Chinese Foodie Night Comments

For those of you who could not attend SCCLA's Chinese foodie presentation, here are my remarks.

Now I know that some of you have read about me as the crazy lawyer who’s eaten at 6,000 Chinese restaurants, but I’m sure that a lot of you have not, so I will make my remarks on the presumption that you haven’t heard about me.  I had been dining in anonymity for decades.  Then last year, a food writer named Clarissa Wei, who’s sitting right here, found out that I kept an Excel schedule showing the 6,000 Chinese restaurants I had eaten at.  She asked me if anybody had ever written me up and I replied no, why would anybody want to?  She interviewed me and the story ran on the LA Weekly website.  That item was quickly picked up by the Huffington Post, People.com, went viral  around the world, including the Chinese language press, and a whole bunch of celebrity gossip websites, all of which I found quite befuddling except to wonder if there was a new category of public figure called celebrity diner. 

That led to an all expense paid visit to Springfield, Missouri for me and my wife Mary to sample Springfield’s signature cashew chicken at several Chinese restaurants and have our picture taken with the restaurant owners, plus the mayor of Branson gave us the key to the city.  Eventually the furor died down, until this past April when the Los Angeles Times ran its Column One story written by Frank Shyong on my spreadsheet, complete with interactive timeline map of where I ate over the years.     This was followed a feature on the Yahoo News and Good Morning America websites leading to another 15 seconds of fame.  The end result is I have 850 Twitter followers, a Chinese restaurant column on a restaurant website called Menuism, and field requests from strangers asking questions like what’s the best Chinese restaurant in Cincinnati.  To my horror, casual responses to three such short questions ended up as newspaper articles, or in one case, an article on the Canadian Broadcasting Company website so I've learned to always be careful to watch what I say.

At this point I need to issue a disclaimer.   People hear that I have eaten at 6,000  Chinese restaurants and they all assume I’m a foodie and Chinese food expert.  I am not a foodie.  Eric Chan here is a foodie—he takes pictures of all his restaurant meals.  I do not.  My daughter Christina, who is also a lawyer, is a foodie.   When she went to Asia last year and sent us the link to her photos, I found that 80 percent of the pictures were of food.  When I travel, I only take pictures of the scenery.   And I’m no Chinese food expert as sometimes I don’t even know what’s in the Chinese food I’m eating.

Now the fact that I am not a foodie is quite significant, because when I started this journey, it certainly wasn’t about the food and in many respects it still isn’t.  Rather, as the L.A. Times article focused on, it was about a different kind of search.   Because as a Chinese American I grew up in a Los Angeles far different from what most of you are familiar with.  A Los Angeles where Asians, or as we were called back then, Orientals, were under one percent of the population, a mere  20,000 Chinese, not 500,000 like today.   We were such a rarity that when I started my first job one of the other new hires thought I was Mexican because he had never met a Chinese person before.   It was a time when, because of decades of anti-Chinese immigration laws, virtually all of the Chinese residents in America had roots in the seven counties of rural Toishan outside of the city of Canton.  A Chinese community largely comprised of illegal immigrants and their descendants, like three of my grandparents who came to America illegally.  A Los Angeles where many neighborhoods, not just San Marino but places like Glendale, South Pasadena, Inglewood, and parts of the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles were off limits to Chinese Americans and other minorities.  And a Los Angeles where as a little boy I didn’t eat much Chinese food because I found the Chinese food of the day to be largely unpalatable because it wasn’t particularly good. 

For me the triggering event on my journey was the ethnic studies movement that was born in the late 1960s. In my last quarter as an undergraduate at UCLA, they offered the very first Asian American studies class.   Immediately I was captivated by the topic of the experience of Chinese people in the United States. There was a dearth of material on the topic, such that a novice like myself who was studying to become an accountant could write a term paper on the history of the Chinese of Los Angeles and immediately have it published in the budding ethnic press. That same person could then go on KNX radio, KCBS television and speak at conferences as a so called "expert" on the subject, and even be keynote speaker at one of the very first Asian Pacific American Heritage month events in Los Angeles, quite laughable given that my credentials consisted of having taken all of two university level classes in Asian American studies.

