Chinatown

After visiting the French book store, I head downtown  to meet Bill and Michael in Chinatown.  Bill read about  one of the oldest authentic Chinese restaurants, Hop Lee at 16 Mott Street, which still offers lunch specials for $7.50. For this price, you get bean soup, a main dish with rice, and of course the mandatory fortune cookie and orange slices.  We pick our lunch specials and wait for a server to take our orders, and wait and wait and wait . At the large table next to ours gathers what looks like the entire restaurant staff in red jacketed uniforms, partaking in their own family style lunch. Clearly, we could not expect any service until after they finished their meal.   They eat rather quickly, and it pleases me to see how the staff connects over lunch.  Luckily, none of us feels desperate to eat so we sit chatting patiently. The server who finally arrives at our table apologizes. We place our orders: mine shrimp with scrambled eggs, Michael 's ma po tofu, and Bill's green beans with garlic.  The server returns with our orders in record time. I love my shrimp and scrambled eggs. I hardly ever get to eat shrimp so this is a special treat.

Daniel living vicariously through us from Paris, requests that we try Fong On,  at 81 Division Street, the oldest family run tofu shop in New York City. I suggest we go there for dessert. Not a lot of dessert options, but we decide on tofu pudding, which is served with three possible sweet syrups.  Surprisingly, the pudding consists simply of silken tofu served warm and a little soupy.  We pour our syrups over it. As Michael comments, we are glad we tried  tofu pudding, but maybe once is enough. Other toppings with more texture are available and  might change our opinion if we do try this dessert again. As you can see, we enjoyed our tofu pudding sitting outdoors as the amazing warm weather continues.

 

tofu pudding in Chinatown