NY street vendors

October 8, 2006

Weekend in New York

Street Vendors: International Cuisine, à la Cart

By SETH KUGEL

THE line for the $5 halal chicken or lamb platters, with the magical white sauce, at the corner of 53rd Street and Avenue of the Americas stretched to 60 people one recent Saturday night, which is what happens when your street cart has a Web site (www.53rdand6th.com). People drive in from New Jersey to eat there, and guests at the Hilton New York hotel across the street finally give in and wait in line, just to see what the fuss is all about.

Not every food vendor in the city inspires that kind of devotion. But many who do will compete for the title of the city’s best street vendor in the second annual Vendy Awards. The event, to be held on Oct. 22, is a fine reason to come to the city for the weekend. Tickets are $50 and $100, including food, beer and wine, and the winner comes away with the top prize: the coveted golden hot dog. (O.K., it’s just a silver cup.)

Even if you can’t make the Vendys, you can easily spend a whole weekend in Manhattan eating on the street instead of sitting down in restaurants or shopping in the city’s overpriced delis (a $6 package of Oreos, anyone?).

First, there is the inevitable hot dog cart, so standardized in its toppings that it sometimes seems that the 17th-century Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant must have decreed that every citizen had the right to free onion sauce and sauerkraut with frankfurters. But man cannot live on hot dogs and buns alone, and though many celebrated Midtown food vendors close up shop when the lunch hordes disappear for the weekend, farther downtown you’ll find plenty of variety.

SoHo is a good spot for brunch, starting with the red Dean & DeLuca Coffee Shack on Prince Street. They sell pastries — creative takes on brownies and doughnuts, most $2.50 to $3.50 — and even give a nod to history by offering seltzer-milk-and-chocolate egg creams, an old-time New York treat; even so, the Dodgers still won’t be returning to Brooklyn.

The shack is not far from the crepe cart run by Zekria Naimi, whose stand may have suspect credentials as a genuine outpost of French cuisine, but will do if you’re in more of a Nutella-and-banana mood than in a ketchup-and-mustard mood. Most crepes are about $4 or $5.

One of the latest welcome additions to the weekend street-food scene is El Ídolo’s taco truck on the edge of Chelsea, at 14th Street and Eighth Avenue. Its owner owns two trucks that operate out of Corona, Queens, but started coming into Manhattan about nine months ago, apparently deciding that if you can’t bring the customer to the taco (it’s a bit of a haul on the No. 7 train), then bring the taco to the customer. And they do, late at night, giving the more upscale La Esquina in NoLIta (disqualified from street vendor status by its two adjoining restaurants, but with a taco stand that qualifies in spirit) a run for its money.

The English side of Ídolo’s taco truck menu has some imperfect translations, but no matter. In case you’re wondering, a “goat beef” taco is not made from a mutant farm animal, it’s a mistranslation of “goat meat.” Forgive the error, and order one ($2).

Around Canal Street in Chinatown, $1.50 coconuts hacked open for their refreshing milk abound, and vendors sell Ping-Pong-ball-size wafflelike cakes for cheap. They’re 15 for $1 at the heavily trafficked corner of Canal and Mulberry.

A more upscale minicake gets filled with hot vanilla cream before your very eyes under the covered market known as Little Chinatown, where $3 gets you a dozen.

Xing Wang Chinese Food is the Chinese street version of the McDonald’s dollar menu — three mini-egg rolls, lo mein, a stick of spongy fish balls and fried rice all go for a dollar.

A bit farther down Canal, a stand selling fresh orange juice looks out of place, but there it is, manned by a wise-guy vendor who claims that his name is Mo, and that his father started the stand in the 1980’s. It could be so, but then again, in true New York City fashion, he also claims to have a special price just for you.

If 15 minicakes for a dollar seems like a rip-off, head over to east Chinatown, an area less frequented by tourists. There, Shao P. Chen sells them at 20 for a dollar from the corner of Bowery and Grand Street.

At the same corner, a restaurant called Quickly sells an astounding variety of flavored bubble teas and slushes through its window. The slush flavors range from almond to litchi to sour plum, and the bubble tea glowing with tapioca pearls has a similar range of flavors.

That may be enough for one weekend of eating, but it does not take into account weekday legends like Rolf Babiel, last year’s Vendy winner, who sells German bratwurst on West 54th between Avenue of the Americas and Fifth Avenue, or the dosa man of Washington Square Park.

Nor does it count the taco truck on 96th Street and Broadway and the Dominican and Mexican street vendors selling tamales, mangoes, sweet bean soup and sugar cane juice in Washington Heights.

As for the street-food nirvana known as the borough of Queens, save that for your next trip. But you had better set aside a whole month.

The Details

The Vendy Awards take place on Oct. 22 at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, Second Avenue and 10th Street, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $50 and $100, and include food from the vendors as well as beer, wine and soda. For more information and to order tickets, see www.streetvendor.org.

The famous halal truck is on the northeast corner of 53rd Street and Avenue of the Americas from about 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. every day.

The Dean & DeLuca Coffee Shack is on Prince Street just east of Mercer Street in SoHo, from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on weekends (weekdays from about 6:30 a.m.).

Zekria Naimi’s crepe cart is on Prince Street just east of Broadway in SoHo. Weekends only, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

El Ídolo taco truck is usually stationed on one of the corners of 14th Street and Eighth Avenue, open from about 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Xing Wang Chinese Food is on the north side of Canal Street at Baxter Street.

Little Chinatown is at the northeast corner of Canal and Lafayette Streets. For the cream-filled cakes, enter on Lafayette.

Mo’s juice stand, if his name is Mo, is on the north side of Canal Street between Broadway and Mercer Street.

Shao P. Chen’s minicake stand is at the southeast corner of the Bowery and Grand Street, and the Quickly bubble tea shop is at 237B Grand Street; 212-431-0998.

December 17, 2006
Weekend in New York
Chinatowns: Dim Sum, Borough by Borough
By SETH KUGEL

TOURISTS and New Yorkers alike flock to Chinatown for the bustling street life, flimflam designer bags and mobbed dim sum palaces.

Other tourists and New Yorkers alike spurn Chinatown because of its bustling street life, flimflam designer bags and mobbed dim sum palaces.

But both crowds should find something to savor in the city’s other two Chinatowns, both a no-transfer ride on the subway from Times Square. For the latter group, all you need is a weekend, a MetroCard and a hearty appetite. If you’re in the first group, make it a long weekend and visit all three neighborhoods.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn’s Chinatown stretches along Eighth Avenue in Sunset Park, with all the restaurants, shops and markets you could ask for without frenetic sidewalks or terminal car exhaust. It’s just about impossible to get lost. Or bored.