My interest in food  developed a little later, after the convergence of three factors when I started to work and travel. First of all, I made the acquaintance of friends at work from Hong Kong, who showed a passion for food that I had never encountered before.   My Hong Kong friends had been the vanguard of the late 1960s immigration of Chinese from Hong Kong to the United States, when the American immigration laws changed to permit Chinese to come here in large numbers, and the new residents brought their food with them. This upgrade in Chinese food sparked an interest in me, as this new and exciting form of Chinese food was so much better than what I was used to. Finally, I started to travel around the United States, and made it a point to eat at Chinese restaurants to the extent possible, as part of a greater interest in seeing what Chinese residents and communities were like throughout the United States. Indeed my one and only published restaurant review written in 1977, of Hong Kong Restaurant in Sioux City, Iowa was as much about the setting of the restaurant near the Sioux Bee Honey factory as the food itself.   And to this day, eating  Chinese food while traveling is part of my greater desire to experience various Chinese American and Canadian communities.

So as you can see, in the beginning it wasn't at all about the food, and even today the food is only part of the story.  

My 15 Seconds Of Celebrity

These days it seems that new categories of celebrities are popping up all the time.  Celebrity doctors, celebrity chefs, celebrity real estate agents, celebrity plumbers, you name it, fueled in good part by reality TV shows.

The reason I mention this is that I've been swept up, at least peripherally, by the current cult of celebrity.  In a way it's appropriate since I live in a neighborhood populated by celebrities, with my next door neighbor being the director of "Dancing With The Stars".   When I yelled at a guy for blocking the street in front of my house his response was "Do you know who I am?"  (No, I didn't.)   Eva Mendes lives a few hundred yards down the hill as the crow flies, and from my bedroom I can see Selma Blair's baby daddy's house.  (His wi-fi connection sometimes shows up on my computer.)  In our same tract Brad Pitt has his Hollywood compound, Nicolas Cage had one of his pre-liquidation homes, and Adam Levine just sold his property.    And years ago Cary Grant and Randolph Scott shared their bachelor estate not far away.

So where do I fit in with all this?  Well unless you accidentally came through the door or are one of my family or friends, the reason you are reading this can be traced to food writer Clarissa Wei who wrote her LA Weekly food section article on me as the crazy lawyer who had eaten at 6000 Chinese restaurants.  Fine, I could see how that would be mildly interesting to foodies.  Even when Huffington Post picked the story up that made some sense since they have a dining section.  What didn't make sense was when People.com picked the story up on their homepage, having it as top item in their headline section for 2 hours until it was bumped by a story about Britney Spears.  That in turn led to numerous celebrity gossip websites republishing the People.com story.

So for 15 seconds I was a celebrity.  But what kind of celebrity could I be considered?  Well when you think about it, I'm not a food critic as I've only published one restaurant review in my life, and that was 35 years ago.  I'm not a Chinese food expert as I often have no idea what's in the Chinese food I've eaten.  I'm not even a foodie because I don't photograph any of my meals.  So what does that make me?  Apparently, America's first celebrity diner!   Only in Hollywood I guess.

The Gentrification of Manhattan Chinatown

Ever since Chinese immigration to the United States was once again legalized nearly 50 years ago, the Chinese population in this country has skyrocketed.  A byproduct of this has been the growth of the existing American urban Chinatowns well past their original boundaries, such as in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Manhattan.  The effect has been especially evident in Manhattan as Chinatown has gobbled up territory formerly part of a number of other neighborhoods, particularly Little Italy and the Lower East Side. 

Until recently, it appeared that this territorial expansion might be never ending.   But all of a sudden, it appears that Manhattan Chinatown is no longer growing, but in fact is giving back some of its territory.  While I just realized this during my recently completed trip to New York, it appears this trend has been percolating for at least a short while.  My focus on this change was brought forth by my stay at the Wyndham Garden Hotel on Broadway, at the edge of the Little Fuzhou portion of Manhattan Chinatown.  Somehow I had missed the fact that this hotel opened up last November, even though I walked by there in February, March, and again in June.  But the fact that this new hotel was built still didn’t signal any alarms, even though a low income Chinese apartment house was torn down to make way for the Wyndham..  What did ring the alarms was staying in the hotel, and realizing that only a small portion of the guests were Chinese, with the largest portion of the guests being European tourists.  Now there’s nothing wrong with European tourists staying in Chinatown, as my favorite place to stay, the Royal Pacific in San Francisco Chinatown, has plenty.  But the Royal Pacific has as many, if not more Chinese guests than non-Chinese guests. 

