This was the day we left for London! However, our flight was not until 9:45pm and we decided to venture into Flushing for some long-awaited Chinese food and boba tea. After going through the list of recommendations, we settled on the M&T restaurant. The commute to Flushing by ways of the Long Island Railroad was actually quite easy. We breezed through Penn Station and immediately boarded the train. Minna was still not yet 100%, so she slept the entire train ride while I enjoyed seeing the scenery morph gradually into the bizarre blend of Taipei, Hong Kong and Queens that is Flushing.
After we de-trained, I called the kind lady of M&T Restaurant who gave us directions. Luckily for me, Kissena Blvd was right there next to the Flushing Main St. Station! I fearlessly led my troop (consisting of one slightly sick and very hungry Minna) down the boulevard to our Qingdao Eatery destination. About 10 minutes and many blocks down Kissena, the neighborhood turned into some door and window manufacturing plants and the likelihood of a restaurant appearing decreased every step we took. With the summer sun beating on our backs and each passing truck blowing up sand and glass fumes into our face, I called M&T again to double-check the directions. As the friendly lady on the other end of the phone call pointed out to me that I've been walking in the opposite direction, I looked back at the pale, exhausted, starving, sweating Minna and my heart grew cold. I hung up and told my lovely, beautiful wife that I have been leading us in the wrong direction, and that we had to go back to where we started and then walk 5-6 more blocks the other way, and she said. . .
Anyway, one hour later, we finally arrived at the M&T Restaurant, a small hole-in-the-wall kind of place with its window plastered with glowing reviews and zagat and yelp stickers -- our favorite kind of restaurant. Apparently, the Mandarin name for M&T stands for "Qingdao Family" or "Qingdao People," and this place specializes in the Northeastern Chinese cuisine of that city specifically. I've had many different kinds of Chinese food, but I only knew Qingdao for its beer. The friendly lady I spoke with on the phone explained that Qingdao is famous for the unique way it prepares its seafood, and strongly recommended a dish that I honestly would never have chosen by myself: "Shrimp with Cabbage." Originally expecting standard Northeastern Chinese food like different kinds of pancakes, beef noodle soup and small rice porridge, we weren't sure what we were getting ourselves into. Finally, we settled on a bowl of beef noodle soup, some stir-fried "empty-heart" vegetables and the recommended shrimp with cabbage. This plate of shrimp and cabbage turned out to be a meal that would be etched in my memory for a very long time.
As the owner explains fervently later, each napa cabbage can only be made into one dish of Shrimp with Cabbage because he only uses the leaves of the napa heart, and the red oily-looking sauce is neither spicy oil nor ketchup. It is actually the juices from the shrimp. More accurately, it is the shrimp's brain matter that oozes out over the cabbage, infusing it with the richest, shrimpiest flavoring I've ever tasted. From the way the owner (the friendly lady's husband I gathered) talks passionately about not just his food, but also Qingdao itself, I gathered that he took great pride in bringing much of his ingredients from his hometown and presenting it to clueless schmoes like myself. And his passion shows in the food, because it tasted excellent. The beef noodle soup was good too, with a mild soup and flavorful beef. The "empty-heart" vegetable, my stir-fry favorite, was also good. However, the shrimp with cabbage was by far my favorite and most memorable dish of this particular New York trip. Next time I go to Flushing, I'll definitely try some of the other bizarre-sounding dishes with unassuming English translated names.
Our dessert was at Teastation, as it is called in Los Angeles. The TenRen tea branch comes from Taiwan, and in the Los Angeles branch also serves a wide variety of food. However, the much smaller storefront in Flushing serves on boba tea as well as its traditional oolong and ginseng stocks. Their excellent boba, however, did not diminish in quality from Minna's memories of Monterey Park in Los Angeles, and she enjoyed an excellent second meal, finishing up almost an entire taro-mochi bread by herself in addition to her pearl milk tea. I could tell she was getting better.
Before returning to Manhattan, my final order of business was to get a haircut. The strets of Flushing were littered with hair salons, ranging from $7 a cut to over $20. As Minna and I looked on cluelessly trying to find a haircut destination, an old man passing out flyers approached us. After finding out what we wanted, he pointed across the street nad recommended the hair salon directly in front of us. "That's the one we always go to," he said. "Go up and take a look! If you don't like it, just come back out." His simple words held great wisdom, and I ended up getting a decent haircut right there. The funny thing is, halfway through the cut, the flyer old man actually called the hair salon to see if I ended up getting the haircut there.
The trip back on the Long Island Rail Road was not as smooth as getting to Flushing however. We barely missed a train, watching its doors close a few feet from our outstretched hands, and stood in the summer heat for half an hour only to discover that the next train was late! Somehow many Koreans joined us later at the platform waiting for the same train. I was able to make out, with my broken Korean, predictable comments about the heat and disappointment, to put it mildly, with the New York train system.
We met up with my cousin after returning to Manhattan. She had finished her 27-hour shift at the hospital and seemed surprisingly awake. When she said that she shouldn't sleep much in the afternoon, just so she can fall asleep better at night to make her early morning shift AGAIN the next day, I didn't know whether to admire or pity her strength. In the words of Benjamin Franklin and Mother Teresa, With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. Cousin, I salute your great power and hope that you'll find satisfaction in your great responsibility. I'm sure the patient you had to rush into the ICU appreciates what you did for her. Anyway, we shared some of the buns we brought back from Flushing and had a good chat before heading off to the airport. Penn Station was actually filled to the BRIM with waiting passengers because of a "track issue" causing all the trains to be delayed and their schedules messed up. Minna and I were fine though, having grown big New York City callouses in our heart from the delay in Flushing. The journey through JFK Airport was uneventful, though I've never been on a Kuwait Airlines flight. I just hope Muslims don't take offense to me eating like a pig.
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