From the N train stop at Eighth Avenue and 62nd, head toward the lower-numbered streets. The Hong Kong Supermarket of Brooklyn is at the corner of 61st Street, and if the idea of visiting a supermarket on vacation strikes you as odd, consider it more like grocery voyeurism.

It starts the moment you walk in and see the display that clusters prepared squid and Chinese beef jerky with Juicy Fruit gum and Ricola cough drops. How’s that for cross-marketing? Not that you won’t be tempted to buy items like Chinese teapots for $5, sake cups for under a buck, basil seed drink with honey, Korean pears, Singapore curry sauce and Ice Bon icies from Funny Hippo (with the slogan “Cool ... Bring You the Summer Snow”).

Farther down, duck into bakeries where local residents sip coffee, eat pork buns and watch Chinese videos. Restaurants range from simple noodle shops to palaces like Diamond on Eighth. One spot, the New Seawide Seafood restaurant, sets up a table out front where meals to go cost about $3.

One other activity: count all the businesses that use “Eight,” “8” or “Eighth” in their names. That’s a lucky number in Chinese tradition, and perhaps that’s why Chinese immigrants chose to open their businesses on Eighth Avenue.

Queens

Flushing’s Chinatown is at the terminus of the No. 7 train. Among other ethnic groups, New York City’s Taiwanese trek there for three-cup chicken, shaved-ice treats and bubble tea. One restaurant considered exceptionally genuine is Gu-Shine, which means hometown.

Don’t be turned off if you encounter a funky (O.K., gross) smell upon entering: that’s just your fellow diners enjoying what on the menu is called “sautéed smelled bean curd” but which is commonly called “stinky tofu.”

Gu-Shine has three-cup chicken (on the English menu, it is called “chicken with basil in casserole”), named for the one cup each of sesame oil, soy sauce and cooking wine traditionally used in the recipe. You might also try the sweet rice with mushroom and meat, which is often given by a new mother as a gift to those attending a party for her baby, and the “oyster pancake with egg and vegetable.” Lighter meals can be had at popular shops like Noodle House and Happy Beef Noodle House, which are next-door neighbors.

Probably the most interesting spot in Flushing is the food court in the Flushing Mall, where the number of non-Asians present when you arrive will probably equal the number of non-Asians in your group. Some of the posted signs and menus do not even bother with the Roman alphabet. (The note under the cart selling 75-cent red bean pastry says, approximately, “You can eat it a thousand times without getting tired of it.”)

The thing to get, though, is the essential summer snack for teenagers in Taiwan. It’s plain old shaved ice covered in all sorts of toppings, ranging from peanuts to taro to mixed sweet beans to herb jelly. You eat it with a spoon.

Manhattan

Finally, the original. Sure, you may have to wait in line at one of the vast dim sum restaurants, but the experience of sitting at a big round table with Chinese strangers ordering little dishes from roaming carts is worth the wait. There are a few interesting things to note: dim sum is usually served with tea, and you may have to make a special request for water. At the Golden Bridge, one of the bigger spots, dim sum includes everything from snails to fish dumplings to taro to fried dough covered with a rice sheet. But a glance around the room shows that just about nothing is more popular than chicken claw.

The great thing about Chinatown in Manhattan is that even overrun with tourists, there are always surprises. Mei Lai Wah coffee shop, a tiny, ragged place, serves delicious fried egg noodles with sweet syrup, lotus paste pastry and yuen yeung, tea steeped in coffee, not water. Across the street, at Yuen Yuen, a storefront with no English aside from the name, there is rattlesnake soup using medicinal Chinese herbs.

Even if you don’t get to the other Chinatowns, make sure you comb Manhattan’s thoroughly. Many visitors don’t make it past the Mott Street area, but the shops along Grand Street to the east are just as inviting, even if the selection of faux Dolce & Gabbana is a bit lacking.

VISITOR INFORMATION

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN

Take the N train to the Eighth Avenue stop. Walk toward the lower-numbered cross streets.

Hong Kong Supermarket of Brooklyn, 6013 Eighth Avenue, (718) 438-2288.

Diamond on Eighth, 6022 Eighth Avenue, (718) 492-6888.

New Seawide Seafood Restaurant, 5810 Eighth Avenue, (718) 439-3200.

FLUSHING, QUEENS

The 7 train to Main Street (the end of the line) places you right in the middle of the action.

Gu-Shine Taiwanese Restaurant, 135-38 39th Avenue, (718) 939-5468.

Noodle House, 38-12 Prince Street, (718) 888-1268.

Happy Noodle Beef House, 38-10 Prince Street, (718) 661-3969.

Flushing Mall, 133-31 39th Avenue, www.888flushingmall.com.

DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN

Take the J, M, N, Q, R, W, Z, 4 or 6 to Canal Street or, for the Grand Street area, B or D to Grand Street or F to Delancey Street.

Golden Bridge, 50 Bowery, south of Canal Street, (212) 227-8831; www.goldenbridgerestaurant.com.

Mei Lai Wah Coffee Shop, 64 Bayard Street, (212) 226-9186.

Yuen Yuen Restaurant, 61 Bayard Street, (212) 406-2100.

url: http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/travel/17weekend.html?ref=travel&pagewanted=print

July 2, 2006
Going to
Lyon
By ANN M. MORRISON

WHY GO NOW France's second-largest metropolitan area, Lyon has many of the same charms as Paris: great opera, chic shops, river cruises, world-class museums and even a tall, 1893 metal structure that looks like the Eiffel Tower. But Lyon is older than Paris, has more Roman ruins and, as local residents will tell you, better food.

Over the last 15 years, Lyon has restored and replanted some 100 public spaces. The warehouses along the River Saône have been transformed into galleries for the Biennial of Contemporary Art. A flying-saucer-shaped amphitheater, designed by Renzo Piano, just opened at his Lyon Convention Center. And culturally, the city is bursting with festivals and concerts.

The Nuits de Fourvière, one of Europe's oldest summer festivals, is presenting music, drama and film in two of the city's 2,000-year-old Roman theaters through Aug. 4. In September, the focus turns to dance, as performers from around the world, including the Egyptian Modern Dance Company, celebrate Lyon's Biennale de la Danse. In other words, while the French capital thinks it achieved perfection sometime in the 19th century, Lyon is still trying to get there.