Walking in and out of the hotel several times and seeing the activity in the lobby and lounge, the vibe of the hotel was clearly SoHo, not Chinatown.  And the Wyndham is not the only new hotel in the area, with newly built Howard Johnson and Fairfield Hotels on Allen St. near Broadway at the eastern edge of Little Fuzhou.  After staying at the Wyndham, I’ll bet those hotels also have few Chinese guests.  But the bigger tell tale sign as to what’s going on in this hood appears across the street from the Wyndham at the newspaper shack, where they now sell copies of the New York Post and New York Times.  Words cannot express my shock at seeing these publications being sold in Chinatown.

Meanwhile, changes are also occurring at the other end of Chinatown.  With the Canal Street counterfeit merchandise trade being decimated by action by both the police and the designers whose merchandise was being ripped off, the north side of Canal Street between Broadway and Lafayette has gone through a stunning change.  Not only did Bank of America take over the northeast corner of Broadway and Canal, which was ground zero for fake Louis purses, but a large Verizon store has moved next door.  And in the middle of the block, a large So Ho style store has been opened,  called Necessary Clothing.  Word is that real estate developers have plans to turn the entire block into an extension of SoHo (or perhaps more accurately, reclaiming territory previously lost to Chinatown). For those who remember all the narrow, deep storefronts on that block of Canal St. with the good stuff hidden way in the back or upstairs, this is a development that is hard to fathom.  A few of those stores are still left, but for how long?




       

My Good Deed For The Day

Recently I received a call from a friend of mine whose son just moved to New York City as an entry level employee at the Manhattan office of my firm.  When my friend called and asked for a personal favor for his son, I thought it was some kind of personnel issue.  However, as my friend explained it, he received a distressed call from his son, who went downstairs to the eatery in the bottom of his Times Square building, and found to his horror that a small fruit cup was selling for $8.  At that rate, his son said couldn’t afford to eat out at work, so could I provide some tips on finding affordable food?

I told my friend that the good thing about being Chinese and liking Chinese food is that the Chinese believe that even poor people deserve to eat delicious food.  Consequently, despite a much greater concentration of poorer people in New York Chinatown than any other Chinese community in North America, you can get good and economical Chinese food in New York Chinatown, probably cheaper than anywhere else in the US.  Indeed there are decent Chinese restaurants in Little Fuzhou where nothing on the menu is greater than $5.

But first I had to explain there are really two parts to New York Chinatown.  First is the original, Cantonese, tourist imbedded Chinatown, south of Canal St. and west of Bowery.  Then there is Little Fuzhou, east of Bowery and centered on East Broadway.  Little Fuzhou is populated almost exclusively by immigrants from Fujian province.  There are virtually no Fujianese in California, the reason being that most of them came to the US illegally, making their initial landing in New York.  Being undocumented they can't travel anywhere by airplane, and are forced to travel by bus in and out of Little Fuzhou.  The Fujianese probably run the majority of Chinese restaurants east of the Mississippi River.

From Times Square you could take the Q, N or R trains to Canal Street and find yourself on Canal and Broadway in Chinatown.  However, that puts you at the west end of the original part of Chinatown, several blocks away from any concentrations of Chinese restaurants.  The better option is to walk east on 42nd St. to the Bryant Park subway station to catch the B or D train.  It's probably just a 10 to 15 minute ride to Grand St., and when you come out of the subway station you're on the corner  of Grand St. and Chrystie.  There are probably at least 300 Chinese restaurants and bakeries in Chinatown so there's plenty to choose from.  If you walk east on Grand a couple of blocks over to Eldridge, you will find a number of dumpling shops that sell fried dumplings at four for $1, along with all kinds of similar items (e.g., onion pancakes, flat bread sandwiches, etc.).  Prosperity Dumpling at 46 Eldridge is the best of the bunch, but there are many others.  Panda Dumpling House, 67 Eldridge has a nice selection of dumplings and Chinese sandwiches.  Spicy Village, 68 Forsyth (quite near the Grand St. station) has been discovered by hipsters for their hand pulled noodles.  Spicy Village is probably a little more expensive because they have been discovered.  There are many cheap hand pulled noodle places in the area, too.

