“Haute” Chinese cuisine at Yingtao NYC

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.

Kaia expresses empathy publicly on the subway

On the ride home from school today, there was a woman on the subway who was asking for hygiene items like pads, tampons, lotion, soap, etc. She shared that she had just left her home and an abusive partner, who was so brutal to her that he knocked out several of her front teeth. It was undeniable that she’d been abused and battered just looking at her. Even if you couldn’t see she was missing front teeth, you could clearly tell from her voice that she was likely missing something in her mouth. She said she’d appreciate anything we had to give. I immediately took out all the backup pads, underwear liners, and lotion from my purse and motioned to her to hand these to her. She came over and thanked me profusely, while also looking over at Kaia and saying how sweet and adorable she was.

“You have a blessed child!” the woman said to me.

Kaia started peering over at her as soon as she started talking publicly on the train to tell everyone her situation. She gave her a sad look, then suddenly started raising her voice and shouting, “Why can’t everyone have a chance? Everyone should have a chance! EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE A CHANCE!”

I want to assume that Kaia somewhat understood what was happening here, that she could tell this woman was not in a good place and that she truly did need help. But when Pookster started shouting these words at the top of her lungs, I was shocked to see that her words actually did match the situation. It was as though, even though my sweet baby is only three years old, she could feel empathy and somewhat understand this situation, that she really felt sorry for this woman and wanted to console. I hope she always exudes empathy for those in need, my sweet Pookster.

Kids events in NYC – plenty are free, as long as you keep track and jump on them!

One of the greatest things about living in New York City and raising kids is the fact that there are endless playgrounds and kid-related activities — as long as you do the research, know where to look, and also jump on events quickly! Most of the free or low-cost events are, predictably, very high in demand and popular, so for you to get tickets to these events will require you to be on all the email or text lists and to act on them almost immediately. In the last couple of years, I’d been more on top of keeping up with Lincoln Center free or low cost events for Kaia in mind, but this year, I haven’t been as good about checking their website and opening all their emails in a timely manner. My friend, who has a child who is a similar age to Kaia, told me today that there was a new Beethoven kids event at the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center for May that he and his wife would be interested in taking their toddler to, and asked if I’d be interested. I saw that there was a steep processing fee to book the tickets online, so I called the venue to ask if I could go to the box office to get around the processing fees. She told me that I could actually forgo the processing fees if I just booked with her on the phone right there. But I wasn’t sure if my friend had a specific time in mind, or if he had purchased their tickets yet. So I asked her how many tickets were remaining. Well, the seating that my friend originally wanted had only TWO tickets left (there are five of us!), and the seating before had five left, which would have been an exact fit. The first performance of the day at 11am had already sold out. And this event had just been socialized the day before!

I ended up booking all five of our tickets for the 1pm showing on that May date. But it just goes to show how quick anything that is both kid-related and low-cost/free will go here in New York City. There’s always seemingly someone else who is more click-happy than you are!

Cool moms and their kids who think they’re cool enough to go out with

The other day, I was on the train bringing Kaia home from school when we sat diagonally across from an older mom and her teenage daughter. Kaia was being cheeky as per usual, so when she found out that I hadn’t packed any mandarins for her (her usual train snack, which she clearly now just expects), she got annoyed and kept turning away from me. At one point, she even tried to leave her seat next to me to go to another seat. The mom and her daughter were watching us, and the mom gave me a sympathetic look.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but that wasn’t too long ago for me!” she exclaimed with a smile. “And that little rebellion doesn’t end at that age, either!”

When Kaia realized she was getting attention from this mom and her daughter, she coyly walked back and started smiling and giggling at them. She got back on the seat next to me and kept turning towards them.

They both explained that they were headed to the teenage daughter’s very first concert. The mom was nervous, so she didn’t want her daughter going without her with just friends. I asked if friends would be joining them at the venue new Rockefeller Center, and the daughter said, “No, it’s just my mom and me!”

I marveled at this and said this to them. “Wow, your first concert is going to be with your mom! I hope that when my daughter is your age that she thinks I’m cool enough to go with her to a concert, and without any friends coming along!”

They both laughed. “I do try!” the mom said, wrapping her arm around her daughter’s shoulders.

I really did mean that, though. I do hope that when Kaia is a teen that we don’t have that stereotypical teenage angst-filled love-hate relationship with each other. I hope she knows she can lean on me and tell me anything, and that she thinks I’m “cool” enough to be seen with her in public, even to attend concerts and shows with. I hope that really does happen.

