Twice a year, Chinatown in NYC holds “Taste of Chinatown”: Roughly fifty participating restaurants set up outdoor tables directly infront of their respective locations and sell mini-portions of various foods for $1 or $2.

I’ve only attended once before and I can tell the food offered is becoming homogenized. It reminded me of that Simpsons episode where Marge and Homer go to the South Street Squid Port and order food from seperate kiosks, but the slabs of steak come from one big, shared vat in the basement.

Most places will offer lo mein, egg rolls and other western ideas of Chinese food. Even the Vietnamese places offered lo mein. I don’t know if this is because a lot of white people show up and they think that’s what white people want. Or if it’s a cost thing and producing those items still yields them good profit. Or if it’s just easier for them to offer those things because they get slammed at the tables. Or it could just be that the restaurants are tired of doing this and don’t want to put the effort in anymore. (I’m always thinking about people’s motivations.)

That’s not to say that it’s not worth going to. And not all of the food is shitty. You can find some really good eats down there. We found roast pork on rice, tea eggs, mochi, shrimp summer rolls, soup dumplings, these stuffed sticky rice deals wrapped in banana leaves, peking duck, bahn mi, beef balls, full pint servings of soup, bubble tea, green papaya salad, curried empanada-type things, seitan on a stick, and more. I’d recommend Taste of Chinatown to everyone except vegetarians.

ChewFood grade: B+
Pros: Cheap, MSG, deep fried, tasting portions, gluttony, rice gluten, Chinese fried chicken wings.
Cons: Crowds, tourists, hard to find good items, hard to find places to pee.