Tastes of Chinatown, But Not of China

Inevitably, anyone who has traveled to China finds upon his return to America that Chinese food has mysteriously gone from flavorful to criminally tasteless.

This is especially painful for the New Yorker who sees Chinese food as its own food group and for whom chopsticks are as familiar as a fork. Worst of all is the realization that the most familiar staples, such as the egg roll, are-the horror!-utterly inauthentic. Eating at Ollie's becomes a melancholy, almost funereal activity, like dining with a friend from whom one has become hopelessly estranged.

The history of Chinese food in America is long and storied, but the main theme is its blandification to fit untrained American palates. While it is possible to find perfectly authentic Indian, Senegalese, Russian, Thai (locally, Land Thai Kitchen at 82nd and Amsterdam might be the best restaurant in New York), and Ethiopian food all over New York, the search for truly authentic Chinese food is a maddening exercise. Though the quest for real Chinese food almost always ends fruitlessly, there are a few bright spots in New York: Wuliangye 48 Restaurant, Spicy & Tasty, and Golden Bridge Dim Sum are among the few. The search for proper Kung Pao chicken, with pillowy, piping hot white chicken breast, is for me a personal quest.

It was with this questing fervor in my heart that I headed for the annual Taste of Chinatown festival this past Saturday. Another thing that the returning traveler bemoans is New York's lack of street food (aside from hot dog, hot nuts, gyro, and shish kebab stands). The festival was an attempt to rectify that. Taste of Chinatown is all street food, with dozens of restaurants offering small dishes for $1 to $2. The festival organizers also set up a small stage, which featured a very odd variety of performers, including (most bafflingly) an Irish step-dancing duo with a young Asian woman playing the fiddle.

I have never seen the streets of Chinatown so packed with people. Hordes of New Yorkers and tourists alike, of all colors and races, descended on the small five-block area around Mott Street. It was comforting, really-like a Beijing marketplace. The quest for authenticity was off to a good start.

I began with a baggie of lightly fried calamari and an almond bubble tea from Happy Time Cafe. The calamari, perfectly crisp, would actually prove to be the best thing I put in my mouth all day, rivaled only by a mango bubble tea that was also provided by Happy Time Cafe (to which I will definitely be returning).

After the calamari, things got a bit shaky. As it turned out, the people attending the festival were more varied than the food. Most tables were selling the same mash-up of greasy chow fun noodles, greasy spring rolls, greasy lo mein, greasy...you get the idea.

The best-known restaurants were also slightly disappointing: Peking Duck House had by far the longest lines, despite the fact that their duck rolls were a sad imitation of the real thing. Vegetarian Dim Sum House had very good fried mashed potato balls, but their eggplant in either garlic sauce or oyster sauce (I couldn't tell) was wholly inedible. Hong Kong Station had a kind of shark fin soup, which was hot and pleasant enough, but lacked any kind of real flavor.

I didn't see a number of dishes I was hoping for, either. There was no Kung Pao in sight, which was not hugely surprising, but nor were there any soup dumplings (Joe's Ginger did not participate) or steamed pork buns, possibly the most common of all Chinese street foods. On the other hand, I think I threw back at least six bubble teas, which were all over the place taste-wise. And really, one shouldn't quibble; the festival was, on the whole, very entertaining, and certainly worth the trip. It is definitely possible to find authentic Chinese fare in Chinatown (I highly recommend New Green Bo on Bayard Street), but it requires some patience and luck. Though they might beat the tar out of Ollie's, the majority of Chinatown restaurants are sadly generic.

However, one must keep in mind that the name of the festival was Taste of Chinatown, not Taste of China. In the end, the most telling product on offer was not food or drink, but a toy called the Party Popper tube. You pull a string, there's a small POW, and some confetti bursts out. Nothing like the hair-raising gunfire clatter of Chinese fireworks. It's the Chinatown version of fireworks-timid and unsure of itself. But hey, you take what you can get.