One huge benefit of having Kaia at a Chinatown-based school, as Chris mentioned when we enrolled Kaia in her current school, is that it gives me an opportunity to further explore businesses that are in this general area. Since I now have four coworking space passes to use each month, I am taking advantage of them and working down here about once a week. On these days, I do school dropoff and pickup, and I also try to meet up with friends who are flexible enough for either lunch or coffee/dessert. If that doesn’t work out, it’s still an opportunity for me to be in the area and try new businesses that are on my list.

Today, none of my friends were available to meet up, so I ended up going on my own during lunch time to check out some new businesses. Originally, I attempted to go to a pop-up onigiri stand in SoHo, but when I arrived, I realized that the pop-up… was no more. The entire building was locked. That was fun to find out.

Then, I went to a relatively new Korean spot called Lululala on Hester Street. Their logo is “Finding happiness in little bowls.” They make relatively inexpensive Korean style rice bowls, kimbap, and different types of banchan. I got a beef kimbap roll, which was quite generous at 12 large pieces for $9. I was pretty satisfied with my purchase, especially since I haven’t had kimbap in ages.

I also went to pick up soy milk from Fong On, and on my way back to the coworking space, I also went to an OG Chinese bakery called Ka Wah on Eldridge. Unfortunately, this bakery was a miss: I knew it was grungy and super no frills going into it, as I had originally learned about it in a Manhattan Chinatown Reddit thread. But the lao po bing (old wife cake/winter melon cake) I got had a crust that was too thick, without much actual winter melon filling (that’s the whole point…). The outside pastry wasn’t very flaky and was quite dry. I also picked up a large sponge cake as a treat for Kaia, but until I get home and let her try it, I won’t actually know how good it is. Either way, there are several other reliable Chinese-style sponge cake spots I like for other items in Chinatown, such as Kam Hing Coffee Shop (the original), Spongie’s (spun off by a former employee at Kam Hing), Double Crispy (they rarely go wrong on anything), and Manna House, so I have other places I can rely on for this that also have more variety.

You win some, and you lose some. I am getting through my massive bookmarks list down here, though, which is only growing since more and more new places keep opening!

When I first moved to New York in June 2008, it took me a while to get my bearings here. I had to figure out what my staple spots for go-to dishes would be. One of those “go-to” meals had to be a banh mi, which is the best damn sandwich in the world. There is no one who could possibly convince me otherwise. The ideal banh mi consists of a crisp but soft, airy, feathery light baguette stuffed with various cold cuts, head cheese, cha lua; it is accompanied with thick layers of pork/chicken based pate, house-made mayonnaise, chilies, fresh cilantro, and pickled daikon and carrot, and there you the best sandwich in the entire freaking world. It has all the key flavor elements and textures: savory, salty, sweet, sour, crispy, crunchy, creamy, soft, airy. My mouth is watering just writing all these adjectives out.

I tried a few reputed banh mi spots in Manhattan. They all fell flat. I kind of gave up hope until I really went down a Google rabbit hole and started looking in other Asian areas outside of Manhattan. And then, in the winter of 2008-2009, I found what I later found out would be my go-to banh mi in all of New York City, if not all of the U.S.: It was at Ba Xuyen right on the edge of Brooklyn Chinatown out in Sunset Park. It was over an hour subway ride from where I had lived then, in Elmhurst, but it was love at first bite and worth every minute of that long commute. My loyalty to this banh mi has never swayed while living here in New York. While some spots like Banh Mi Co Ut in Manhattan Chinatown and Joju (in Elmhurst, Midtown East, and now Upper East Side, which by the way, consciously modeled their baguette after Ba Xuyen) have come close, they haven’t quite hit the same mark that Ba Xuyen does. And just to add to Ba Xuyen’s state of incredible is that they have consistently always made the most delicious durian, jackfruit, papaya, and other fruit smoothies, along with excellent Vietnamese style iced coffee; they make their own perfect cha lua (which I ALWAYS buy when I go there to stock my freezer), and endless seasonal/timely Vietnamese snacks, such as banh da lon (Vietnamese mung bean and pandan layer cake), banh it tran (savory glutinous rice balls filled with pork, mung bean, and shrimp), banh beo (mini rice cakes topped with shrimp), amongst many other Vietnamese bakery delights that were originally snacks and meals fit for Vietnamese royalty. If you get there early enough, all their snacks are still steaming hot upon purchase as they are freshly made.