If you head  south from the Grand St. station, you can check out Lee Chung Cafe and Poon Kee, mentioned in my recent article on new restaurants in Manhattan Chinatown, for good and very inexpensive eats.  http://www.menuism.com/blog/manhattan-chinatown-renaissance/     Nearby along Market St., south of East Broadway, I found two restaurants with ridiculously cheap food.  Both Bamboo Restaurant and Good Good Taste offer a full sized order of peanut sesame noodles (fills a standard sized styrofoam container), plus a cup of soup, for $2.00.  (And it was delicious.)   I'm sure there are many other places like that in the immediate area.

Also worth trying are a couple of places in the article that are on Mott St., Cha Chang Tang and Noodle Village.  And an old favorite on the border of old and new Chinatown is Great N. Y. Noodletown at 28 Bowery.   

This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as New York Chinatown goes.  Some of the places, even in Little Fuzhou, can be expensive.  But there is a lot of less costly and good food to be found there too.

The Chinese Stomach Changing The Face of High End Los Angeles Shopping Malls

Among the communities in the Los Angeles area where one would not expect to find authentic Chinese food are Glendale, Costa Mesa, Century City and Culver City.  This is because of the relatively sparse numbers of Chinese residents in the immediate area that would appreciate more authentic Chinese food.  Yet, within the next few months, all of these communities will have purveyors of authentic Chinese food, and all within the confines of the regional shopping mall in these areas, a far cry from the days when we went to the mall for an Orange Julius.

In my recent Menuism article, I discussed the phenomenon referred to as the Chinese stomach.  The Chinese stomach describes the situation where Chinese tourists traveling abroad will seek out local sources of Chinese food, even bad Chinese food, rather than eating the cuisine of the host country.  The Chinese stomach is something that has always existed and you can read that article for the possible reasons.

http://www.menuism.com/blog/the-chinese-stomach/

But what has changed in recent months is the surge of upscale Chinese tourists visiting the shopping malls of Los Angeles.  At the fanciest area shopping malls, such as South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Chinese tourists have become so conspicuous that every upscale designer store has one or more Chinese speaking staff to serve these tourists.  And as the Los Angeles Times reported last year, these Chinese tourists were vociferous about the lack of Chinese dining options in the mall.  In order to placate their Chinese clientele, South Coast Plaza sought to establish an authentic Chinese restaurant in their mall, and came up with a real prize, Din Tai Fung, the Taiwanese based chain best known for its xioalongbao, sometimes known as soup dumplings.  Din Tai Fung only has three American locations, two in Arcadia, CA within yards of each other, and the third in Seattle.  Chinese Americans in the San Francisco Bay area and in New York City have been clamoring for their own branch of Din Tai Fung.  But the next Din Tai Fung is coming to South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa.

Mere days after the announcement of Din Tai Fung's upcoming branch in Costa Mesa came the announcement of  another Din Tai Fung--in the ritzy Americana Shopping Mall in Glendale.  By ordinary standards this announcement was stunning.  While there were no authentic Chinese restaurants in Costa Mesa, reflecting the demographics of the immediate area, there is a large Chinese population in nearby Orange County communities.  But there is no Chinese community anywhere near Glendale, and the only authentic Chinese restaurant that dared to open up in Glendale, Chang Woo BBQ, shut down years ago.   But the Chinese stomach explains it all.  Strangely, however, the Glehdale Din Tai Fung apparently will only serve xiaolongbao on weekends.

Not to be outdone, the Century City Shopping Mall has lined up Meizhou Dongpo to open up in the next few weeks.  Meizhou Dongpo is a Chinese restaurant chain based in Beijing, and their Century City mall branch will be their first American location.  Since Meizhou Dongpo specializes in the spicy food of Sichuan province, it will be interesting to see how their menu will or will not be altered.  And props should be given to the Fox Hills Mall in Culver City, hardly in the same upscale category as South Coast Plaza, the Americana or Century City mall, which two years ago had the foresight to open up a branch of San Gabriel Valley's 101 Noodle Express on their premises, despite the lack of any critical mass of Chinese constituents in the area.

