Chinatown and Little Italy

Part of our plan in touring Manhattan was to visit Chinatown and the neighboring Little Italy neighborhoods. So on Thursday (4/8) we climbed up on top of our Grayline bus and headed on to Lower Manhattan.

On the way, we passed the Flatiron Building, to me the most outstanding building in all of New York. Apparently destined to become condominiums, this structure currently houses offices. Its strange, triangular shape is due to the narrow wedge of block space created by a diagonally running Broadway intersecting the Manhattan street grid.

As we went further south, we encountered buildings and neighborhoods that seemed more comfortable and less contrived than the Theatre District/Times Square. Around Greenwich Village, I felt that there was more to Manhattan than just attracting tourists: people lived and thrived here.

We got off in Chinatown, which is a little embedded city with its own distinct identity. And dominated by small shops and restaurants. My wife and daughter loved to browse around the shops, buying several items. Finally, we decided to go to one of the many restaurants for lunch. We decided on a place called the Sun Sai Gai Restaurant on 220 Canal Street (they call themselves Xin Shijie Cha Canting or "New World Tea House" in Chinese). Melissa had a salad while Rebecca had a soup with wontons and duck. Duck, by the way, is very available and relatively cheap in Chinatown (as opposed to Gainesville, where it is always pretty pricey and often hard to find on menus). I continued on my quest to find the best hot and sour soup ever made, ordering a bowl from their menu. Their hot and sour soup was O.K., but I've tasted better in Gainesville. As a matter of fact, the two best makers of hot and sour soup I know are First Wok, located a couple of hundred yards from my workplace, and the Hot Wok restaurant, located on North US 441 in Gainesville (I had the most scrumptious hot and sour soup there this past Friday night).

But my New York soup was pretty good, too. I will say one thing: there is a great amount of variety to hot and sour soups. Perhaps, as with the case with cheesecake, there are certain New York Chinese restaurants renown for their hot and sour soup. I'll have to check that out before I return.

The restaurant was small but crowded. The waiter later sat another couple at our table, something we hadn't expected but is probably relatively commonplace in parts of New York, where space is often very scarce.

After lunch, we strolled more around Chinatown (I loved their newsstands with Chinese newspapers and magazines) northward to Mulberry Street, which is for all practical purposes is all that is left of Little Italy. Both sides of the street are lined with Italian restaurants, providing both indoor and outdoor seating. The outdoor tables jut out to the sidewalk, and as we passed by each restaurant, elegantly-attired employees would beseech us to sit at a table and order their food. That was something that I liked a lot about New York: businesses really competed for your patronage by reaching out and engaging with potential customers.

I liked both Chinatown and Little Italy, although the latter seems to be dwindling away into history. I wish I had kept up with my Chinese, although it seemed that most of those residing and working there spoke a different "dialect" (actually a different language, for all practical purposes), most likely Cantonese (which generally seems to be the case with the Chinese running the Gainesville restaurants). Chinatown is definitely a return-visit "thumbs-up", and I do want to take a stroll around Greenwich Village and explore ol' Flatiron (reputed to be the haunt of vampires) as well.