Midtown Lunch

High above the other awnings, the Four Rivers sign proudly looks down upon Race St, signaling its greatness to all those who look up. Four Rivers is legitimate Szechuan food. For dinner, I have enjoyed their extensive menu of soups, various pork preparations (do yourself a favor and order the house sweet ham),  seafood (including the beautiful things they do with squid), and so much more, ranging from mild to fiery. But I hadn’t yet visited for lunch.  The menu is a lot smaller during lunch and a lot of the fun stuff isn’t on there, but there are enough to please most lunchers. The pork in black bean sauce and double sauteed pork sounded good to me, but I have been thinking about the lack of super spicy lunches, and decided to test the fires of the Four Rivers mapo tofu (called ma bao on their menu)- spicy Szechuan tofu.

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I have passed by Hong Bo Buffet countless times, always noting it as a place I should probably try, but never going in because I was always on my way to eat somewhere else. Not for the faint of heart, Hong Bo is a Chinese steam table. The kind where you point to the food items you want and they get piled on a big styrofoam plate for you. $6 lets you point 4 times.

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I have passed by Heung Fa Chun Sweet House countless times and decided it was time to stop in.  They have a small menu of little snacks, many of which are desserts. The very first item on the menu is sweet do-fu dessert.  That seemed harmless enough. And for $1.25, I had to grab one.

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It was the thought of a pork lunch special that brought me to Chung King Garden. The extensive menu is trimmed down for lunch time, but even their lunch special menu has tons of options, all for $6 or $7 dollars.  Chung King Garden is one of the bigger restaurants in Chinatown and the service is fast, so you will likely be able to get seated and get served quickly. Expect Szechuan fare, though the last few pages of the menu are devoted to “American Chinese food”. If you are reading this site, you are probably somebody who knows to stay away from that section.

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For the end of Passover, I had noodles on the brain. It seemed about time to finally check out Nan Zhou- Chinatown’s destination for hand-pulled noodle soup (recommended by Profiled Lunchers Earl and Ashley). Besides a few appetizers (think pig ears and tendon) the menu is all soup. So you better believe they know what they are doing. The soups are as follows: broth with wonton or beef/fish/meat balls, shaved noodles, or hand drawn noodles. Heat wave be damned, I decided on the beef rib soup with the hand drawn noodles, listed as “Braise Ox Spare Ribs Noodle Soup.” This set me back $5.75 plus I threw in a fried egg for an extra dollar.

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Empress Garden certainly doesn’t stand out from any other Chinatown joints based on looks. Though the signage indicates Mandarin and Szechuan style food, they also serve Taiwanese dishes, making Empress Garden more unique. The crowded menu shows off countless preparations for pork, beef, seafood, chicken, and noodles. A good part of the menu is written in Mandarin and includes items that are not offered on the English menu. A Chowhound poster graciously provided some translations. My waitress was very helpful at confirming I was ordering the dishes that I had in mind.  Most entrees are 5- 8 bucks and make a nice sized and cheap lunch; lunch specials are available during the week that come with rice and soup. I tried a lunch special along with some irresistible items off the regular menu.

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While loving my lunch at Sakura earlier this week, I made a little video of my method of eating xiao long bao. Check it out after the jump…

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