Krob Kreung Krob Ros for Thai food in Astoria, Queens

I am pretty certain that New York City is the most diverse city in the entire freaking world. The number of languages that are spoken here, especially in Queens, is somewhere as high as 800, the diversity of the socioeconomic demographics is vast, and the variety of cuisines across all its restaurants is likely unsurpassed in the entire world. Of course, that’s my unscientific, no-data backed opinion, but I know that when and if we leave New York City one day, I will be very sad to say goodbye to this diversity in every sense of the word.

Today, during our Saturday food crawl, we were in Astoria, Queens, where we had lunch at Krob Kreung Krob Ros. The name signifies the perfect balance of Thai flavors: sour, sweet, creamy, and salty. The owners opened this spot for those who miss authentic flavors of home-cooked Thai meals, and for those seeking genuine Thai cuisine. So many of the dishes on the menu were things I’d either never seen before or had seen quite sparingly, even across Queens Thai restaurants, which are already quite representative of authentic Thai cuisine. We had tod mun hua plee, or banana blossoms tossed in a red curry and fried into fritters, and a pik kai tod kra thiam, which were fried marinated chicken wings with fried garlic that were unlike any other chicken wings I’d had in my life. The banana blossoms were crunchy on the outside and deliciously meaty inside. The fried chicken wings had a really thin, crunchy breading that was deeply satisfying to bite into. One particularly notable dish was the som tam tod, a friend papaya and carrot salad. The papaya and carrot pieces come out coated in a deep fried batter, and you take each piece by hand and dip it into the sweet, sour, salty lime-based dressing. We had definitely never had that before! We probably overdid it with the fried items, but they were all so unique and different from even the Thai food we usually order that is not pad thai or red curry.

I also really enjoyed the khao hor bai bua siam, the lotus leaf wrapped sticky rice with sweet pork sausage, scallop, jumbo shrimp, shiitake mushroom, salted egg yolk, and cilantro. The rice had a really nice, savory, meaty flavor, and it was really fragrant from being steamed in the lotus leaf. It reminded me of the Thai take of zongzi, or Chinese tamales.

Little gems like Krob Kreung Krob Ros is why I love New York City so much; just when you think you might be tired of it here, a new interesting, homely restaurant opens up to wow your senses and taste buds.

Catchup at Paper Sons Cafe

Since Kaia is going to school in Manhattan Chinatown, it means I have more reasons to be down there and explore new cafes, bakeries, and restaurants. And since I have a work perk that enables me access to coworking spaces throughout the city four times a month, my goal is to work in the area about once a week to get some space from the apartment, and also explore the area. It’s also a good opportunity for me to catch up with friends who have flexible schedules and could meet for a coffee or lunch during the week.

Paper Sons Cafe opened last summer. I came here this afternoon for matcha lattes and a catchup with a friend. The name of the cafe immediately brought a smile to my face when I found out about them via the Welcome to Chinatown Instagram handle because it reminded me of all the stories of “paper sons” in my childhood. My uncles, aunts, and grandma would talk about how they needed someone to come to the U.S. from China, so they’d pretend that so-and-so was their “paper son” or “paper daughter,” and then they’d have the ability to come over. Back when I was a young child, I had no idea about the complexities of immigration, nor did I understand the need to fake one’s family lineage for the sake of immigration. But now as an adult, I do enjoy hearing these stories of sacrifices that families made for their other loved one’s families in hopes of giving the next generation a better life.

The sad thing, though, about a “better life” in the U.S. today, is that I am honestly not quite so sure it really is a better life anymore. The cost of living is rising like crazy, where even a household of two working professionals cannot seem to afford a home easily without their parents’ help. The quality of schools here is poor when you compare our achievements stats to other westernized countries. The sheer intelligence of our population is declining, as made evident when you hear how few people here can read beyond a sixth grade level. And that’s before you even mention the normalizing of gun violence and prioritizing gun ownership over the safety of children. I am not sure that the country the U.S. today is the same country my paternal grandparents would have been happy to immigrate to.

A replaced fridge and a cracked bamboo kitchen floor

Last week, we had an incident where the fridge just stopped working. Luckily, we were home and caught it in time, so none of our food went bad. We live in a luxury rental building, so they replaced the fridge with a spare within the same day. Unfortunately, these refrigerators are so heavy that when the handyman and the porter were moving it, they lost balance and a corner of the fridge slammed down pretty hard on our kitchen floor, resulting in a big hole in one of the bamboo floor boards. They told us they would replace it. Well… they definitely took their time on this. They said someone would come today, and alas, the handyman never showed up. The hole is in a really awkward area where we’d inevitably need to step while getting in and out of the kitchen.

