.
Where to eat and drink:
The Original Buddha Bodai Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant 🥬 佛菩提 - Only in NYC can you get vegetarian kosher dim sum. This place is a classic. The price is good and the owners are warm. Get the pumpkin soup. Don’t come here if you don’t like tofu and seitan.
Great NY Noodletown – Another classic place. It tends to be really popular, so you might need to share a communal table. Highlights: Salt Fish w. Chicken Fried Rice, roast duck, pan fried seafood noodles.
Kopitiam – I’ve written about Kopitiam a lot. Make sure to get the Bek-Kopi (white coffee), the pan mee, and the Kuih Talam. (All the sweets, or kuihs, are great.) Breakfast all day.
The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory – sure, there’s a line, and yes, it’s a little pricey. But you can’t go wrong with black sesame and pandan ice cream. Note: This ice cream melts at a mysteriously fast rate so eat quickly.
Spongies Cafe vs Kam Hing (read the Sponge Cake-off here). Battle of the sponge cakes, the OG (Kam Hing) vs new school (Spongies). If you’ve never had Chinese sponge cake you must try it. It’ll set you back approximately a dollar or something and it’s basically fluffy sweet air.
Juku and Straylight (Speakeasy) End the night with a classy cocktail in the basement speakeasy at Juku. If you want a fancier meal, there’s omakase upstairs, but I’ve never tried it.
Have a good weekend,
Soph
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