WHERE TO STAY Travelers who want to live like Lyon's 16th-century silk merchants should head to the cobblestone streets of the old city, Vieux Lyon, a Unesco World Heritage site, where almost 300 Renaissance mansions still stand. Four of these grand residences now make up the Cour des Loges (2-8, rue du Boeuf; 33-4-72-77-44-44; www.courdesloges.com). This lavish hotel, dating from the 14th to the 17th centuries, features an elegant courtyard and 62 rooms, some with fireplaces and timbered ceilings. Rooms start at 230 euros ($297 at $1.29 to the euro), though special rates can be found through the hotel's Web site.

Another ancient gem, the Villa Florentine, situated halfway up the Fourvière hill, was once a nunnery (25, montée St.-Barthélémy; 33-4-72-56-56-56; www.villaflorentine.com). But asceticism has given way to luxury, with amazing views of the city, particularly from the hotel's Michelin-starred restaurant, Les Terrasses de Lyon. Official rates for the 28 rooms start at 195 euros.

If not a stay in a former convent, how about reliving your school days? The 39-room Collège hotel (5, Place St.-Paul, 33-4-72-10-05-05, www.college-hotel.com) has classroomlike tables in the breakfast "study hall" and rates listed by academic levels: 105 euros for the all-white "undergraduate" room to 140 for a larger "postgraduate" unit with an A-plus view of the city.

Many hotels are clustered on Presqu'île, the peninsula formed by the Saône and Rhône Rivers. Among the best are the 53-room Grand Hôtel des Terreaux (16, rue Lanterne; 33-4-78-27-04-10; www.hotel-lyon.fr), which has an indoor pool and spacious doubles from 115 euros, and the modern 161-room Sofitel Bellecour (20, quai Gailleton; 33-4-72-41-20-20; www.sofitel.com), which has a one-star restaurant, Les Trois Dômes, overlooking the Rhône, and doubles from 275 euros (though specials can be less).

WHERE TO EAT The best reason to visit Lyon is the food. If you can't trek a few miles north of downtown to the Michelin three-star Paul Bocuse (40, quai de la Plage, Pont de Collonges, 33-4-72-42-90-90; www.bocuse.fr), where four-course dinners start at 115 euros, you can sample Mr. Bocuse's simpler fare at one of five Brasseries Bocuse in Lyon. Try L'Est at the Brotteaux railroad station (33-4-37-24-25-26) for its spit-roasted Bresse chicken (19 euros) and choo-choo train décor.

Lyon has a fair share of creative younger chefs, too. Among them is Alain Alexanian, who spices up quenelles (pike dumplings) with paprika and embeurrée de pommes de terre (buttery potatoes) with chicory, at L'Alexandrin (83, rue Moncey; 33-4-72-61-15-69; www.lalexandrin.com). A six-course Mode de Lyon menu is 60 euros.

Nicolas Le Bec, 34, the youngest of this new breed, pairs fresh ingredients in novel ways at his eponymous restaurant (14, rue Grolée; 33-4-78-42-15-00; nicolaslebec.com). The 48-euro prix fixe lunch might include stuffed zucchini flower and turbot with artichokes in eucalyptus broth.

For something cheaper but no less delicious, the charming Les Adrets (30, rue du Boeuf, 33-4-78-38-24-30) offers a three-course lunch including a lentil-and-foie-gras terrine for 14 euros, wine included.

For heartier fare, go to a bouchon — a Lyon institution that serves traditional fare like andouillete and boudin noir in a boisterous, informal setting. Be warned: lots of places call themselves bouchons but are really tourist traps. Some of the best can be found on the rue du Garet, including Garet (No. 7; 33-4-78-28-16-94), Le Petit Bouchon Chez Georges, (No. 8; 33-4-78-28-30-46) and Petit Flore (No. 19; 33-4-78-27-27-51).

Another classic is La Meunière (11, rue Neuve, 33-4-78-28-62-91), where the potato salad is served from earthenware bowls, the sausages are cut to order and the four-course dinner is 24 euros.

WHAT TO DO DURING THE DAY The semisecret passageways called traboules, which date back to Roman times, will take you through gorgeous courtyards in the old city, with Italianate towers and spiral stairways. If you drop by the Romanesque-Gothic Cathédral St.-Jean at noon, you can see the 14th-century astronomical clock do its coo-coo-like re-enactment of the Annunciation.

It's a steep walk up Fourvière hill to the dazzlingly white Notre Dame Basilica, which reigns over Lyon as Sacré Coeur does over Paris (but there's also a funicular). Nearby is the Museum of Gallo-Roman Civilization (17, rue Cléberg; 33-4-72-38-49-30; www.musees-gallo-romains.com) for a quick archaeology lesson; admission is 3.8 euros; it is closed on Mondays.

On Presqu'île, the Museum of Textiles (34, rue de la Charité; 33-4-78-38-42-00; www.musee-des-tissus.com) pays tribute to Lyon silk-making. Check out the green and rose tapestries that Marie Antoinette left behind in Versailles in 1789 (5 euros; closed Mondays).

While Lyon's Beaux-Arts Museum (20, place des Terreaux, 33-4-72-10-17-40; 6 euros) is justifiably proud of its "Ascension of Christ" by Perugino, don't miss the stairway murals by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, a Lyon-born painter whose work foreshadowed symbolism. Closed Tuesdays.

Two other favorite sons are Auguste and Louis Lumière, brothers who invented the cinématographe, a 19th-century precursor to the camcorder. Their groundbreaking movie "Leaving the Factory" is among many of their pioneering films shown at the Institut Lumière (25, rue du Premier Film; 33-4-78-78-18-95; www.institut-lumiere.org; 6 euros). Closed Monday.

A less laudable character was Klaus Barbie, a k a the Butcher of Lyon. He was the SS commander responsible for the torture and death of thousands of French citizens, including the Resistance hero Jean Moulin. The somber Center for the History of the Resistance and Deportation now occupies Barbie's Gestapo headquarters (14, avenue Berthelot, 33-4-78-72-23-11); 3.80 euros; closed Monday and Tuesday.

WHERE TO SHOP Lyon is the birthplace of Guignol, the marionette that has been entertaining audiences for centuries. You can find him and a wide selection of his descendants, including a jolly French waiter that costs 290 euros, at Chez Disagn' Cardelli (6, rue St-Jean, 33-4-78-37-01-67). There are puppet shows, too. For older marionettes, dolls and wind-up toys, try Antic Dolls-Toys in one the antiques quarters (40, rue Auguste-Compte, 33-4-78-42-91-51).