The great thing about renting and not owning is that we aren’t responsible for sourcing or paying for help ourselves directly, nor are we responsible for the costs or replacements of things like the fridge or bamboo floor boards. The annoying thing about renting is that you are really operating at the whim of your landlord or building management, and when they drag their feet on things, you literally just have to wait.

Reading to escape the dregs of the work world

Pretty much everything about work has been annoying me. Sometimes, I am sitting there doing work, wondering why no one is responding to me when something has been declared “urgent.” I have some difficult customers who seem to think they are the perfect customers and that nothing should change (you’ve really gotta love the growth mindset there). I also have some colleagues that have been really making work unpleasant, from the suck-ups to the full-blown gaslighting assholes. So in general, once I can sign off for the day the last two weeks, I’ve been pretty happy. It’s in these moments of frustration that I am so, so grateful that I am 100 percent remote, that I don’t have to go to an office every day and see people I generally dislike.

In the evenings once Kaia has gone to bed, I’ve been escaping the current annoying work world to read a book. This week, I finally started my much awaited (and very long – over 700 pages!) book by Abraham Verghese called The Covenant of Water; the book was released in 2023, and I immediately knew I wanted to read it because Verghese’s first and only other novel, Cutting for Stone, is likely one of my all-time favorite books. There is something really satisfying about setting aside the annoying world around you, as in, one’s reality, and just living inside a really well written and researched book with complex characters and interesting challenges. I read a lot as a child because frankly, it’s not like my parents gave me much else to do. But now as an adult, I read for fun, for education, and for another-world adventure. And I’m so happy that Kaia has still been embracing reading as she’s gotten older.

Tea preparation: the good vs. the bad

On Friday during lunch time, I took a break from my coworking space to head over to Matcha Cafe Maiko, a matcha spot close to Kaia’s school that I’ve been meaning to try. I ordered their cold matcha latte with cheese foam. It was carefully whisked with perfectly measured out matcha powder. It was sweetened to 50 percent as I requested. And when I had my first sip, I was obsessed. Was it expensive at $7.62 (that includes tax)? Yes. But I could see the entire process of the drink being made meticulously, and I knew the quality of the ingredients were high. So while it’s an indulgent treat to pay this much for tea, it’s an occasional indulgence I like to have because I think it’s worth it.

Let’s contrast that with Poppy’s Cafe on Henry Street in Brooklyn, where we did our Saturday food crawl this weekend. We popped in there after we had lunch, and Chris suggested we get a hojicha to go. He ordered it and asked for some whole milk in it. Then less than two minutes later, the guy at the cash register says, “Your tea is ready!”

That’s odd, I thought in my head as Chris took the tea. How could it already be done so quickly? Chris took one sip of it as we left the small cafe and told me it tasted weak. I sipped it and felt annoyed immediately. “This wasn’t steeped properly!” I said to him. I took a peek inside the cup under the lid to see that it was a hojicha tea bag that was just steeped in water. They probably dripped in a little whole milk before the bag had the time to steep properly and didn’t really care; they just wanted us to get our drink and get out.

Tea from a good tea bag can still be good if it’s steeped properly and for the adequate amount of time. I almost exclusively only drink loose leaf tea now. The only exceptions to that are when I’m not at home, or if I’m having Dilmah tea bags or powdered tea (matcha or hojicha). But here, they clearly did not care and just added water to a to-go cup, dropped the tea bag in, added some hot water, clamped on the lid, and handed it over. I wasn’t necessarily expecting a hojicha latte made with hojicha powder (which wasn’t an option, and wasn’t what Chris ordered, anyway), but this was just a disrespect to tea and tea preparation in general. Tea is oftentimes misunderstood and thus not prepared properly by a lot of people, but in this case, you’d expect more from a semi trendy cafe on Henry Street in Brooklyn. Just for this, I’d be highly unlikely to patronize this spot ever again.

Manhattan Chinatown in the morning: when everything comes alive, and you tiao (油条) can be discovered made fresh

I dropped Kaia off at school this morning since I had a 5pm work call that I couldn’t get out of, so Chris picked her up today. Since it’s technically mid-winter recess in New York City this week, kids who are opted in (and paying for) after-school hours can still attend school this week, just that the hours are slightly shorter. Drop-off this week is at 9am (instead of 8:30), and pickup can be no later than 5pm (it’s usually 6pm, but I usually try to pick up between 5-5:10).

