Perfection and dumplings (Prosperity Dumpling 興旺鍋貼)

What constitutes a perfect dumpling? That's a hard question. One I'm clearly not smart enough to answer... but I'll try anyway. Know what I think? It's a tremendously stupid question. Ask 10 different people and you'll probably get 10 different responses (unless you're talking exclusively to food blogging assholes who've developed a formulaic answer based mostly on what #{insert prominent food person's name} says). If you ask someone from Southern China they'd probably tell you that thin, almost translucent, skins are dope as fuck. If you ask someone from Northern China they might say that thicker skins are where it's at. If you ask someone from Taiwan they'd probably tell you that elongated dumplings are the most phallic shape and therefore the best. Of course, then there's the issue of how to cook them... fried, steamed, or boiled? So many choices. Which one is the pinnacle of dumpling technology?

Correct answer: there is none. They're all pretty legit to me. Whether they're doughy and thick, delicate and light, or elongated and greasy... I love them all. There's a time and place for every kind of meat pocket! For that very reason, I refuse to write a post waxing poetic about how one place serves up the best dumplings in the city, because to me that's an utterly dumb statement... one I don't care to defend. Instead, I'll define perfection by another metric - with purchasing power.



You can argue all day with people about the characteristics of your favorite corner dumpling place makes the bitchin'est nuggets of pork and dough, but you can't argue with cost. There used to be a time when every place in Chinatown did the five dumps per $1 deal, but that time is long gone. Most places are down to four per $1. That's a whopping 25% more per dumpling. Either that means that those other places make dumplings that are 25% better tasting than Prosperity's or they're a shittier deal. I don't know how anyone could ever quantify the taste of a dumpling on a percentage scale, but I doubt there's that much variance from one shop to another. Infallible logic.



I always feel like such a baller in Chinatown. Layin' down bills and makin' it rain like it ain't no thang... ordering dumplings by the tens. That box right there? Only $2. Truth. Prosperity's dumplings are fried rapidly and on the spot, none of that reheating nonsense. They usually have a line during lunch so the turnover is sufficiently high where you'll never get anything more than a few minutes old. The skins probably aren't going to impress you if you want paper thin wrappers, but they're good enough unless you're a butthole who expects the world from a 20 cent dumpling. Fried just long enough to lightly brown the exterior, they retain the compliance and chewiness of boiled skins while still possessing that carcinogenic deliciousness we've come to associate with fried foods.



The innards? Well it's pork and chives. Probably some other shit like ginger and garlic to make it smell real good too. You'd probably like it if you like eating pork products. The meat clearly isn't of the finest cut, but truthfully... the coarseness adds textural contrast rather than just having a ball of mush in the center. Flavorwise, nothing is particularly overwhelming i.e. the fact that these use chives isn't offensive to the haters. All in all, they're just... good. The skins are crisp yet chewy and the filling is inoffensive yet still flavorful. There are absolutely no negatives to these babies unless you're an orthodox Jew. Plus they're cheap. Can't forget that.



They also do other stuff good too! Like make scallion/sesame pancakes. Theirs aren't like the deep fried ones that I normally rub on my face in Taiwan. Theirs are light, fluffy, and breadlike. To be entirely honest? Don't get the plain ones. They're boring as fuck (although I imagine I'd be singing a different tune if I were drunk). They also make a beef filled variant for 75 cents more. DO THAT. Everything tastes better with beef... unless you're Hindu or vegetarian.

Anyhoo, until they raise prices or someone else makes a dumpling that is better (I probably won't believe it unless the difference is both tangible and proven to be statistically significant), I'm gonna go on thinking that Prosperity Dumpling makes the "best" dumplings in the city. By which I mean they're the cheapest and taste pretty decent.

Prosperity Dumpling‎
46 Eldridge St # 1, New York, NY 10002-5229
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Disappointment shaved into ice (Oh Two Five)

Something you might not know about me: I don't believe in the idea of perseverance and all that "The Little Engine That Could" jazz. When the going gets tough I usually give up. What I mean is - I don't like partaking in things that are difficult. Or things that I'm not particularly good at. For example... I gave up on skateboarding because I was fat and couldn't jump very high, I gave up on violin because I realized there were too many people that were better at it than me, and I gave up on grad school because my research skills are pretty weak sauce. The list goes on. Maybe this makes me sound like a failure as a person on some level, but I actually think it's a pretty good policy to go off of in general. Like restaurants. If you're going to open a new eatery, it should be innovative and improve upon the status quo. That seems reasonable right? I mean, if you're aiming for mediocrity... why bother?

When I saw "Oh Two Five" I got really excited. It's a place that serves snowflake ice in Manhattan. It's the shit my childhood was built on. It's the stuff that made me into the awkward tubby fat kid through my teenage years. It's what made me... me. The fact that it's available in the city now is incredible to me.



I have to admit. The fact that they used an umlaut and called it "snö" ice seems unnecessarily stupid to me, but hey... whatever. If they're willing to shave ice that's laced with condensed milk into smooth as hell layers of sensuality then they could call it butthöle nipple ice for all I care. I'm all about the bottom line. Plus look at that poster. Giant pile of sugar, water, and milk. And strawberries too. Nature's sluttiest fruit (only fruit with exposed seeds!). I would pay a king's ransom for this shit.