And the Chinese stomach is marching beyond the regional shopping mall.  Universal Studios in Universal City has added Chinese selections to the menus at many of their restaurants.  Like the regional malls, Universal Studios wants to make sure that their Chinese tourists don't leave the premises in search of a Chinese meal, and not to return.  And a nondescript Chinese restaurant in Los Feliz has a separate Chinese menu for Chinese tourists visiting nearby Griffith Park.

A Day In Manhattan and Flushing

Despite being on the plane for 10 hours coming back from New York to Los Angeles (five hours on the runway, five hours in the air) my 24 hour side trip to New York after our annual training in the Washington D.C. area was a clear success.  Of course, anytime a trip starts in D.C. it starts off slowly since there's not much doing foodwise here.  I was looking forward to trying Golden King in Sterling, since this is the first authentic Chinese restaurant I've identified anywhere near Dulles Airport.  Indeed, from the time I got off the plane, it was less than an hour for me to get my baggage, my rental car, and find my way to the restaurant.  It was surprising that this wasn't a new style Hong Kong restaurant like Hong Kong Pearl, X O Taste and the other places that have opened up in Northern Virginia.  The Cantonese steak in the sweet sauce was just like the dish we had at our Chinese meal in Amsterdam and more reminiscent of what was served in 20th century Hong Kong style restaurants, as was the tofu fish casserole.

Once again our training was held at the massive Gaylord resort at National Harbor in now what is described as Fort Washington, MD.  As usual, while some of the food served at the meeting at the Gaylor was inventive, the execution was so-so.  One exception was a green lentil salad that was extremely tasty.   The food highlight of my stay in National Harbor was my snack at the afternoon break.  National Harbor is still almost like the Twilight Zone--fancy restaurants and designer shops, almost no ordinary retail activity like you'd find in a community occupied by real people, except for a drug store and Potomac Gourmet Market.   There was still hardly anybody ever on the streets or in the shops, though a few more than were visible on my first visit to National Harbor three years ago.  However this time I did find a couple of fast food restaurants this time, including ChiDogO's, a Chicago style hot dog place.  I ordered the Italian beef sandwich, which I strangely realized is something I had never eaten before, since there are few Chicago style eateries in Los Angeles.  I would best describe it as Phillippe's French dip without the dip, though it was quite moist. 

After the meeting ended I flew to LaGuardia airport and was picked up by the Sheraton La Guardian shuttle van.  The Sheraton LaGuardia is one of my favorite hotels because they offer van service, plus it's located in the middle of Flushing Chinatown.  Staying only a few minutes after checking into the hotel, I quickly made my way to the Chinese bus lineup on 41st Ave.  Since the bus line includes buses to the Chinatowns of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Elmhurst, and are not marked in English, I had to be careful to make sure I picked the right bus to Manhattan.  (The passengers are all working class Chinese  who speak little or no English so I couldn't ask them.)  I wasn't positive I was on the right bus until we were well along on the freeway.  As I got off the bus on Division St. in Chinatown, my first target was Cafe Hong Kong, the reincarnation of the restaurants formerly known as New Pearl River, Cantoon Garden, and South China Garden, and now known as Cafe Hong Kong. My goal was specifically to try their pineapple chicken, which made South China Garden the only restaurant in Manhttan that met with Mrs. Chandavkl's approval.  We would go to eat that dish and our other favorites up to three times each time we visited Manhattan.  (I once had to stop her from going there a fourth time.)  At the restaurant, I found they did not have pineapple chicken on their streamlined menu, but since they did have pineappple beef there was no problem ordering that dish.  I got there in time to order a lunch special portion, which was fine with me as it left more space to try other places.  They must know how well regarded their food is, as the regular price for the dish is $14!  To me it tasted the same as old, so Mrs. Chandavkl will be happy to learn that

My next stop was Red Farm in West Village  Red Farm is a spinoff of Chinatown Brasserie, the SoHo restaurant which was probably the best Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, but which strangely closed down last year.  However, where Chinese Brasserie was a full sized restaurant, Red Farm is a small restaurant inside what was probably once somebody's house, and which has a capacity of 42 diners and takes no reservations.  Red Farm was just two subway stops on the orange line from the Grand St. station in Chinatown, plus a walk of a few blocks, so I decided I would go to Red Farm right at their 5 pm opening.    While I had mapped out the walk from the 4th Ave. subway station, the problem as an out of towner is that when you come out of a subway station it's hard to figure which direction is which.  I did eventually figure out the general direction to Red Farm, but after two blocks I saw that the street had been blocked off by the police.   Initially it was a puzzle what was going on until I saw a rainbow banner on a building called Stonewall.  At that time I realized there was going to be a celebration there to mark that day's Supreme Court decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act.    There were so many TV transmission trucks there and on scene reporters.  I might have gotten on TV a couple times, as I walked behind reporters who were seemingly doing live reports.  It was really an unexpected bonus to be in the middle of history in the making.