Chris has said he prefers doing morning drop off and has gotten into a routine of it. When I have suggested in the past that he make use of that morning drop off time by buying some groceries and baked goods, he’s brushed it off, insisting he doesn’t have time and has a pseudo morning work schedule he has to adhere to. To be fair, he doesn’t really care to explore different shops in Chinatown the way I do, so it’s better that I do these things during the occasional times I do morning drop off. Like any decent sized Chinatown, the real life and energy of Manhattan Chinatown starts early in the morning, when all the produce and meats are getting delivered, when all the bakeries are churning out all their buns and breads and sweets fresh. The really good bakeries open as early as 8am; the shops tend to open around 9. This is the best time to come down here and buy all the freshly made staples for cooking Chinese food at home, such as freshly churned out and steaming hot rice noodles, fresh pressed tofu in endless forms, seitan, and soy milk. By the time I come between 4:30-5pm for school pickup, most of the best stuff has already sold out completely, or they’ve been sitting there, waiting to be purchased all day.

This morning, we arrived in Chinatown a bit early, so I decided to take Kaia into one of my favorite fresh food shops to pick up some things for cooking in the next week. This brought us to Kong Kee Food Corp, which is just a block over from her school. I discovered this spot maybe 10-ish years ago: they make fresh tofu and seitan in endless forms, as well as fresh rice noodles, herbal tea, and soy milk. They distribute to a lot of local supermarkets and restaurants. If you come early in the morning, they have stir fried noodles and rice noodle soup for breakfast that you can carry out. When we arrived, there were already some older ladies who were coming in to purchase breakfast noodles to go. A worker in the back was sitting at a table hand cutting noodles in bulk. Kaia curiously wandered around, looking at all the items in the glass cases and peering up at the female workers. She started giggling when one of them gave her attention; the woman behind the counter was so besotted by her that she took a package of fruit snacks and dangled them out as a gift for her. “So cute!” the woman kept exclaiming.

When I come in to Kong Kee, the items I get the most often are the pressed and five-spiced pressed tofu. I have also previously purchased and enjoyed their fresh rice noodles, which are cut thinly almost like pho noodles, thicker like ho fun/he fun (chow fun noodles), and also in huge sheets for large rice noodle rolls. I’ve also gotten their seitan and enjoyed it. This time, I purchased some seitan (kao fu), five spice pressed tofu as repeat buys. For new items to try, I finally got two sticks of you tiao (the Chinese donut crullers I wanted for jook at home), as morning is the best time to buy these sticks. I also chose a large container of their soy milk. They added some sugar at my request.

Well, according to the Shanghai saying, I already purchased two of the four warriors for Shanghainese breakfast – “四大金刚” Sìdà Jīngāng. The classic Shanghainese brekkie, heavy on the carbs of course, would be these four items: you tiao / Chinese donut stick, ci fan (pressed rice roll), shao bing (Shanghainese flat flaky sesame pancake), and fresh hot soy milk. I can’t wait to have my you tiao later! It’s the first time I’ve ever purchased these sticks whole anywhere in New York City!

When I look at whole long you tiao sticks in Chinese bakeries and food shops, I am reminded of the time shortly after my grandma passed when my mom made a big pot of jook. It was always a treat when we’d have jook at home and also have you tiao to dip into it. The textural contrast between the crisp chewiness of the you tiao against the soft creaminess of the jook was always so comforting and satisfying. My grandma would occasionally buy a bag of these freshly fried sticks from a local bakery, and when we’d have jook at the table, it would be a happy surprise when she’d lay out a plate of the you tiao, already neatly cut into bite sized pieces for us to dunk into our jook bowls. But it was always my grandma who bought them; we never knew what they were even called in Chinese then, and we didn’t know which bakeries to buy them from.

So one day, my mom was determined to resolve this issue. She said we would go out together searching and would find those donut sticks! My mom and I wandered around Clement Street (like San Francisco Richmond District’s mini Chinatown) and went bakery to bakery, peering in to see if anyone sold them. We used our broken Toisan to ask around, but we kept getting negative responses; none of these places made this donut stick. Finally, we got to a bakery off of 6th avenue that had them way in the back, in a big metal bin, all standing upright and tall, waiting to be purchased. We pointed passed the cashier guy and motioned towards the you tiao, and they got excited to have helped us solve our mystery of what it was that we were looking for. In Mandarin, you tiao are literally called “oil sticks/strips,” while in Cantonese, they are known as “oil fried ghosts” or yàuhjagwái. Since then, I’ve never forgotten the name of them. And since then, I’ve also learned that these delicious fried Chinese donut sticks are eaten not just with jook/congee, but also wrapped in fresh rice noodle rolls (a dim sum delight), tucked into Shanghainese shao bing pancakes, and simply ducked into hot soy milk and eaten.

Memories with food are usually the happiest memories from my childhood, but I don’t think that’s unique to me based on all the childhood stories I’ve heard over the years.