From Lyon's candy department: pink pralines (almonds encased in uncaramelized sugar) and coussins (bite-size rectangles of almond paste filled with chocolate ganache). Voisin, a chocolatemaker with boutiques around town, created the coussins in 1960 to look like silk pillows. Another sweet stop is Chocolaterie Ginet (9, rue de la Charité, 33-4-78-42-09-82), run by the master chocolatier Thierry Dubruc.

WHAT TO DO AT NIGHT The smoky bars around the Hôtel de Ville, including Ayers Rock (2-4, rue Désirée, 33-8-20-32-02-03) and Albion Public House (12, rue Ste.-Catherine, 33-4-78-28-33-00), are popular with the T-shirt and jeans crowd. If your music tastes include hip-hop bands from Slovenia, head for La Fée Verte (4, rue Pizay, 33-4-78-28-32-35).

For an easy-going gay scene, try Cap Opéra around the corner from the Opéra (2, place Louis Pradel, 33-4-72-07-61-55). Across the Saône, dance clubs like Alibi (13, quai Romain Rolland, 33-4-78-42-04-66) attract a dressier crowd in their 20's and 30's. And in the summer, old riverboats become clubs along the banks of the Rhône.

YES, FREE For entertainment, the Romans headed for the hill, Fourvière. Make your own fun there today by clambering over the impressive ruins at Archeological Park. There's a large amphitheater (perhaps the oldest in France), a smaller Odéon (where the elite listened to speeches and music), and a spectacular view over the red-tiled roofs that seems to go on forever .

YOUR FIRST TIME OR YOUR 10TH Butchers, bakers, sausage makers and the occasional oyster bar line the aisles at La Halle de la Part-Dieu (102, cours Lafayette), the 1971 covered market where the city's best chefs are said to shop. At Maréchal, you can tell the goat cheeses from the cow-derived ones by the little animal pictured on the price tags. The super-luxury traiteur Rolle sells foie gras in amazing variations, including a tarte Tatin.

WHERE TO STAY WIRED All but the cheapest hotels have Internet access. But if you want to check your e-mail over a cup of exotic tea, head for Le Mundo Café in the travel bookstore Raconte-Moi la Terre (38, rue Thomassin; 33-4-78-92-60-20; www.raconte-moi.com ). Thirty minutes cost 2.50 euros.

GETTING THERE A number of airlines fly from Kennedy International to Lyon through various European hubs. A recent Web seach found round-trip fares from about $920 The high-speed TGV train can also zip you from Paris to Lyon in about two hours (from 110 euros round trip).

GETTING AROUND Lyon's Métro system is so modern that you rarely see a conductor. A single ride costs 1.50 euros; a Lyon City Card, which gives you unlimited rides and entry to many museums, is 18 euros a day. But consider renting a red bicycle from one of the 173 Vélo'v racks all over town (www.velov.grandlyon.com). The first 30 minutes are free (after putting a 150-euro deposit on a credit card); the next hour is .50 euro.

url: http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/travel/02goingto.html?pagewanted=print

June 18, 2006
Going to
Bordeaux
By SETH SHERWOOD

WHY GO NOW The wines of Bordeaux inspire superlatives like "extraordinary balance" and "gorgeous showstopper." The city itself, however, does not. With noses stuck in glasses, travelers tend to see only a boozy blur on their way back from Mouton Rothschild, Lynch-Bages and the nearly 12,000 other wine chateaus in the region.

And for years, the city of Bordeaux didn't seem to care. Like dust on an old bottle, a layer of thick grime sullied the ornate medieval churches, Baroque-era facades and Art Nouveau town houses of a bygone merchant class. The Garonne River waterfront, the former hub of Bordeaux's international trade, had devolved into an unsavory strip where prostitutes, not wine, were the commodity. Just a few years ago the city looked like a fallen aristocrat gone to seed.

But thanks to a newfound civic pride, Bordeaux's monuments are being scrubbed back to their original splendor. The cleaned-up waterfront is lined with top restaurants and upscale night-life spots. And a futuristic new tram system connects resurgent neighborhoods.

The best time to see this nouveau sparkle is during the Bordeaux Wine Festival, this year from June 29 to July 2 (www.bordeaux-fete-le-vin.com). Started eight years ago, the biennial festival brings together the region's venerable winemakers and vintners, turning the city center into a wine-fueled bacchanal. The city is ripe for a tasting.

WHERE TO STAY The year 2003 was a very good one for Bordeaux's hotels, with a pair of design-savvy boutique hotels adding spice to the city's otherwise lackluster offerings. The Lurton family, one of the region's most prestigious wine dynasties, opened La Maison Bord'eaux in the city's center (113, rue Albert Barraud; 33-5-56-44-00-45; www.lamaisonbord-eaux.com). Though housed in an 18th-century town house, the hotel is anything but old-fashioned. Each of the six sleek rooms is painted a signature color (including robin's egg blue, burnt orange and wine red) and outfitted with dark woods and contempo-cool furniture. The handsome common areas include a restaurant and a salon filled with art books and — what else? — wines from the Lurton chateaus. Doubles from 140 euros, $185 at $1.32 to the euro, breakfast included.

In terms of location, it's hard to beat Une Chambre En Ville (35, rue Bouffard; 33-5-56-81-34-53; www.bandb-bx.com), a five-room bed-and-breakfast nestled near the happening cafes of Place Gambetta and upscale stores of Cours de l'Intendance. Like La Maison Bord'eaux, it occupies a classic, three-story Bordeaux town house. The rooms are large (by French standards) with a tasteful, colorful décor. Doubles from 79 euros, breakfast 8 euros.

Even some faded gems are being polished. Just as it was slipping into old age, La Tour Intendance (16-17, rue de la Vieille Tour; 33-5-56-44-56-56; www.hotel-tour-intendance.com ) got a full face-lift in 2004. The result is both rustic and chic, like a chateau transplanted in cosmopolitan soil. Many of the 26 rooms combine Old World details like rough stone walls and parquet floors with modern amenities like flat-screen televisions and sleek bathrooms. Doubles from 88 euros; breakfast 9 euros.

WHERE TO EAT Loaded down with duck confit, sautéed foie gras and roasted goose, Bordeaux's heavy and fat-laden cuisine is the solid-food counterpart to its hearty red wines. And a recipe for gout. Luckily, a new generation of restaurants has lightened the menu with Asian touches, fresh ingredients from Provence and beyond and less butter. Many of the best new establishments have opened along the renovated quays of the Garonne. (Prices reflect a three-course dinner for two, without wine.)