I introduced Chris to Ba Xuyen within the first year of our relationship. Of course, he was immediately hooked and silently (through eating) agreed that my declaration that this was the best New York City banh mi was, in fact, correct. He even dragged his parents out to Sunset Park for Ba Xuyen banh mi at least twice, once without my even being there last year! I’ve been a huge supporter of Ba Xuyen and will sing their praises to literally anyone who is even remotely into Vietnamese food or banh mi. It’s crazy to think how far I’ve come in my 16-year long relationship with them. Back in February 2009, which I think is when I first had them, the banh mi was only $3.75. I have no idea how they operated with such low prices back then. Today, their special banh mi (#1) is $8, which is still a total steal given all the crazy inflation we’ve been experiencing. I am happy to say that my relationship with Ba Xuyen has been alive almost as long as I’ve been a NYC resident. And it will continue to be a love that I am quite devoted to. Even now, Kaia is obsessed. When we went today, she initially protested and said she wanted no banh mi. Then of course, as we waited for our sandwiches to be made, she insisted on standing to wait with me. And finally, when the banh mi were ready to eat, she dug in and demanded more meat and bread! She is definitely part of our Ba Xuyen loving banh mi family.

Last night, Chris and I went out for an early nine-year wedding anniversary celebration at Yingtao NYC. The restaurant is a short walk from our building, and I was aware of it since even before it opened. Given it’s in our neighborhood, when I would go on walks during the day, I immediately noticed the stylized Chinese writing spelling out “ying tao” or “cherry” in Chinese. I figured it would be some fine dining establishment only open in the evenings. Yingtao finally opened in December 2023, so it’s been about a year and three months of being in existence. The owner is originally from China and had also lived in New Zealand before coming to California and finally New York for school. The cuisine is clearly Chinese, but with lots of regional influences from Xi’an, Shanghai, Guangdong/Hong Kong, and Sichuan. It’s a bit of Chinese meets European/French/Polish, and the more I read reviews about the place and all the restaurant review write-ups about Yingtao, the more I wanted to finally come here. Since Kaia has been born, we’ve really only gotten a babysitter for comedy or theater, plus two parties. The only time we’ve gotten a babysitter for a meal out has been for my birthday two years ago, and our former nanny looked after Kaia. So this is the first time in ages when we’ve gone out, just the two of us, for a fancy meal. And it most definitely exceeded all expectations and was beyond worth it.

To sit in the dining room of Yingtao, everyone has to opt into their tasting menu, which is 10 courses: three starters/appetizers, four mains, and three desserts. You also have the option to add supplements to certain courses, as well as to add items from the a la carte/bar menu. In addition to our ten courses, we also had an eleventh bonus since Chris shared with the team that it was our anniversary: they gave us a fourth dessert from the bar menu, which was an incredibly rich and moussy ube cheesecake with a red shiso sorbet.

Every course was memorable and well executed, but I will say that the most memorable bites for me were the tuna with black vinegar, giner, and kumquat; the Royal Reds with flavors of “kou shui ji” or “mouth water chicken;” the wagyu with mizune, carrot, and doubanjiang; the snapper with milk broth, doufupi (tofu skins), and goji berries; and the rose with greek yogurt and lychee. The tuna had an interesting sweet-savory-smokey complexity going on, and I figured it must be due to the black vinegar used. When I asked the server what kind of vinegar was in the dish, she immediately presented a 10-year aged bottle of Baoning black vinegar, which I had previously been eyeing on TheMalaMarket.com, as they are the exclusive importer of this vinegar in the U.S. I knew I had to have this vinegar. What most people do not realize about Chinese culinary traditions is that a lot of fermented foods like vinegar take the same love, labor, and intensity as the most well known, respected, and pricey Italian balsamic vinegars. It’s just that most of society is quite prejudiced and has historically respected European food traditions more than Eastern ones. The wagyu was made with a very complex and savory doubanjiang (Sichuan chili bean paste), and no surprise that when I asked to see the paste, the server once again brought out a packaged paste that was also from TheMalaMarket.com, aged three years and also something I had looked at! We also loved the tempranillo wine that Chris ordered, and then were introduced to a taste of a different (and very unique) California grown tempranillo that finally made Chris feel impressed when drinking a U.S.-made wine. It was like a night of learning at Yingtao for the both of us. We left very happy, very full, and with plans for future home purchases to stock our pantry and alcohol reserves.

We took photos of both bottles of wine. I also made a note of the fancy black vinegar and doubanjiang. While I am eager to try these in my own cooking, I cannot help but wonder how they will make my far-cheaper versions of black vinegar and Sichuan doubanjiang at home feel when they get neglected in favor of these fancy, super complex versions. That’s the thing: literally having a taste of finer, nicer things can really ruin all the regular, everyday things for you. If there were just a few words I’d use to sum up this Yingtao dining experience, it would be these: complex, layers and layers of flavor.