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Congee Village’s Peking Style Pork Chops

I love Congee Village. This Chinese restaurant in the Lower East Side is awesome: good prices and great food, and I enjoy the random atmosphere. Last week I was here I heard people singing karaoke ridiculously loud from the lower level rooms and watched the hostess running around to turn the volume down while screaming to herself, “So loud!!!”

Anyway, my favorite thing to get here is the Peking Style Pork Chops. These pork chops are so savory and delicious. As you can tell from the picture, Congee Village gives you an awesome abundance of pork… up until you finish it all. Some parts crunchy, some kinda chewy- pork chops are simply fun to eat. Man, I love pork.

You also obviously need to get the congee (also known as porridge). My favorite kind to get is the Sliced Pork and Thousand-Year Egg Congee, I believe the price is around 3 dollars… an amazing deal. The Beef Chow Mein and Jumbo Shrimp are also excellent. Not that I was expecting them to be amazing here, the xiao long baos at Congee Village are pretty mediocre, as I recall they were dry and only offered in pork. While I do love pork, I much prefer the pork and crabmeat mixture. For much better soup dumplings I recommend going to Joe’s Shanghai or Nan Xiang Dumpling House which I wrote about a little while ago.

This is a good place to eat and drink. The price seems perfect with four or more people… maybe it’s simply because Gao Di and I can’t help ourselves when we’re on our own and just happen to order the same amount of food as we would with a larger group of people.

Congee Village is located on 100 Allen St between Delancey and Broome.

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Wonton Garden

What better way is there to usher in the new year than eating and writing about it. Hello 2010!

I simply cannot stop eating asian food these days. New Wonton Garden is an awesome spot at 56 Mott St between Canal and Bayard. I want to say that the service is terrible, but it’s not, it’s more like the servers are just rude. Either way, I’ve never had a bad experience there, I don’t take it personally, but I can see how someone would be offended by the general attitude of the servers. They yell at you, but I don’t think they mean any harm by it… or maybe they do. Moving on…

My current favorite thing to get here is B9 – Beef Stew & Wontons in Noodle Soup. Alexa and Gao Di are in love with C18, which is basically the same thing except with the beef stew, wontons and noodles served on a plate with the soup on the side for dipping.

B9 is delicious. The stewed beef is tender and savory. The wontons are also  good, although my father says the wontons were much better when he was younger, and the combination of beef stew and wonton make for an incredibly fulfilling meal. Can we take a moment to revel in the generous portion of beef and wontons provided in the meal? Overall Wonton Garden is pretty heavy on the MSG and hours later I had that awkward MSG feeling left in my mouth- amazing while eating but irritating later. Anyway, my big bowl of noodles was $6.50 well spent.

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Joe’s Shanghai vs. Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao

For those of you that don’t know what a xiao long bao is, it is a soup dumpling. Xiao long bao is roughly translated as ‘little dragon bun’ and is one of my favorite foods since childhood. A gelatin filling melts into soup as the dumpling is steamed in a bamboo basket on a bed of cabbage. My favorite type has crab meat and pork.

Context: Ian found a soup dumpling he claims is better than the ones found at Joe’s Shanghai. We made our way out to Flushing on Sunday afternoon and put the two to a taste test.

We first went to Joe’s Shanghai on 37th avenue to reacquaint ourselves with taste. We needed a point of reference. We are also glutinous people and love eating.

First off, my opinion is skewed because my heart yearns for Joe’s crab meat and pork xiao long baos- they were the first I’d ever had in my life. There are a lot of dissenters who claim Joe’s Shanghai is overrated and they may very well be right, but I think they are THE SHIT. The skin is thick and the soup and meat are super tasty. I’ve had some mixed experiences at the Chinatown location on Pell Street. The restaurant is a busy place and they’ve learned to prepare batches and batches of dumplings ahead of time to meet demands- so in turn, I’ve always had fast service but some unimpressive and dry dumplings, but my nostalgia always kicks in and I never leave unhappy.

That being said, Joe’s Shanghai fulfilled my hopes today and definitely set the tone for some tough competition.

Unable to keep this a controlled test (as previously mentioned, I already ate a pork and vegetable bun before getting to the restaurant), we had some salty, delicious string-beans. Yum.

That about wraps up Joe’s for now. On to Nan Xiang. After some wrong turns, we eventually found ourselves under a red awning waiting for a seat at Ian’s newfound favorite soup dumpling joint.

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A Picture Prelude to a Flushing Taste Test

My friend Ian claimed to have found a xiao long bao spot in Flushing that rivals my childhood favorite, Joe’s Shanghai. Ian promised a juicier xiao long bao. We set out to put the two to the test.

Sitting on the floor of the express shuttle to Flushing from Manhattan’s Chinatown. 20 minutes to destination! A bargain ($2.50 each way) versus the hour long commute using the 7 train.

Already starving. Had to pick up a pork and vegetable bun. Mmmm.

Enjoying some warm soy milk on the way to the meeting point.

Success! Ready for the Xiao long SHOW DOWN – first stop. Joe’s Shanghai.