The biggest splash was made by Denis Franc, the longtime chef and owner of Le Pavillon des Boulevards, a haunt of Bordeaux gourmands and Michelin-star chasers. His new Quai Zaco (80, quai des Chartrons; 33-5-57-87-67-72) is housed in a cavernous stone warehouse, jazzed up with local artwork, metal tables and molded plastic seating. The cuisine features fresh regional produce served with Provençal and Mediterranean accents. A zippy gazpacho is paired with chèvre ravioli, while a thick and meaty goose gets some zing from a sweet-and-sour chutney of pears, apples and pineapple. Other favorites include asparagus with Spanish ham and a veal piccata with stuffed tomatoes. About 70 euros.

Judging by the spooky-kitsch interiors at Le K Baroque (1, quai des Chartrons; 33-5-56-52-31-20), Vincent Price is alive and well. The dim restaurant is stuffed with purple velvet, oriental carpets, gilded mirrors and other decorative trappings of a slightly unhinged nobleman. The menu is similarly peripatetic. You'll find ingredients culled from North Africa (vegetable tagine with honey), Asia (lamb in green curry with Chinese noodles) and the tropics (sea bream and mango tartare). Around 65 euros.

As its name suggests, the Café du Théâtre (3, place Pierre Renaudel, 33-5-57-95-77-20) features a culinary headliner, Jean-Marie Amat, the former chef of the Michelin-starred St.-James in nearby Bouliac. The dramatic room — a soaring modern space with red walls and black floors — is a fitting backdrop to the moneyed Bordeaux crowd, who flock here to sample the ever-changing menu. You might start with the plates of dried spicy sausage and end with the classic vanilla mille-feuille. In between, try the roast tuna satay, cod beignets in tomato chutney or succulent lamb shoulder. About 75 euros; prix fixe about 60 euros.

WHAT TO DO DURING THE DAY After your nth wine tasting, give your palate a rest in the city. Lose yourself amid the narrow streets, centuries-old squares and medieval churches in the city center (Unesco is considering designating three areas as World Heritage Sites). To find the St.-André Cathedral, follow its Gothic spires, which resemble sharpened pencils studded with clove-like nubs. The majestic 18th-century City Hall is nearby.

Also worth photographing is the St.-Seurin Basilica, which sits atop one of Bordeaux's most venerable attractions, a sixth-century Gallo-Roman crypt. The crypt, open from June through September, holds sarcophagi, amphorae and other relics of a long-vanished Bordeaux; admission is 2.50 euros.

WHAT TO DO AT NIGHT Come nightfall, Bordeaux's gilded youth and young professionals set sail for the Bassin à Flots, a dockland on the city's far north side. Though still a tad rough-edged, the tides are clearly turning, thanks to new nightclubs popping up in old warehouses and ships. The top draw is La Dame de Shanghai (Quai Armande Lalande; 33-5-57-10-20-50), a Chinese junk-style restaurant and nightclub that fills with well-heeled folks in search of global house music and buckets of Cristal Champagne.

Also along the waterfront, but on the opposite side of town, is Mystic (5, quai de Paludate; 33-5-56-31-63-24), an amphitheater-like restaurant and nightclub. Opened in March, it took over the long-neglected Château de Descas, a 19th-century neo-Gothic mansion that was an Usher-like symbol of Bordeaux's grandeur and decline. Outfitted with ghostly hologram portraits and playful electric candelabra, it is fast becoming a new symbol of the city's resurgence — and sense of humor.

WHERE TO SHOP Hardcore shoppers may swarm the Rue Ste.-Catherine, a car-free boulevard anchored by the Galeries Lafayette, but the most interesting shops lurk on its side streets. Notably, the Rue du Pas St.-Georges has emerged as Bordeaux's answer to Alphabet City, a corridor of avant-garde clothing boutiques, shops selling designer furnishings, live music joints and vintage bookstores. Among the brightest is Robba di Noi (76, rue du Pas St.-Georges, 33-5-56-01-04-84), a new home décor boutique that sells retro wallpaper, flamboyant local art and neo-Baroque Plexiglass coffee tables from a rising French designer, Emma Roux.

For further proof that Philippe Starck does not have a monopoly on high-end French design, hit Versus Mobili (14, rue Duffour-Dubergier; 33-5-56-52-10-27; www.versusmobili.com). The two-level store is a streamlined mix of established and up-and-coming designers, including Pop Art lampshades from the Parisian design firm 1961 and translucent chairs from Aïtal, a local company.

YES, FREE Admission fees to the city's museums were abolished last year. Highlights include the Musée des Beaux-Arts (20, cours d'Albret; 33-5-56-10-20-56, www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/bordeaux). Housed in a 1700's mansion, it boasts a small but impressive collection of 17th- and 18th-century art, including Jan Brueghel the Elder's delirious "Wedding Dance" and Peter Paul Rubens's gruesome yet powerful "Miracle of Saint Just."

YOUR FIRST TIME OR YOUR 10TH Sampling Bordeaux's wine region — a quarter-million acres that produces 800 million bottles a year — is a Herculean labor. (Not to mention a Dionysian one.) Fortunately for wine lovers, the Bordeaux Tourism Office (12, cours du 30 Juillet; 33-5-56-00-66-00; www.bordeaux-tourisme.com) provides daily bus trips (April 1 to Nov. 15) to the key appellations, including St.-Émilion (Wednesday and Sunday), Graves and Sauternes (Friday) and the Médoc (Thursday and Saturday). Each trip visits two chateaus and costs 28 euros a person.

HOW TO STAY WIRED Few hotels are equipped with broadband Internet. The cyber cafe g@llien (32, rue du Palais Gallien; 33-5-56-52-64-79) has 17 computers and charges 2 euros an hour.

GETTING THERE Most travelers get to Bordeaux via plane or train from Paris. Air France (800-237-2747; www.airfrance.fr) has daily nonstop flights between Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport and Bordeaux starting around 50 euros each way. High-speed TGV trains take three to four hours and leave several times a day. In Paris, trains can be caught at the airport (listed often as "Roissy" on train schedules) or the Gare Montparnasse. Tickets purchased online (www.sncf.fr/indexe.htm) start at 35 to 50 euros each way.

