dresese

More Flushing treats

Tonight Ben and I went to eat another fine meal in Flushing. First, we stopped by Takoyaki on Prince St to have some Octopus Balls. Unlike the Fish or Cuttlefish Balls I've had previously, this was some sort of light batter with vegetables and a chunk of octopus in each one, with mayonnaise, wasabi, pepper and other things sprinkled on top. Even cooler, you could watch the guy make it, which involves filling six concave holes in a griddle, then rotating, refilling, and transferring the mix to other holes about a dozen times. It was surprisingly labor intensive.

After that, we went to eat some Shanghai food at the Yangtze River restaurant. Chosen somewhat at random.

We ordered some Si Gua. I'm unsure what the English name is, I've seen it called Loofah before, though. This was the best Si Gua I've ever had. It had a really great sweetness to it.

Next came the Xiao Long Bao, or the Soup Dumplings as they are called. They were being made by two little ladies in a window near the entrance, which I always like to see. The dumplings were nice, but could have used more soup inside. And I prefer them smaller, which no one in New York seems to do.

Finally we had some enormous pan-fried dumplings. Very interesting, I've never had dumplings like this before. There had a thick wrapper probably made with something very fattening by the look of it. The inside had crab and pork and a slight amount of soup, and the filling reminded me up those pinkish meatballs you get at dim sum. It was nice, but, perhaps because I was getting fairly full, it seemed a bit much.