Beyond Dim Sum: Tempting Chinese Breakfast Treats in Flushing
Jan 31 '02 (Updated Feb 02 '02)
The Bottom Line Skip the dim sum and sample a different kind of Chinese breakfast. Explore one of New York's fastest growing ethnic neighborhoods while you are at it. Vibrant food and community.
Last September I had the pleasure of spending an unforgettable week in Shanghai. What a feast for the senses that was! Everything from the lyrical architecture of Old Shanghai to the breezy morning air along the Bund to the earnest cries of street vendors on Huai Hai Lu delighted me. At 6 a.m., Shanghai is already bustling with activity. In parks across the city, people have gathered to do tai chi and practice ballroom dancing. Traffic, while not quite congested, has reached a respectable hum. And steamy hot Chinese-style breakfasts are being served in fast-food joints on every street. Though our stay was brief, we still managed to become quasi-regulars at a breakfast/lunch chain called Yong He Doh Jiang. Each morning I looked forward to a bowl of sweet soybean milk and a plate of crispy fried crullers. I’m sure Yong He is nothing special to the locals - in fact the restaurant’s logo looks like a cheesy rip-off of KFC’s Colonel Sanders, but I loved it because there aren’t many places in Manhattan where you can find such a variety of Chinese breakfast treats. Most of my friends automatically think dim sum whenever I suggest going to a Chinese restaurant for breakfast or brunch, but as anyone who has traveled through China will tell you, the breakfast items popular in each region of China differ greatly. For the type of breakfast food that we had in Shanghai, Mr. Epicure and I have discovered a wonderful little hole-in-wall place in Flushing called Jia Xiang Lo Restaurant.
Just a side note on Flushing: Many people think of Chinatown as the center of the Chinese community in New York, but in recent years significant Chinese communities have developed in other boroughs outside Manhattan. Flushing, Queens is my Chinese dining/shopping destination of choice. I suppose nostalgia has something to do with it. The restaurants in Flushing remind me most of the Chinese restaurants that I encountered while growing up in Southern California. Flushing is also known for having flourishing Korean and Asian Indian communities. It’s really a shame that with all the excellent Asian cuisine in Flushing, only four restaurants appear in the epinions database.
Jia Xiang Lo is conveniently located one block from the Main Street subway station in Flushing. When you first exit the station at Main and Roosevelt, it can be a little disorienting. Flushing has become a popular destination spot for many Asians living in the New York area, so the car traffic and pedestrian traffic are horrendous, but don’t allow these factors to dissuade you. You’ll be glad you made the extra effort once you taste the satisfying home cooking at Jia Xiang Lo.
In a long, rectangular space, humbly furnished with plain white tables and not much else, Jia Xiang Lo serves some of the best Chinese breakfast dishes in the New York area. Mr. Epicure and I usually start with a bowl of Sweet Soybean Milk ($0.80), which is just a tad denser than cow’s milk, and really not sweet at all until you add three brimming tablespoons of sugar. I suppose it’s called sweet soybean milk because most people have made a habit of adding sugar on their own, and it is in contrast to the Salty Soybean Milk ($1.35), which truly is salty. Though the basis for salty soybean milk is the same as for sweet soybean milk, rather than being served plain, soy sauce, scallions and bits of fried cruller are added to the milk. While the sweet soybean milk can be treated as a beverage, the salty soybean milk is more like a soup.
Other than the soybean milk, Deep Fried Crullers ($0.80) and Sesame Cakes ($0.80) are common staples of a Chinese breakfast. If not done well, the crullers can be sad and soggy, weighed down by excessive amounts of oil, and the sesame cakes a bland form of pita bread. Lucky for all of us that Jiang Xiang Lo rises above the mediocrity. Its crullers are long, crunchy lengths of airy perfection, and its sesame cakes are multi-layered and pillow-soft within. Some people enjoy sandwiching folded crullers within the sesame cakes. For me, that’s a bit of a starch overload. I prefer to dip segments of the cruller in my bowl of soybean milk.
One of the most popular dishes at the restaurant is the Radish Sou Bing ($1.75). They disappear like hot cakes on weekends. By the time we show up (usually around 11 a.m. because it takes 45 minutes to get to Flushing from Manhattan), the restaurant is always cleaned out of their supply of homemade sou bing, the radish as well as the taro. Then last month, we had the occasion to pass through Flushing on a weekday, and we stopped by Jia Xiang Lo for lunch. To our delighted surprise, they actually had some sou bing left, so we finally tried them for the first time. They were delicious, but a little salty for my taste. Basically, they are circular, flaky pastries filled with peppery shreds of radish and pork and bits of dried shrimp. The pastry was perfect - each layer almost transparently thin and delicate to the touch. Now if only they could reduce the amount of salt added to the filling.
