We were loose in NYC without much of a plan this time. One day we stumbled out of our pals’ downtown apartment for lunch, took a taxi to Chinatown without an actual destination, and tried the first Chinese noodle place we saw.
Happily for us, Noodle Village was awesome. I was unfortunately hungover — damn this encroaching middle age — so I got a bowl of congee with black preserved egg and pork. This pork was richer and fattier than what we get at Vinh Sun, and it was really good, just what I wanted. Tallasiandude got his usual too, a bowl of thin egg noodles in soup with shrimp-filled dumplings. These were huge and particularly good dumplings, with fresh shrimp and good flavorings.
The xiao long bao were a bit of a disappointment, doubly a blow given the recent demise of Wing’s Kitchen; we still have no quality source on the east coast. They were a bit thick and chewy, and the filling was too sweet. Not terrible, but not good either. The jiao zi, on the other hand, were top notch, filled with lots of garlic chive and pork, and fried supercrunchy just the way I like ’em.