All in the mall

Until recently, I’d never been to Flushing, but my friend Rachel often spends significant portions of her weekends up there, despite the three-train journey from Bushwick. When I asked her to take me on a day trip, she gladly obliged. I think all New Yorkers, even the natives, are tourists in this town, and sometimes it helps to have a guide.

Rachel goes to Flushing for the food. Born in Shenyang, China, she says that the Chinese dishes cooked east of Citi Field in Queens are the only ones in New York that make her feel at home. When she first came to New York for a summer internship at the consultancy firm for which she now works, she lived in Flushing and commuted all the way to the Financial District. Now, she lives in the apartment above mine and rides the J for 20 minutes in the morning, but she misses the Asian grocery stores and restaurants. In her view, Brooklyn tends to favor “fusion” cuisine.

Flushing feels less like an ethnic enclave than a wholly independent municipality. It has its own jam-packed downtown with more multi-story retail developments than anywhere else in the city.

It reminds Rachel of “China in the ‘90s.” She moved at age 11 to Atlanta, where she quickly became fluent in the new language; back home, she’d known another Chinese family with a boy of similar age that immigrated to Flushing at about the same time, and by her account, the boy never really learned English – it wasn’t necessary here.

Unlike the primarily Cantonese Chinatown in Manhattan, Flushing offers cuisine from virtually every corner of mainland China. It has the best hot pot, the best dumplings, the best noodle soups. It has fancy banquet halls and beloved holes-in-the-wall, but the best place to get a sense of all the variety is the New World Mall food court, open from 10:30 am to 10 pm daily in the basement of 136-20 Roosevelt Avenue.

Come famished and try to grab a bite from all 30-something stalls – an impossible task, but worth the try. I managed to sample six of them. It was an unforgettable experience.

I’m not competent to describe every item of food, but I know that I ate cold braised duck wings that turned my mouth numb; thickly seasoned skewers of grilled chicken gizzard and squid; chewy noodles made from potato starch in a savory broth; a spicy stir-fry of various meats, mushrooms, and bok choy that Rachel described as “dry hot pot”; and a dessert of “egg puffs” – that is, an eggy waffle with ovoid protuberances, crispier on the outside and cakier on the inside and altogether superior to the Western iteration, topped with matcha ice cream. These were all inexpensive street foods for which I paid in cash, but the flavors were incredible.

The duck wings, served in a portable container, came with a plastic glove for sanitary handheld consumption. I remarked on the thoughtfulness of the inclusion, and Rachel observed that, while some Americans tend to find Chinese food service brusque, its quality is in its consideration rather than its courtesy: from utensils to condiments, the purpose is to make sure you have everything you need all the time.

In a hectic space, the New World Mall food court offered a smooth dining experience. There were enough food stalls, during a mobbed weekend lunchtime, that none had long lines, and we managed to find a table without too much trouble.

Rachel did most of the ordering for us, but she’s smaller than I am, so I handled the bulk of the eating. That was all right, apparently: sometimes just seeing the food, she claimed, is comfort enough.