Xiao Du Hui (小都會)

I recently ran across a reference to Xiao Du Hui (小都會) online and wondered why I had no clue as to what it was. I have walked past the place dozens of times and never noticed it. But sure enough, there it was, right where the address said it should be. The menu looked interesting and the prices were most definitely right, so in I went.

Xiao Du Hui (小都會 - xiǎo dū huì, which seems to be a way of saying "small town") serves Fuzhou-style food, Fuzhou being the capital of Fujian province in the south. It's a tad surprising to find a Fujianese restaurant in Flushing, bastion of the northern Chinese that it is – most of the Fujianese in New York gravitate toward Manhattan and Brooklyn Chinatowns. But it's there, doing a brisk business for what I have to believe are mostly Fujianese workers around town. The décor is not much to speak of – it is, in fact, a bit dingy – but that’s not why I go to restaurants, obviously. The food is honest cooking for ordinary people. There are very few frills, and it seems that, besides a better-than-average English menu translation, very few concessions are made for Westerners. It may not be for everybody, but it is for me. And it is most definitely a bargain.

Ye frugal diners out there will want to turn directly to the end of the menu, where the heading is not translated into English, but the price of $12.99 is prominently displayed. This page is a sort of family menu, and the price of $12.99 includes one soup from a list of 15 or so at the top (and one soup is large enough to feed 2 or 3) and TWO dishes from a list of almost 70 below that. And if you’d like an additional dish from the list, it's an extra $5.00. Two moderately-hungry eaters (or, that is to say, one of me) will be sated by the two-dish-plus-a-soup menu. Add another dish and you’ve got a small feast for two big eaters... for 18 bucks!

A free dish of preserved radish immediately appeared on ordering. It bears only the most superficial resemblance to the luó bo (蘿卜) at Lao Dong Bei.

Xiao Du Hui's is sliced thicker, not at all spicy, barely vinegary, and slightly sweet. And almost as nice, in fact – just completely different.

I went with the "Golden Fish Soup" (jīn qián yú tāng - 金錢魚湯), mostly because I had no idea what to expect. Even so, it was unexpected: a clear soup of small slices of what seems to be called argus fish or spotted scat in English and slices of winter melon in a sour broth. This fish is not for people who are put off by particularly "fishy-tasting" fish... it’s slightly oily and has a strong flavor. But it works beautifully with the winter melon, and the sour broth cuts the oily quality perfectly.

The "Beef Short Ribs with Salt and Pepper" (jiāo yán niú xiǎo pái - 椒鹽牛小排) were thin slices of cross-cut short ribs (on the bone, of course) coated in a salt-and-pepper seasoned breading, deep fried, then tossed in some chopped scallions and spicy green pepper slices. Delicious

If I hadn't learned some Chinese characters along the way, the "Grilled Meat with Garlic" (suàn miáo là ròu - 蒜苗臘肉) would have been a total shock. But I was ready for the stir-fry of slices of preserved pork and garlic greens that arrived at the table. This is pork preserved in a completely different fashion than that of my Hunan meal the night before – Xiao Du Hui's is a bit sweet and not the least bit smoky. Garlic greens always taste like leeks to me… I guess I'm just not as discerning when it comes to vegetables as I am when it comes to meat. A nice, homey dish.

On a subsequent visit, I tried the seaweed, tomato and tofu soup (fān qié zǐ cài dòu fǔ tāng - 蕃茄紫菜豆腐湯) It was less interesting than the Golden Fish Soup, mostly because the tomatoes – under-ripe and of the supermarket hothouse variety – almost completely lacked flavor. Since tofu hasn't much flavor on its own, this meant the soup was dominated by the taste of the (to my mind, overcooked) purple seaweed (nori). I thought the whole thing was under-seasoned, but that could just be my penchant for strong flavors. Personally, I'd advise skipping it.

五更牛什 (wǔ gēng niú shí) goes by the curious name of "Wu Gen Beef Muscles" on the menu. The literal translation is hardly less curious: Fifth-Watch Beef Entrails. Apparently, the name is taken from the period of time just before dawn, which is supposedly when one needs to start cooking the beef bits in order for them to be ready by lunchtime. And there is quite the assortment of beef bits here - brisket, various sinews, and at least three kinds of tripe – stewed with celery, peppers, and sour cabbage. It's a bit spicy and quite sour, and tastes very southeast Asian to me – rather like a sour curry. It’s not quite my thing – I do seem to prefer the cooking style of Chinese parts a bit farther north – but I think the dish was well-prepared, neophyte that I am to Fujianese cooking.