GETTING AROUND Christened in 2004, Bordeaux's long-awaited — and still-expanding — tram covers nearly all of the city center. Tickets for the glassy, futuristic cars are 1.30 euros and can be bought at vending machines at each stop; they are also good for city buses.

url: http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/06/18/travel/18goingto.html?pagewanted=print

August 14, 2005
Marseille
By JULIA CHAPLIN

WHY GO NOW Marseille is the only city in the South of France where it's possible to dance to live Algerian dancehall into the wee hours, snooze in a 1950's utopian housing project of Le Corbusier and swim among schools of bouillabaisse-pedigreed rockfish in the clear waters of the Mediterranean - and to do so while avoiding the summer hordes descending on Provence and the Riviera.

France's second largest city, the entry point for immigrants from such varied places as Italy, Armenia, North Africa, the sub-Sahara and China, Marseille is an eclectic's dream and something of a well-kept secret. That's mainly because most tourists still imagine it as it was: a seedy, drug-riddled underworld with its ancient alleyways strewn with gangsters and garbage. (Think of the gritty 1970's film "The French Connection," based on a true story about Marseille's international heroin ring.) And while unemployment and crime are still looming social ills, now, thanks in part to government reforms and investment, the laid-back, working-class city has parlayed much of its foreboding gritiness into a raw, quaint-free street culture with a new, multiethnic generation of graffiti artists, musicians and filmmakers.

WHERE TO STAY Marseille is centered on the Vieux Port (Old Port) along with the city's oldest hotel, the Grand Mercure Marseille Beauvau Vieux Port, (1) 4, rue Beauvau, (33-4) 91.54.91.00, www.mercure.com, where such arty types as Chopin and George Sand stayed in the 1800's. Doubles start at $179, at $1.24 to the euro. Breakfast is $16.

In the postwar outskirts is the Hôtel Le Courbusier, (2) (33-4) 91.16.78.00, www.hotellecorbusier.com, in the third floor of the Unité d'Habitation, Le Corbusier's experimental concrete housing project. When it was completed in 1952 horrified locals nicknamed it the Maison du Fada (House of the Crazy) because they thought it so ugly. It has the original restaurant and bar and no-frills guest suites with door-free bathrooms and Charlotte Perrian furniture. Elsewhere in this time capsule are cutely naïve details like seashell indentations in the walls, stained-glass sculptures and, on the roof, a wading pool and giant rock forms for sunbathing. Double rooms start at $112 for a studio with sea view. Breakfast is $10.

For a more aristocratic experience the New Hôtel Bompard, (3) 2, rue des Flots Bleus, (33-4) 91.99.22.22; www.new-hotel.com/bompard, off a boulevard that winds along the coast, has 49 rooms, most housed in a grand villa with a pool and lush gardens. Doubles start at $174. Breakfast $14.

WHERE TO EAT Clusters of small ethnic restaurants, marked by colorful facades with signs in various languages, line the winding streets. (In one evening I spotted Vietnamese, Lebanese, Moroccan, Chinese, Swiss, Portuguese, Italian and Ethiopian.) Make sure to order a bottle of crisp rosé from the region of nearby Aix-en-Provence.

One afternoon we climbed the stairs from the Old Port up to Le Panier, the recently spruced-up ancient quarter dotted with small markets and galleries, and lunched at Au Lamparo, (4) 4, place de Lenche, (33 4) 91.90.90.29, an Italian restaurant on a sleepy square. Despite the divey, run-down facade, the Napoli antipasti (grilled vegetables drizzled with olive oil and fresh cheeses, $12) were palate-blowing. Lunch for two with wine, about $35.

Nearby is Pizzaria Étienne, (5) 43, rue Lorette (no phone), which opened in 1943 in its now-dilapidated stucco house. Locals swear it's the best pizza in the world. It was packed and raucous even at 11 p.m. on a weeknight, the waiters all seemed to have tattoos, and there were old photos of famous footballers covering the walls. It was worth waiting for a table in an awkward line by the bathroom. The pizza ($9), which comes with either cheese or anchovies, ranked high on my best-ever list. (Dinner for two with wine was $75; cash only.)

Up the hill by Cours Julien, known as the "tagger area" because it's practically wallpapered with bright graffiti, is Restaurant du Tagine, (6) 5, rue Crudère, (33-4) 91.48.08.47, with Arabian tiles and with John Coltrane lilting off the stereo. The owners, a husband and wife from Tunisia, whipped up a delicious "sucre" chicken tagine ($17) stewed with raisins and walnuts in a thick honey broth with couscous on the side. (Dinner for two with wine, about $50.)

Marseille is the birthplace of bouillabaisse (French for "boil down"), and a handful of purist restaurants take the matter very seriously. The thick fisherman's soup, according to Michel, the grandson of the original owner of Restaurant Michel, (7) 6, rue des Catalans, (33-4) 91.52.30.63, must contain the original four types of rockfish that live among the crags by the shore here and are hard to catch, which accounts, I guess, for the exorbitant cost. Dressed in pressed jeans and a fisherman's cap, Michel greets customers at the door of the restaurant, perched on the corniche with a view of the old harbor. (In order not to distract there is no music and the room is well lighted.) The formally dressed waiters present the raw fish on ice and give etiquette tips on consuming the stew. (It's considered déclassé to share the giant portions, so save yourself the disparaging looks from Michel and don't even try it.) Bouillabaisse for two ($135), grilled calamari appetizer ($25) and a bottle of Domaine Ott rosé ($74) and a bottle of water came to $234.

On the Old Port, much of which was rebuilt after bombs destroyed many buildings during World War II, is Le Crystal, (8) 148, quai du Port, (33-4) 91.91.57.96, where members of a burgeoning film industry can be found lunching in the afternoon sun on 1940's red vinyl banquettes shaded by bamboo fronds and potted palms. (Lunch for two with wine $45.)

WHAT TO DO DURING THE DAY The streets are a pop culture aficionado's dream. Old colonial buildings with chipped wooden shutters are mixed with storefronts covered with 3-D graffiti murals (the latest trend in tagging here) signs from the 60's and 70's, groovy midcentury high rises and old dive bars with unrenovated interiors that would make trendy boutique hotel designers swoon. (My favorite was ne called Le Source, in the red light district around the opera, with gold-painted silhouettes of busty women that looked like vintage Russ Meyer.)

