Midtown Lunch

Today is the Chinese New Year. (It also happens to be one year since I visited and ate my way around China!) We planned a dinner tonight for 10 hungry friends in Chinatown; I picked out a menu of scallops, eel, shrimp, whole fish, eggplant, string beans, lamb,  and clams.

Chinatown isn’t the easiest to navigate (hence why I run my Chinatown food tours!), so I’d like to help.

Here are some suggestions for where you can celebrate tonight (and don’t forget to BYO, it is New Year’s after all)

• Spice C– for shaved noodles
• TT Skewer – if you are dining solo or with one other person
• I-Green– if you want frozen yogurt after your soup dumplings
• Xi’an Sizzling Woks- for a different style of Chinese food
• Tasty Place– if you want an authentic environment and to buy groceries after dinner
• and of course, there are always the usual stand bys Nan Zhou, Sang Kee, Sakura Mandarin, and Dim Sum Garden

Where are you eating tonight? Check my Instagram to find out where I picked!

a menu in China

slurping soup in an alley in China

An adorable dumpling on your signage is the easiest way to attract me to a restaurant. That is how Shanghai 1 got me, a newcomer to Chinatown. Offering both Shanghai and Taiwanese food, the latter is more exciting since it is less available in the area. The Shanghai menu was obviously not going to be overlooked however, because: soup dumplings always.

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A pre New Year round up of my favorites bites is a fun excuse to look back on each year of dining. It is also incentive to get down and hold the plank position until the ball drops.  Here are my 2014 eating highlights:

During my first overseas trip of the  year, I ate my way through Beijing, Xi’an, and Shanghai!

Soon after, I started giving Chinatown Food Tours! (if you still owe someone a belated Holiday gift, its not a bad idea!)

I wrote a few fun articles for Zagat, including one on shopping at “ethnic” markets.

On an outing to Graffiti Pier in Port Richmond, I put together a Polish picnic that you can replicate.

For my birthday, we celebrated with beer and a Puerto Rican Pork feast.

I coordinated a food truck festival for 15,000 people in Mt. Airy.

On a solo vacation in Mexico City, I ate a ton of street meat.

I was really proud of my Federal Donuts costume this Halloween.

Way more, after the jump…

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Recently, Yummy Lan Zhou on 10th street rebranded to Spice C, a bit hipper and also  less similar in name to the nearby famous Nan Zhou. This rebranding comes with soups that you can order at the “flirting” hot level as well as tshirts (the uniform and available for purchase)  that say “love is getting fat together, so lets eat more.”

The menu is largely similar, with some new dishes. More are on the way in the upcoming weeks along with a remodeling of the interior.

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Back in February, I spent time filling my stomach with street skewers from different parts of China.  Its an experience that we haven’t really replicated here in Philly. City government wouldn’t exactly allow nightly open markets of food prepared on outdoor equipment with questionable sanitation levels. Newcomer, TT Skewers, is trying to bring at least a snippet of that to Philly.

Located on 9th Street in a teeny tiny space with only counters for sitting, TT Skewers is run by a very friendly couple from Northern China, the Liaoning province to be precise.

The menu has skewers and hotpot. Use a pen to check off what you want your meal to look like.

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When Foobooz recently reported that  a Singaporean restaurant was opening, I was exited to try a cuisine that was new to me- Singapore noodles definitely don’t count. When I stopped by and checked out the menu, I found the food would be more familiar than I realized. The menu was very similar to the menus at nearby Banana Leaf and Penang. Which makes sense since they share an international maritime border.

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I wasn’t thrilled by my visit to Red Kings a few years ago; the spice wasn’t balanced and sauces were gloppy. But I had heard enough good things about Red Kings 2 to warrant a trip.  According to Menupages the menus at both places are identical, go figure.

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