My two undisputed favorites at the restaurant are the Fried Buns with Leeks, Chives and Eggs ($1.50) and the Scallion Pancake ($2.50). I must start off by telling you that I am a leeks fiend. Anything with leeks has me swooning. I just adore the distinctive aroma that they add to any dish. You could almost say it’s overpowering, which is why not many flavors can compete with it. The fried buns are finger-sandwich-size crimped pockets filled with leeks, chives, eggs, dried shrimp and dainty rice noodles. They are unbelievably tasty! Jia Xiang Lo’s scallion pancakes are also some of the best that I’ve ever had. The pancakes arrive in two neat little triangular stacks. Each piece is so thin that it’s hard to count exactly how many there are, but as you savor the chewy, doughy pancakes accented by bursts of scallion flavor, you just hope the stack will never run out. Unlike many other scallion pancakes, the exterior texture feels almost powdery like flour rather than greasy. Like I said, these really are the scallion pancakes by which to compare all others.
Then there are variations on the above-mentioned dishes. For more carnivorous appetites, you can order the Scallion Pancake rolled with Beef ($2.75). Each pancake is spread with a tangy plum sauce and layered with thin slices of beef before being rolled into a roulade. You might also try the Beef with Sesame Cake ($2.50), which consists of the sesame pockets that I described above filled with cilantro and beef slices. Finally, my brother’s favorite - Pancake with Egg ($1.50), which is as simple as it sounds - a plain tortilla-type wrapper folded around scrambled eggs. If you were at Taco Bell, they’d probably call it a Breakfast Burrito. Oh, but they wouldn’t serve theirs with soy sauce.
I am a huge fan of dumplings. My favorite dim sum restaurants are those which have at least a dozen varieties of dumplings filled with ingredients like shrimp, scallops, crabmeat and lobster. But I would not recommend the dumplings at Jia Xiang Lo. The Vegetable Dumplings ($4.25) are deadly dull. They need to add some more vibrant vegetables to the mix like Chinese mushrooms or leeks. Last time I tried these dumplings, it tasted like all the life had been steamed out of the vegetables. The soup dumplings (they call them Steamed Meat Buns ($4.25)) are also disappointing - too little soup and the wrapper is thick and pasty.
The homemade noodle dishes are worth trying though. Thus far, we’ve had the Soup Noodles with Pickled Cabbage and Pork ($4.25), the Noodles with Meat Sauce ($4.25) and the Shredded Pork Lo Mein Shanghai Style ($4.50). Of the three, the Lo Mein Shanghai Style is the most predictable. Picture your typical chow mein dish but with thicker, chewier noodles, and there you have it. Not to downplay the importance of superior noodles though because that is why we would order this dish here, but not at any of the Chinese take-out joints in our neighborhood. However, you can sample the same noodles in any of the restaurant’s soup noodle dishes, like the pickled cabbage and pork soup noodles that we ordered. The Noodles in Meat Sauce is the most hearty dish with a chunky sauce filled with ground pork and beancurd cubes poured over the mound of plain noodles. Some of you might think it’s a bit odd to have beancurd in a meat sauce, but trust me, it works.
I would describe the service at Jia Xiang Lo as informal but efficient. There is no one server assigned to your table. You can flag down anyone and ask for a sharing plate or a glass of water. A server will drop by your table within minutes after you’ve been seated to take your order. They aren’t necessarily trying to rush you. I just get a sense that most of their customers are regulars who know what they want before they even sit down. If you ask for a few more minutes, your server will graciously depart with no attitude whatsoever. One other thing which might take some people by surprise. On busy mornings, the hostess may seat you with other parties at a large table unless you object. The restaurant is rather small, so they try to squeeze in as many customers as possible. Sharing a table may not be a bad thing on your first visit since it gives you a chance to see what everyone else is ordering. That technique definitely gave us an advantage on our recent trip to China.
After you’ve appeased your appetite, I recommend taking a stroll around the neighborhood. There are a multitude of inviting Chinese bakeries and boba cafes as well as music stores, bookstores and purveyors of specialty foods. Chinese New Years is less than two weeks away, so now is probably an especially festive time to visit Flushing. February 12 heralds the start of the Year of the Horse. If you plan on joining in the New Year’s celebration, I most definitely recommend taking public transportation, even if you have a car. Not only is parking difficult to find, but incidents of break-ins are somewhat widespread. Flushing would certainly be a fun but chaotic place to ring in the Lunar New Year.
Address: 135-25A 40 Road, Flushing, NY
Telephone: 718-886-8829
Breakfast hours: 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (Mon-Fri), 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (Sat, Sun)
**Please note: Jia Xiang Lo is a cash-only operation, and no reservations are accepted.
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Epinions.com ID:
Epicure
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 - Top 500 |
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Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 88
Trusted by: 100 members
About Me:
I generally avoid temptation....unless I can't resist it.
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