Too bad they basically lie to you about what you're getting. Instead of a magical mountain of creamy ice shaved finer than fart particles, I ended up with a small pile of fail. The actual ice itself didn't exactly meet the expectations set by my memory of the places in Taiwan. Ideally the dish has a consistent sweetness and possesses a milky sorbet-like texture - straddling the line between a light airy condensed milk flavored ice cream and an Italian ice. Their version is slightly tart, only mildly sweet, and somewhat thin in consistency (maybe because it was a bajillion degrees outside). Add to that the fact that they only give you a small spoonful of each topping and the final product isn't just disappointing, you almost feel cheated from the advertising. Basically they took my dangled my childhood nostalgia in front of me then proceeded to stomp on it just to mock me. Also they charge you money for this. Straight wack.

tl;dr? While I'm super amped that more and more places are pimping out snowflake ice, it's not cool if you're going to put out a substandard product. Guys, I really want to like you, so... fix your shit, stop deceiving people with false advertising, and up your game yo.

Oh Two Five
43 Bayard St, New York, NY 10013
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Does dollar pizza get you hot and bothered? (Real Cheap Eats)

Know why I haven't been posting as frequently lately? Partially because I've been moving shit to my new apartment, but mostly because I've been wasting my time watching the Tour de France on TV. I forget who, but someone once said that those guys must all be high as shit to be willing to ride hundreds of miles per day for three weeks straight in the pursuit of a few flamboyantly colored jerseys. That's probably true. Man I feel lazy. Anyway, to prove that I'm not 100% worthless, I'm gonna give myself a quickie <boner!> and pimp the shit out of a little side collaboration that I've been working on lately... a dandy little site called "Real Cheap Eats." Ever find yourself broke, tired, slightly aroused, and furiously hungry in the middle of NYC? I know I have. Instead of going to useless sites that rhyme with "kelp" and reading hipster prose, now you can just mosey on over to "Real Cheap Eats," where you can find suggestions on what to put in your mouth with content from actual food bloggers... and me.

Okay, so maybe I didn't write that many entries, and maybe I just cropped photos... whatever. You should still use it, it's awesome. Impress all your clueless friends with dope-ass food. They'll think you're hot shit and uber-cultured when you bring 'em to eat spicy lamb noodles. Bitches love spicy lamb noodles.
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Roast pork and butthole pleasures (Wah Fung No. 1 Fast Food)

Here's a somewhat difficult to answer question: how much is good tasting food worth to you? I realize there's a few different ways you can qualify the cost of food, whether it's monetary value, distance traveled, or wait time... but let me offer you another way of quantifying the cost of a meal - your health. Now I'm not talking about getting herpes from eating a sandwich or anything drastic like that, what I mean is... would you eat something that's breathtakingly delicious if it meant that there was a 50/50 chance you'd also get a free side of mudbutt? This is the dilemma that plagues me about Wah Fung's roast pork over rice. It's a dish that has a lot going for it... it's cheap, it's plenty filling, and tastes delightfully sexual - satisfying me in ways that only pork can - but it has a menacing side to it as well. The same gloopy grease that makes this dish taste oh-so-good also has a tendency to "unleash the warrior within." Some real black swan shit going down.

Listen, if you enjoy having full control of your rectal muscles, then maybe Wah Fung's roast pork over rice isn't your thing. Not me though, I like living life dangerously, and if it means I get to put some dope-ass Chinese roast pork in my mouth while doing it - that's just icing on the cake. Remember, according to The 40-Year-Old Virgin, "life is about love and passion... it is not about the butthole pleasures," and I am positively smitten with Wah Fung's pork over rice.



Before I continue creaming myself over this dish, there is one thing that annoys me. The price. I probably sound like an asshole complaining about something that costs $3, and maybe I am, but I am absolutely livid with this change. When I was still a wee undergrad at Columbia a few years ago, this shit cost $2.50. Yeah. The cost-value function was insane. Then all of a sudden it was $2.75. Now it's $3? Pretty soon it's going to cost $3.25. I don't know how I'd feel about that... probably hurt and lonely. Definitely devastated.



I guess I should probably talk about the food now. For $3, this dude right here will fill a small aluminum box and shove it full of rice. I'm sure at some point the rice is/was fluffy, but he packs that shit in tighter than an FCC lattice (can't get no more efficient than that bro). Then he takes some cabbage and broccoli and layers it on one side... I guess to make people think they're eating a well-balanced meal (it's really not). Whatever, those are trivial details... it's at this point that mr. pork goes apeshit. He'll pull slabs of meat out from a tray that's filled with the honey/grease sauce and go "Yan Can Cook" on it. Surprisingly... he still possesses all 10 of his fingers. The box gets padded with a 1" thick layer of pork and finished with a ladle full of sauce (read: grease). It is basically a brick's weight of rice and meat in a to-go container. It is beautiful, and it is a spectacle to behold, I swear.



If you've never had Chinese roast pork before... you're missing out. You really are. While I can't actually tell you how it's made, I can tell you that it's some pretty sick stuff. If I had to rate it on a scale of awesome from 1 to 10, it would be past bacon. That's how good it is. As for what it is? It's usually a fairly fat cut of meat that gets roasted until the fat renders off and crisps the skin, it's normally coated in some sort of sweet oily concoction that can only be described as magical, and it's almost always red. Don't ask me why, I don't know... it just is. In the end it really doesn't matter, Chinese roast pork has a certain sweet savory complex that delivers a disgustingly rich flavor profile all at a very reasonable price.

So back to the question at hand... is the juice worth the squeeze? Oh yes.

Wah Fung No. 1 Fast Food
79 Chrystie St # A, New York, NY 10002
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