Being well regarded even by people who appreciate authentic Chinese food, Red Farm was also rather expensive, with entrees starting at $25 and going higher.  Consequently I figured the best way to get a feel for their food was to order a bunch of appetizers.  I ordered the smoked cucumber salad, the salmon bruschetta, the steak tarts and the chicken dumplings.  Everything was great except the cucumbers, which were pretty ordinary.  I could not imagine that chicken dumplings could taste so good.  Appetizers came to about $40, so I wouldn't go back as the value isn't there.  (I had the same assessment of Chinatown Brasserie, which while the best Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, was exceeded by many Los Angeles area Chinese restaurants.)   But no question that Red Farm does deserve its high rating among the Chinese restaurants of Manhattan. 

While extremely pleased with my visits to Cafe Hong Kong and Red Farm, I was still a little hungry since I had a smaller lunch portion at Cafe Hong Kong and the Red Farm appetizers were quite small eats.  I took the subway back to Chinatown to try another new restaurant, Division 31 (located at 31 Division St.), where I ordered the Westlake beef soup, which was very flavorful.  I then hopped on the bus back to Flushing.  This time the bus was easy to identify because it was rush hour and there was a queue of people waiting, making the experience even more like lining up for the Disneyland parking lot bus.

Taking the bus back to Flushing I then headed to Oceanica, a new restaurant that succeeded Gala Manor and then New East Cuisine on 37th Ave.  The restaurant is located in a humongous second floor restaurant space off of Main St. and strangely has a Main Street address even though Main St. is a half block away.  Their main attraction was their $25 dinner buffet ($28 on weekends), featuring crab legs, lobster claws, and a whole variety of seafood choices.   But obviously that would be a little too much for me to eat at  that time.  So I ordered the fried tofu, which was actually one of the better versions I've had of that dish. 

In the morning I stopped by Good Kitchen, directly across the street from Oceanica, for dim sum. While New York is not known for keeping up with Chinese food trends, Good Kitchen did have some modern dim sum items, such as durian rolls, Mexican buns and honeydew puffs.  I had the green pea cake, which was kind of like almond jello embedded with green peas, the chicken rice noodle roll, not cheung fun, but more like a rice noodle burrito and the bbq pork buns.  The last item was so so, while the others were both interesting and very good.  I think this shows progress in Flushing's dim sum, which has been fairly ordinary, though not surprising given the lack of much Cantonese presence in Flushing.

For lunch, I had the hotpot at Little Pepper, which was the best known Flushing restaurant that I had yet to try.  I chose glass noodles, fish dumplings, bean curd skin, and snow pea leaves as my ingredients, and this was probably the best hot pot I've had in the US.  However it wasn't worth the $25 tab, and interestingly I was the only customer in the restaurant the entire time.  Of course people tend not to eat hot pots when it's almost 90 degrees outside.  (Actually it was 90 when I went into the restaurant, but by the time I finished the temperature had dropped 20 degrees and it started to rain.)  .  I also bought food for the plane trip home including giant beef bing from Feng Mao on Main St., onion pancakes from OK Ryan (a branch of Canaan Restaurant in Cerritos) on College Point, and a large tub of marinated tofu from Homers Taste, right next to OK Ryan.  I discovered Homers Taste and their marinated tofu on my last trip to Flushing.  It's the best I've ever eaten, with a smooth consistency like egg whites.  Interestingly both Homers Taste and OK Ryan do a massive trade in box lunches.  At OK Ryan I watched five young women furiously pack dozens of styrofoam containers full of Taiwanese food.