"Chicken with Food Chow Sauce" (sic) (糟雞 - zāo jī) is my favorite dish here so far. It turned out to be ultra-tender, juicy chunks of on-the-bone chicken simmered with that signature Fujianese ingredient, red wine lees (紅糟 - hóng zāo). Besides ginger, I couldn’t actually figure out what else was in the sauce. All I know is that whatever they do here, it makes the chicken taste like the chicken I used to eat in Portugal… more "chicken-y", somehow, than most chicken in the U.S.  It's a mild dish – don’t be misled by its startling color – and, unlike so many other dishes made with wine lees that I've tried, not the least bit cloying. Absolutely delicious.

The rest of the menu is huge and varied, with a lot of dishes you don't see just anywhere. Lots of noodle soups and rice noodle dishes, too. And they're open until 4 a.m.!

Xiao Du Hui
135-19 40th Rd., Flushing 11354
718-762-1955
(7 train to Main St.-Flushing, 1 block south on Main, then right on 40th Rd.)

Sheng Wang (CLOSED)

(UPDATE 5/15:  Sheng Wang is as reliably excellent as ever, and the prices are unchanged. It's nice to know there are some things in this world one can count on.  Still my favorite Manhattan Chinatown spot.)

I have Robert Sietsema of the Village Voice to thank for putting me onto this little gem: Sheng Wang is now my favorite joint in Manhattan's Chinatown.

This Fujianese place specializes in noodles, but they make the best dumplings I've tried in Chinatown. On the menu they're called steamed dumplings (水餃 - shuǐ jiǎo - these characters mean "boiled dumplings" in Northern Chinese places, but if you actually boiled these, they would surely disintegrate).  Wrapped in skins much more delicate than their northern-style counterparts, the pork and chive filling is so tasty it seems like there must be some trick involved. (Really - I sit there eating them wondering the whole time, "how do they do it?") And at $3.00 for 10 huge dumplings... that's a trick worth experiencing.

Their Potato Ball in Soup (馬鈴薯丸 - mǎ ling shǔ wán) is equally wonderful: ten handmade balls of potato dough filled with seasoned ground pork in a light chicken broth. If you happen to go there late in the afternoon, you can often watch the staff sitting around forming them by hand.

Wonton Soup Fuzhou Style (福州扁肉湯 - fú zhōu biǎn ròu tāng) is a medium-sized bowl of at least 30 ultra-delicate "wontons" - 扁肉 (biǎn ròu) actually refers to a stuffed thin dumpling of Southern China - in Sheng Wang's equally delicate chicken broth. A minor miracle at $2.00.

But the bulk of the menu is noodles, and there are two types here: the hand-pulled, Lanzhou style, and "peel noodle". These are fun to watch being made--I have not yet been able to see them do it at Sheng Wang, but I happened to catch the episode of "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern" where he visited a restaurant in China that served every imaginable kind of noodle, and Mr. Zimmern tried his hand at making these, holding a block of dough in one hand, shaving a knife along the top and flipping the noodle into a pot of boiling water. (Come to think of it, that episode the food wasn't so bizarre... there was only one thing he ate that I hadn't already tried--and he was in CHINA!). Anyway, both kinds are great, although I might give peel noodle the edge (boom-CHING!). I'm particularly partial to the soups with bones in them--the pork bone soup has five or six big hunks of pork bones with bits of meat still clinging to them, and the added bonus of often-intact marrow. The broth of the beef bone soup is richer and tastier, but the bones aren't quite as much fun. And all the meat soups come with greens, some minced sour cabbage, and a meat-filled potato ball. All for 5 bucks or less.

Sheng Wang
27 Eldridge St., New York 10002
212-925-0805

Happy Garden Palace, Redux

A few more dishes to touch upon after subsequent visits to Happy Garden Palace...

After reading a bit more about Fujianese cuising and learning that meals often count more than one soup among its dishes, I decided I needed to try some of them. Spicy and Sweet and Sour Fish Soup was definitely a winner. Not so sweet, really--it was very much like a clear-broth hot-and-sour soup with pieces of fish.

The Fish Head with Sour Cabbage Soup was also very good, and, perhaps oddly, quite soothing. The fish-head chunks are chock full of oddly-shaped bones, however--if such things annoy you (and I know many people that it does), skip this one entirely.