Friche la Belle de Mai, (9) 41, rue Jobin 13003, (33-4) 95.04.95.04, is a government-sponsored artist squatters' building in a converted tobacco factory by the train tracks 10 minutes by cab from the city center. Wander the art-covered corridors - if you want to tag, and evidently many do, you can buy a marker for $3.50 at Sound Kartel, 2, rue Berlioz, (33-4) 91.47.98.49 - and the cavernous exhibition spaces. There's also a nomadic cafe set up in the parking lot on a flatbed truck with tarps and corrugated aluminum siding.

For a late afternoon sugar fix, hit Plauchut, (10) 168, la Canebière, (33-4) 91.48.06.67, a patisserie that opened in 1820, with inlaid ceilings painted with angels, gold vines and clouds. The obscenely decadent tarte au poires Bourdalou, a pear tart with a meringue topping, is eight inches high.

WHAT TO DO AT NIGHT The trendies hang out in the open-air bars on the Old Port like Bar de la Marine, (11) 15, quai de Rive Neuve, (33-4) 91.54.95.42, with a jumped-up D.J. But the Cours Julien area, anchored by a park with laurel, cypress and olive trees and groups hanging out on benches, is the best sample of Marseille's youthful street culture.

At Le Rosly, (12) 47, cours Julien, (33-4) 91.42.59.46, sip a pint of beer at a table outside. For live music Au Café Julien, (13) 39, cours Julien, (33-4) 91.53.25.89, is where dancehall artists rap to D.J.'s spinning "Smells Like Teen Spirit." The pocket-size Balthazar, 14 3, place Paul Cézanne, (33-4) 91.42.59.57, has local and touring acts performing such cross-cultural genres as Brazilian reggae and Cape Verdian ragga.

Most bars and clubs close at 2 a.m., but there are a handful of after-hours bars including L'Art haché, (15) 14, rue de l'Olivier, (33-4) 96.12.45.89. Marked by a battered metal door, the speakeasy-like basement has lots of chairs, cold beer and an eccentric cast of characters that gets stranger as the night wears on; open midnight to 6 a.m.

WHERE TO SHOP The crop of young, local fashion designers and their one-of-a-kind creations can be found at Palma, (16) 10, rue Corneille; (33-4) 91.33.76.58. The two young designers at Pomponette, (17) 2, rue Breteuil, (33-4) 91.53.34.26, stitch up women's fashions like tulle prairie skirts and tunics on sewing machines behind the counter.

In the souklike African market district L'Univers Aliemelaire, (18) 36, rue d'Aubagne, sells everything from two-foot-high hookah pipes, loose tea and Marseille's famous square soap bars.

YOUR FIRST VISIT OR YOUR 10TH Hire a taxi, roll down the windows and breeze along the rocky, galactic-looking coast up the Corniche Président Kennedy (where Hitchcock shot many of his famed South of France road scenes). Laze away the afternoon at Les Goudes, (19) a fishing village where a rocky path leads to la Baie des Singes, Les Goudes, (33- 4) 91.73.68.87, a family-run restaurant tucked into a jagged cove where groups at long tables on the terrace feast on bouillabaisse ($55) and fresh daurade ($27). Afterward dive in the clear Mediterranean, sunbathe on the rocks, and watch the fishing boats putt slowly past.

HOW TO GET THERE From Paris the high-speed T.G.V. covers the 417 miles in only three hours, with stress-free views of Provence and the changing terrain ($74 round trip advance purchase; several trains per day). Air France runs hourly shuttles from Orly and several flights daily from Charles de Gaulle (each $144 if bought in advance) The least expensive round-trip flight from New York in early September, was on Lufthansa out of Kennedy International via Frankfurt (and back via Munich), for $555.

GETTING AROUND The old part of the city, the most interesting, is best seen on foot. But it's hilly with lots of steps, which explains why the locals favor sneakers and flip-flops (high heels are a bad idea). Taxis are expensive but recommended late at night when the streets are empty, and in certain neighborhoods, potentially dangerous.

url: http://travel.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/travel/14going.html?ei=5070&en=3b82bac4cfe700db&ex=1166763600&pagewanted=print

January 26, 2007
My City
Queens Now Has Less Feta, More Jellyfish
By WILLIAM GRIMES

LIKE most New York immigrant stories, mine started with a long trip, a small apartment in a humble neighborhood and hope for a better life. Sure enough, I graduated from the little apartment to a bigger one, and then a house. I got a better job and a better life. But 27 years later, the neighborhood remains the same: Astoria, Queens.

Try as I might, I cannot think of a good reason to leave. From the Manhattan perspective, Astoria makes some sense because it is, after all, only a few short subway stops from Bloomingdale’s. If you cannot afford Manhattan, well, Astoria — like Park Slope, Sunnyside, Cobble Hill and all the rest of the runner-up darlings of the real-estate pages — qualifies as a fallback position.

But that’s not how I see it. For me, Astoria is not a satellite of Manhattan, it’s the gateway to Queens, a jumping-off point for the borough that, when it comes to ethnic diversity, knows no equal. For me this is not an abstract demographic issue. It is as real as the food on my plate.

As Astoria has changed, and along with it the rest of Queens, my feeding habits have too, never more so than in the last couple of years. Three years ago I stepped down as The Times’s restaurant critic and re-entered civilian life. Gone were the days of lavish Manhattan meals paid for by my employer. I rediscovered my own kitchen and, at the same time, my own neighborhood. The parasitic life of being fed by others was over. My wife, Nancy, and I were hunter-gatherers again. But the terrain had changed.

In 1980, when my rent was $250 a month, Astoria was heavily Greek and Italian. Broadway, my nearest shopping street, abounded in Italian delicatessens and Greek butchers who hung hairy goat carcasses and fuzzy rabbits in the window. Their number has dwindled with the years. A Swiss butcher named René operated a truly anomalous store, a French-style boucherie. His ancient, white-haired mother sat at the cash register and took the money. René, who looked like an enormous slab of meat, took my orders for, say, noisette of pork, without raising an eyebrow. Alas, René is long gone, as is Walken’s Bakery a few doors away, owned by the family of the actor Christopher Walken.

Other ethnic surprises survive. Although the original owner has retired, Astoria Meat Products continues to sell Eastern European sausages, breads and jams. Big chunks of double-smoked bacon and plump, garlicky kielbasa hang from steel rods overhead. On weekends, when the mood strikes, I still drop by and pick up half a smoked, glazed ham.

The Italians are almost all gone, and many of the Greeks have moved on too. The demise of my favorite Greek deli had one fortunate consequence, though. It led me to Titan Foods, a supermarket that draws Greek shoppers from miles around. This is the place for olives — nearly 20 varieties displayed in big steel cylinders — and for feta cheese in every gradation, from crumbly, salty Greek styles to smoother, milder fetas from Bulgaria. It is almost shocking to report that the French make feta too, the creamiest of all.

