Chinatown Cheap Eats Vol. 22: Exploring New & Viral Food Spots

New Flavors in Chinatown

• 🇯🇵 Senbe NYC introduces viral Japanese press crackers, featuring a crispy cracker made from seafood batter, with options like shrimp and octopus, brushed with a slightly spicy teriyaki-like sauce. They also offer a jam-packed seafood chowder.
• 💡 The press cooking method makes the seafood batter crispy while the inside remains chewy, likened to jerky.
• 🍵 High-quality matcha lattes, including strawberry and ube flavors with house-made jam, are also available.

Authentic Vietnamese Baguettes & Dumplings

• 🇻🇳 Bunme opens a new stall focusing on authentic Vietnamese baguettes, crispy on the outside and airy on the inside.
• 🐔 The chicken banh mi with pate and mayo is highlighted as potentially the best in Chinatown, featuring fresh pickled vegetables.
• 🥟 Maxis Noodle 3, a new city location from Flushing, is celebrated for its large, high-quality wontons and dumplings, with a beef brisket noodle soup also being a popular choice.
• 🥢 The dumpling is preferred over the shrimp wonton for its deeper flavor profile, containing wood ear mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and pork.

Diverse Snacks and Fusion Foods

• 🌭 Chinatown Snacks offers a variety of nostalgic and fusion items, including rice noodles with fish balls, 100% beef hot dogs with pickle condiments, Japanese-inspired egg salad sandwiches, and Spam musubi.
• 🍙 Their Spam musubi uses sushi rice and a secret sauce, bringing a taste of Hawaii to the neighborhood.
• 🌶️ Faulk Noodle Express provides affordable options like $5 salmon dumplings, curry fish balls, and Taiwanese beef noodle soup, with a focus on consistent quality.
• 🍜 The Taiwanese beef noodle soup is praised for its tender beef shank and flavorful broth, making it a potential new Chinatown gem.

Evolving M Street & Grand Street

• 🇨🇳 M Street Eater features new stalls like Authentic Shian Flavors, offering Bang Bang noodles with a rich, flavorful sauce and wide noodles.
• 🇲🇾 A Malaysian beef jerky spot, newly relocated to M Street, grills its jerky fresh, offering spicy chicken and beef options.
• 🥟 Wong Sun Hing Lung on Grand Street, a retail extension of a Henry Street spot, offers fresh rice rolls (cheung fun) and curry fish balls.
• 🇯🇵 Bam Mart, a Japanese convenience store on Grand Street, stocks a wide array of Japanese snacks, ice cream, and collectibles like Smiskis.
• 🍣 Go Sushi, also new to Grand Street, offers a lunch special with three rolls for $18, featuring options like blue crab, spicy tuna crunch, and unagi avocado.

Bakery Delights and Unique Finds

• 🥐 Paris Baguette on Grand Street offers a range of pastries, with the blueberry cream puff highlighted as a standout sweet option.
• 🍜 Yun Chang Mishen on Grand Street provides a $13 deal for Guaian crossing the bridge noodles with unlimited refills, available 24 hours.
• 🐔 The story of Beggar's Chicken is shared, a dish traditionally baked in a mud crust, known for its moist and flavorful meat.