When I complained about the oil in a dish to the China Institute’s dame-chevalier of the Chinese kitchen, Florence Lin, she smiled. In “Chinese Gastronomy”, Hsiang Ju Lin and Tsuifeng Lin tell how the fascination with new flavors and textures led to an obsession with parts – the cheeks of the fish, its soft underbelly, the jellylike tissue at the base of the dorsal fin – and innards. Bird’s nest and shark’s fin are prized not for their taste but for their texture. There are moments when texture, for instance, becomes an end in itself. In Chinese culture, cuisine is a fine art, and the aesthetic rules are complex. But there is still a fine distinction between my liberated hunger and Chinese taste.
Since then man has walked on the moon, and I have eaten sea slugs and pigs’ ears.
My chop suey days began in Detroit many good times ago. And New York’s Chinese restaurants coddle that passion.įor most of us the China affection started with spareribs and egg roll. But Americans want an explosion of flavors. Our Chinese friends, I suspect, will be happiest in China, where everything is fresher and subtlety is the game. And now here is Craig confiding to me what I suspect – that nowhere, not in all his pilgrimages to Hong Kong and Taiwan, has he eaten as well as here. It was Claiborne’s lust for the incendiary chili pepper that fueled the Szechuan revolution a decade ago. Midway through this wondrous odyssey, guided by Chinese scholars and gastronomes by chopsticks possessed, thrilled by the rediscovery of the familiar, dazzled by confrontation with brilliant exotica, I began to wonder – the insatiable hedonist, after all – how much better could it be? And I turned to the one man most responsible for the infinite variety of Chinese cuisine in New York, Craig Claiborne, just returned from China. But in the past five months I’ve had more than a hundred meals in Chinese restaurants: a fascinating exercise designed to answer the question, Where is the best Chinese food in New York – in Chinatown or uptown? After all, the truth is I’ve not been to Hong Kong, Taiwan, or mainland China, nor roamed the legendary street stands of Singapore. For depth and variety and style and luxury to thrill infidel tastes – to please even the most sophisticated American palate – I have a feeling that the best Chinese restaurants in the world are right here in New York. But when I hunger for supernal Chinese food, I don’t have to stir. A Scrutable Guide to New York’s Chinese Restaurants
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