Though it opened in 1990, it wasn’t until 15 years later that the food-court basement of Flushing’s Golden Mall began to attract the likes of Jonathan Gold, Anthony Bourdain, and Jamie Oliver. It had already become a quintessential destination for those seeking regional Chinese food that could be found almost nowhere else.
Sure, it had Lanzhou hand-pulled noodles, already something of a fad in Chinatown, and Fujianese dumplings; but there were also hanks of sausage from Tianjin that might have come from a Greenpoint Polish butcher, and a Shaanxi stall that sold, possibly for the first time in the city, lamb-stuffed bao that were dubbed Chinese hamburgers. That stall evolved into Xi’an Famous Foods.
But right at the bottom of the stairway was a tiny enclave with some refrigerated cases and pickling vats that surprised us the most. In its earliest incarnation, it sold Sichuan food of a type rarely seen before. Heretofore, we’d known the cuisine via its baby shrimp in spicy red sauce, tea-smoked duck, and ma po tofu. But this place served many dishes cold – with a major part of the output being pickled vegetables and animal entrails.
Fast forward two decades and this aspect of Sichuan food has finally hit town in a big way.
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