The real prize in the deli case at Titan is home-made yogurt, thick, tangy and rich, a different species entirely from the standard grocery store brands. Titan sells the standard Greek pastries from a bakery counter, but I go either to Omonia Cafe, on Broadway, where the phyllo-topped custard is so good that I finally asked the woman behind the counter to pronounce it for me so I could order it by name. It’s: galaktoboreko (guh-lock-tuh-BORE-ee-ko). The baklava is also first-rate — packed with finely chopped nuts, well-seasoned and not too goopy — but there’s an even better version at a hole-in-the-wall on 31st Avenue: Thessalikon Pastry Shop, a caterer that sells its wares, often grudgingly, by the tray.

Let us not romanticize the Greek restaurants of Astoria. For some reason, many a food writer, charmed by the neighborhood, has gone weak in the knees over steam-table moussaka, rubbery fried calamari and greasy lamb shanks. Greek cuisine does not, even at its best, ascend to great heights. For a time, Elias Corner on 31st Street enjoyed a cult reputation that utterly mystified me. It is an estiatorio, a type of restaurant in which customers approach a fish counter, point to their choice and pay by the pound. The fish is painted with some olive oil, strewn with a few herbs and grilled. That’s it.

For some reason, this formula besotted New York for several years, even though rank amateurs could produce the same results at home. I much prefer the five-year-old Agnanti, at the upper end of the neighborhood near Astoria Park, which offers unusual regional dishes like ntaka, a Cretan bread salad, and mustard-dipped shrimp kataifi.

Astoria without Greeks is unthinkable. It is the home not only of Socrates Sculpture Park but also of Socrates Realty and Athena’s nail salon. But in my end of the neighborhood, near the 36th Avenue el stop, the ethnic swirl has brought Bangladeshis, Colombians, Brazilians and Mexicans.

On summer nights, unpredictably, a Bangladeshi vegetable vendor occasionally turns up, his cart heaped high with Asian vegetables sold by no one else. Asian sari shops, sweet shops and grocery stores now line 36th Avenue, along with a video store that brightens the street with its showings of Bollywood musicals on a flat-screen television. On Broadway, one stop north on the N Line, Mexican taquerias flank the off-track betting parlor.

At the far end of the neighborhood, immigrants from Egypt and North Africa have remade a desolate stretch of Steinway Street into a lively boulevard lined with restaurants, hookah cafes and bakeries.

So much for home base. Queens is vast. Over the decades, my explorer’s compass has pointed in wildly different directions. For a while, a Gujarati restaurant in Elmhurst had my full attention, until it burned down. Ping’s and Joe’s Shanghai in Elmhurst also enjoyed my favor. In Woodside, La Flor Bakery and Cafe sells sublime $4 fruit tarts that require two diners to finish them off. My thoughts often turn to them in idle hours.

But Flushing is now my north star. Over the years, an area once in sorry decline has evolved into a pulsating Chinese and Korean neighborhood and a food-lover’s paradise. This is not new news, but it took me a while to catch up. My culinary life has been transformed by the Gold City Supermarket on Kissena Boulevard, a huge, high-energy store, half of it devoted to a dazzling selection of imported sauces, condiments and dried and frozen foods, the other half to produce and meat departments that boggle the mind.

It pays to do some homework before visiting. Although prices are posted, all signs are in Chinese characters. Bruce Cost’s classic “Asian Ingredients” (Morrow Cookbooks) or Huang Su-Huei’s well-illustrated “Chinese Cuisine” (Wei-Chuan) can serve as guides to the aisles stacked with exotic barbecue sauces, light and dark Chinese soy sauces and small treasures like pickled mustard cabbage.

The fish counter is dramatic. I once saw an eel make a break for freedom, slithering across the produce-department floor. Customers like to pick out a live fish, which an impassive fishmonger holds aloft, flopping in a net. A quick whack from a wooden mallet, and the performance is over.

The post-shopping reward is just a few doors away, at the Fay Da Bakery. This is a chain with two outlets in Chinatown and six others scattered across the city. Patrons take a tray, grab a pair of tongs and load up on steamed and fried buns, both savory and sweet. Some are both at once, like a chewy, sticky-rice bun that looks like a honey-dip doughnut outside but inside contains pork bits swimming in a rich gravy.

Then it’s on to downtown Flushing and the J&L Mall. Flushing abounds in monster Chinese restaurants that do a bonanza dim-sum business. But hidden in nooks and corners are tiny stands that offer outstanding bargains. My consigliere in these matters is Harley Spiller, a relentless Chinese-food detective who occasionally sends out field reports to his friends. The “mall” is nothing more than a corridor on Main Street lined by rows of snack stands and lunch counters. Little or no English is spoken, so non-Chinese customers adapt. Finger pointing and basic business terms like “two” or “three” work fine. The stall owners, in my experience, are friendly, accommodating and intrigued to see a non-Chinese customer.

Halfway down the aisle, on the left, a bun stall turns out a variety of large steamed and baked buns at a dollar or two apiece. The best is a crepelike envelope of soft dough encasing chopped chives, egg and glass noodles. A close cousin, which came hot from the oven on my most recent visit, was a big ball of pillowy steamed bread dough filled with egg, glass noodle, chopped Chinese leeks and tiny dried shrimp.

At the entrance of the mall, to the right, the buns come three for a dollar. The staple items are small steamed buns with beef or pork filling, but you can also find sweet fried doughnuts accented with scallion, or sticky rice snacks with a meat and mushroom center. These are steamed in a bamboo leaf and then tied up in a neat package.

At the back of the mall, spicy Szechuan vegetable dishes are sold from a counter by weight. There are about a dozen choices. I picked four at random on my last visit: long strands of pickled seaweed; cabbage and peppercorns in a fragrant, winey pickling broth; cubes of amber, firm tofu with peanuts and sesame seed; and pickled long beans, chopped into tiny slices and tossed with red-pepper flakes.

Flushing may occupy me for a while. There’s another mall just a couple of blocks down Main Street, the Golden Shopping Mall, that merits investigation. And even more seductive is the strangely named Waterfront International Enterprises, a restaurant specializing in the cuisine of northeastern China. It’s cold-weather food, heavily reliant on hearty soups and stews. Grilled whole jellyfish, evidently, is the traditional way to start the meal. Count me in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/arts/26city.html?pagewanted=all