"Stew Duck over Rice" had a wonderful flavor (wine lees working its magic again), but also has the bone issue... all those duck bone shards were starting to annoy even me. At under four dollars for a big plate of it, though, it's a steal, shards and all. "Chinese Broccoli Sprouts with Red Wine" (wine lees again!) were actually leafy tops of mature plants. I thought they could have benefitted from a slightly longer cooking time... my friend Pan (of the Chowhound and eGullet boards) liked them "crisp" like that. "Chewy" is the word I would have chosen, but the flavor was great. And they make one of the best versions I've tried of my absolute favorite variety of fried rice--Salted Fish and Chicken Fried Rice. Once again, practically a steal at under five bucks for a small platter. It's usually twice that elsewhere.

Because the "Lamb with Bean Stick (Happy-Garden-Palace-speak for tofu skin) in Casserole" had looked so good at a neighboring table, I ordered it the next visit, and it's the only dish I've had here that I found somewhat less than enthralling. It's a Cantonese dish, so... no red wine lees. I know that ingredient technically doesn't belong there, but I couldn't help but think that it would have improved its relative blandness. The Beef Stew with Curry in Casserole remains unchallenged so far as my favorite dish here.

I'm afraid I enjoyed my meal this evening somewhat more than Pan did. A couple of the employees have a nasty habit of smoking right by the propped-open front door of the restaurant, whereupon the smoke wafts directly in, and Pan is quite sensitive to it. Four years of living in Portugal got me over that, but be forewarned of the possibility of cigarettes in somewhat closer-than-ideal proximity.

Happy Garden Palace

The name of this restaurant almost inevitably makes me think of my friend Pace. An enthusiastic and knowledgeable dining companion--on the rare occasions I can actually convince him to pry his ass out of his apartment and join me, that is--he is convinced that Sripraphai, which he simply refers to as "Unpronounceable", is actually Thai for "Lucky Dragon Bamboo Hut". I'd be curious to know if Happy Garden Palace really is the English translation of its Chinese name.

This place seems pretty obviously to be geared towards Fujianese immigrants in New York that want a hearty, inexpensive meal like they might get back home (and boy, is it inexpensive!). It's open until 2:00 a.m., and, based on a couple of visits, appears to be a small gathering place for folks who want a late-night beer or snack after work. As you might expect, there is zero "atmosphere" here.

No matter, though--the food is fantastic. Generous dishes that fairly scream "home cooking"--MY kind of food! "Red wine lees"--Fuzhou red wine fermented with glutinous rice--figures in lots of the dishes here, and it adds several flavor dimensions difficult to describe: wine-y, yes, but also slightly vinegary, slightly sweet, and fairly earthy. Case in point: tonight's Spare Rib Fuzhou Style (Fuzhou is the capital city of Fujian). Spare ribs dusted in with corn starch and fried, and if I'm not mistaken, there was some orange along with wine lees in the complex sauce. Salt chicken was a) a bargain, at 6 bucks for a half a chicken, and b) apparently really the result of having been preserved in salt. Perhaps a bit drier than what other places offer under similar names, it had a real "preserved" taste and texture--I thought it was great. Pork fried rice was delicious and everything it should be... first and foremost, it was white, not the brownish travesty one gets at Americanized Chinese restaurants. On a whim, I also ordered a taro cake (cost: 60 whole cents), which turned out to very similar to turnip cake dim sum. I have no idea how this is traditionally eaten, but I confess I kept wishing for a little dish of oyster sauce to dip it in like one gets in the Cantonese dim sum houses.

Earlier in the week I had what is my favorite dish here so far, the Beef Stew with Curry in Casserole. Interestingly, curry was the least obvious element of the dish. Wine lees, once again, yes... something like cinnamon or star anise, ginger, garlic and sesame oil. But curry was only in the background. Utterly delicious. And their "Golden Silver Egg Fried Rice" was somehow much more than the sum of its parts: egg, a bit of scallion, and rice. It was perfectly cooked--light, moist... ambrosia.

There is a huge list of "over rice" dishes that includes a generous selection of their entrees, and they are all around 4 dollars for a quite sizable plate of food. Fujian is especially famous for its soups, and I'm looking forward to cooler weather so I can work my way through their list of two dozen or so.

Happy Garden Palace
54 East Broadway, New York 10002
212-925-9888