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Flushing's Chinatown

Discover a variety of Chinese (and Korean, etc) food on Main St, Flushing - last stop on the #7 Subway line. This is the second Chinatown in NYC, probably because downtown NYC was not big enough to hold all these new restaurants.

Good references: NYTimes Flushing Interactive graphic which also has a nice printout to take when visiting, and which links to the main article, which also has more tips from the readers in the article's comments section. A later article describes Dongbei cai, or the food of the Northeast, the area was known earlier as Manchuria.

The absolutely great things in this area: Sichuan food - spicy-hot with tongue-numbing Sichuan pepper experience, awesome lamb burgers with cumin and green chilies (in the Golden Mall, a collection of food joints in the basement off Main St - details in the NYT article), peking duck in snack form on a small pancake (fantastic Peking Duck, and sold at a window in a restaurant on the street), all sorts of dumplings, and the street stalls with $1 skewers of grilled spiced-meat ("Mongolian Barbecue?"). Finish off with bubble tea. And if you want to avoid eating out on the street, visit the Food Court in the Flushing Mall which has most of the similar foods.

Best items here?
1. Xi'an Famous Foods at 41-28 Main St Golden Mall Booth #36. It is confusing to find, enter the basement mall, take the left, cross two/three food booths, take a right, and this place on the left, probably the second/third store on the left. Just follow your nose and look for the sandwiches - their web site has pictures of their food. [Sep 2009] They have opened up a stall in the food court in the Flushing Mall. [Nov 2011] No more - the Flushing Mall location seems no more.