Food Tours · Tour

Jianbing, Roujiamo and Salty Chicken, Forty Minutes Out on the 7

Visitors go to Manhattan's Chinatown. New Yorkers who want Chinese food go to Flushing, which overtook it years ago and is now the largest Chinese neighbourhood in the city, with more than three hundred thousand Chinese residents and Korean, Taiwanese and Vietnamese communities layered alongside. It is forty minutes from midtown on the 7 train, and almost nobody on a short trip makes it out there. Two hours on foot with a local guide, meeting inside the Starbucks on Main Street opposite St. George's Church. Six things to eat, and each one comes from a different part of China rather than from a single regional kitchen: Jianbing guozi, the northern breakfast crepe, spread with egg on a hot plate, painted with sauce and folded around a sheet of fried cracker. Roujiamo, from Shaanxi, chopped braised pork packed into a flatbelly bun and often called the oldest sandwich in the world. Cheung fun, the Cantonese rice roll, steamed in thin sheets and cut with soy. Taiwanese salty fried chicken, dusted with white pepper and basil fried alongside it. Handmade jiaozi. And a bottle of water, which after the fried chicken you will want. The guide explains where each dish comes from and why it is here, which in Flushing is a map of who arrived from where. The walk covers the market streets and the alleys between them, then returns to the Roosevelt Avenue station for the ride back. Up to fifteen travellers per booking, and larger groups can book consecutive slots. Departures at noon and at 5pm. Guided in English or Mandarin.