Golden Palace and M & T Restaurant

Today, I went out with some friends to go eat at a couple interesting Flushing restaurants, Golden Palace and M & T Restaurant. They were right around the corner from each other.

At Golden Palace we had Tiger Vegetables, which looked like the garnish to some other dish. But no, it was it's own dish. Cilantro, green peppers, and some hot peppers. Very crunchy and light. We also had an egg with some pickled vegetables, corn cakes (which was like a dry bun made from cornmeal), and loofah dumpling. Probably the best were the Tiger Vegetables and the Corn Cakes. The Loofah Dumpling's taste was a bit one-dimensional, and they were surprisingly heavy given the fact that they were only filled with a mild vegetable.

We went over to M & T, which I think was a bit better. They had a bunch of Qingdao dishes. The dishes we had were very interesting: a cold jelly noodle dishes that was simply beautiful (and quite garlicky), a deep-fried ginseng that would have been a good bar snack but that didn't have enough ginseng taste, and a stir-fry of "fiddleheads", potatoes, mushrooms and celery. I was expecting fiddlehead ferns, which would be odd, since they are very seasonal and I've never encountered them in any restaurant. But, they were some other thing, I have no idea what. The menu here was large and very interesting. I think this one I'd sooner come back to than Golden Palace, but they were both pretty good.

Check out the photos below:

Flushing with Ben and Charles

Spicy & Tasty

I've been to Spicy & Tasty now a number of times. Most Sichuan-cuisine fans would rank it one of the best in New York, perhaps only behind Little Pepper.

When going there, I would advise to get several cold dishes (cold as in room temperature). When you enter, you see a whole cold station for concocting these wonderful treats. This is some of the spiciest and most flavorful stuff on the menu. Pictured here is one of the cold dishes, ma la tendon. Ma la is what a lot of these dishes are: spicy and numbing. The sichuan peppercorn, not found outside the cuisine, is responsible for the numbing part.

I went again a week ago, and this visit we tried Stinky Tofu, but it was only mediocre. But we also tried the hot pot, which was pretty nice. They brought frozen squid balls, beef slices, bean-thread noodles, vegetables and a few other things. It was divided into a non-spicy section and spicy section. I preferred the spicy section, but the items boiled in either were nice. The spicy section wasn't overwhelming.

We had a number of other really good dishes, including the tea-smoked duck, cold conch, cold eggplant, and a few others I can't even remember. It's always a great meal, the prices are good, and the spicy, garlicy taste is intoxicating and addictive.

Spicy & Tasty is located in Flushing on Prince Street. Try it out!

Nanjing Xiaolongbao

Last weekend I went to Flushing to eat at Nanjing Xiaolongbao. It's been a while since I had some good soup dumplings. My friend Ben and I met up and ordered both types of soup dumplings, Shanghai noodles, "Shengjian" (pan-fried) buns, and cold bamboo in red oil. I think the soup dumplings there were nearly as good at Joe Shanghai, with both (and most NY places, IMHO) suffering from dumplings that are too large. The dumplings skins were also slightly too fragile, and tore on two occasions. Otherwise, though, the soup inside was delicious, as well as the pork itself. It's one of the better versions I've had in New York. The Shanghai noodles were actually some of the best I've had. And the pan-friend buns were great as well. The bottom is brown and crunchy, and the top is soft. And of course the middle is a nice dumpling filling (no soup inside, though). It's a great snack that I'd eat a lot of if given the chance...

I have no pictures of this event, sorry to say.