This capped a nice visit to Flushing, where I was able to update myself on most every block in the main downtown Flushing area, including the giant New World Mall food court.  While the food court has had significant turnover in tenants since last year, it is packed to the gills, not just at lunch, but even right before their 10 pm closing.  It also made me realize that Flushing is probably the most vibrant urban Chinatown in North America, ahead of San Francisco, Manhattan, Vancouver, Toronto, and of course, Los Angeles.  However since the food is weighted so heavily towards Taiwanese and "mainland" food, food court stalls and small restaurants, it's more specialty food rather than general interest food.

Two Weeks In Europe and Nothing To Eat

Well actually there was food to eat, it's just that it wasn't very good, such that I actually LOST two pounds on the trip.  We're back from our two week Baltic Cruise, and there were few food highlights and many disappointments, though the trip as a whole was so enjoyable that this was merely a minor inconvenience.  This cruise from Amsterdam to St. Petersburg, Russia and back was our first cruise on the Celebrity line, and since we had thoroughly enjoyed the cruise dining on the Princess and Carnival Lines, we were looking forward even more to our trip on the premium, 4½ star Celebrity Constellation.  Furthermore our friends who took this cruise with us had taken the Celebrity Mediterranean cruise 18 months previously and had been very pleased with all aspects of that cruise, including the food.

We were so anxious to begin our culinary adventure that as soon as we checked onto the boat we headed to the lunch buffet, not even stopping to visit our room or drop off our carry on baggage.  However, shortly into our first meal it became clear that something might be amiss.  After finishing the first plate I discovered that there really wasn't anything I wanted to go back for seconds for.  Well maybe it was just the items that happened to be part of this first meal.  But as the cruise continued, neither the food in the San Marco dining room, nor the food in the buffet came close to matching our two Carnival cruises from 2012.  Where last year I sent live food reports back home as I ate, this year I didn't. And as they kept on serving the same old dishes in the buffet (the "Asian" section was invariable except for the final day), it became more and more annoying.  Here I was thinking I would need to run two miles a day in the gym to make up for all the extra food I would be eating, only to find that I wasn't eating any extra.

It wasn't long before we started comparing notes with our friends who had taken the Celebrity Mediterranean cruise and others in our tour group.  There was clearly a consensus.  The food on this trip wasn't very good and certainly didn't match up with prior Celebrity cruises.  But what would cause such a deterioration in the food?  Low quality ingredients?  An executive chef (the only female executive chef in the fleet) who couldn't handle the job?  That was the real puzzle.  The food was so bad we heard other passengers complaining as they rode the elevator.

Of course the problem is that feedback like ours seldom gets back to management.  When the maitre d' came around to the tables with the chef, everybody said that food was fine, since nobody wanted to insult the chef to his face, particularly if the problem was something out of his control.  However, a week into the cruise in St. Petersburg, most everybody decided to attend the Russian ballet, but being tired plus not being highbrow when it comes to the arts, we decided to return to the ship for the dinner.  Since we were the only one from our group at the dinner seating, the waiter had lots of spare time and asked us about the food.  Under those circumstances we could afford to be blunt, and we were.  Immediately he ran to the maitre d' to convey what he had learned, and soon the maitre d' was staring down at us at our table.  At first he was defensive, questioning whether our Asian taste buds were different from the rest of the clientele.  But we retorted we were from California and used to eating Western food.  I delivered the ultimate insult when I told him Carnival's food was better, as he did not consider Celebrity and Carnival to even operating in the same market.   Eventually we convinced him of the validity of our criticisms and he was appreciative hearing what the other guests wouldn't tell him.  The next evening he went to the other tour group members and they also made comments similar to ours.  The maitre d' tried to make it up to us by giving our tables special extra dishes, including stir fried vegetables (tasted like chop suey), fried rice, and steamed vegetables.   He also kept asking what he could do to improve things, but food quality is something you can't fix in the middle of a cruise.

It wasn't that the Celebrity dining room food was uniformly bad (as opposed to the buffet, which was, except strangely for the last day of the cruise).  However there was tremendous inconsistency, both within servings of the same dish on the same day, and similar items on different days.  My lobster tail was great but Mrs. Chandavkl's was overcooked.  Monday's tuna was delicious by Thursday's was awful.  And when you're paying  premium to sail on Celebrity, such lapses in quality just are not acceptable.