dong bei |

This is the final installment of the NYC Eats (with Matt and other friends). I wanted to get this out sooner, but I got a little waylaid by the recently acquired full time j-o-b. So although this meal was eaten almost two weeks ago, its flavors have been seared into my cerebellum and I remember it like it was yesterday… okay maybe like a week ago. What I do remember is that with the exception of one dish (which was merely mediocre) the food was uniformly fresh, intense, full of strong, primary flavors and a whole lot of lamb. We went to a Dong Bei restaurant in Queens called Fu Run. Using a year-old NY Times writeup about the proliferation of Dong Bei Restaurants in Flushing as a guide, we suggested for Matt’s last NYC dinner one of the the recommended restaurants: Northeast Taste Chinese Food (don’t know if that was a direct translation or what). Running late as usual – my fault, as usual – Shefali and I speed-walked from the Flushing subway stop the nine blocks to NTCF where Matt, Alex, Waine had been waiting for about half an hour. Unfortunately, despite it’s super creative name, in the year since the article was published, Northeast Taste had changed ownership and was now a Peking duck restaurant. While, we all love a good Peking duck, were really had our minds and stomachs set on food from former Manchuria so we stopped by another of the four recommended restaurant from the Time’s article, a nearby place called Hong Yi Shun. Yet again – I was starting to sense a pattern here – HYS had transitioned into a different restaurant and while the menu looked appetizing, it didn’t offer quite the dishes we were looking for. The urgency of the situation was rising as I sensed the growing pissed off-ed-ness of everyone including myself due to our lateness and the continued emptiness of our stomachs. We decided to put our faith in the article one last time and headed to a third recommended restaurant, Fu Run which was all the way back where we’d all come from, a block from the subway. After a wrong turn had us panicking that this restaurant was also no longer in existance (what had we done in our previous lives to deserve this karma?), we finally righted ourselves and spotted the large awning and bright windows of the promised land, aka Fu Run. After another nearly interminable wait, during which I kind of lost it – I get emotional when I’m hungry – we were finally seated. And then we ordered. And then we ate. Praise Buddha, did we eat. Take a look for yourself.

: Niels rocks his new Adidas jacket while we wait.

: Waine shows he’s not a happy camper. Matt thinks Waine is funny.

: Peanuts as appetizers. Common in Northern Chinese food. Good chopstick practice

: Matt asks the waitress for a recommendation. It was our one mistake. She recommended some fried fish in a corn starchy salty sauce dish. I mean, come on!

: Dao Miu: so fresh and clean. Good foundation for what was to follow.

: Crispy cumin lamb. Wo ai ni. That means I love you. Wo ai ni crispy cumin lamb.

: Say gwai dao – fried long beans cooked with picked vegetable. The wonders a hot wok works on beans.

: With the firm potatoes and tingly addition of Szechuan pepper corn, it’s like no potato salad you’ve ever had.

: with veggies like these, who needs meat?

: Called lamb chops on the menu these were actually lamb ribs, braised (we think) and then fried with a crust of cumin, sesame seeds, chilis and othe spices. This dish was ridiculous.