Chinatown Tour in New York : Best Adresses !

The FCI famous chef Lee Anne Wong, famous because she participated a few years ago at the first series of a TV show called TOP CHEF, gave us a tour of Chinatown. Chinatown in Manhattan is very closed to the location of The FCI building (as well as Little Italy). The tour was quick (45 mn) since the weather was so hot and overwhelming... But we still had a chance to visit some local supermarkets and to taste some delicacies ! Here are some addresses I spotted on the way...

At MayMay, we tasted Chinese Tamales, called like that in US, rather than Zongzi in Asia. Originally, a tamale or tamal is a traditional Latin American food consisting of steam-cooked corn meal dough with or without a filling. Tamales can be filled with meats, cheese and sliced chiles or any preparation according to taste. The tamal is generally wrapped in a corn husk before cooking.

Instead of a corn husk casing and corn masa as the grain, Chinese Tamales use bamboo leaves and rice (MayMay site : http://www.maymayfood.com/)

We also enjoyed some very amazing unusual flavors of ice cream at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, e.g. Black Sesame, Lychee, Red Bean, Wasabi... Ironically, the factory established in 1978 has its concept copied by other Chinese around there.

Their website is http://www.chinatownicecreamfactory.com/

We had a stop at Aji Ichiban, a Chinese (the name is Japanese, meaning “the best and superior”) snackfood where to pick up unusual candies : BBQ Corn flavored candy, dried seafood snacks like candied sawagani crabs ! You can try any dried snacks before buying.

Aji Ichiban has more than 150 franchised shops with more than 800 staff, covering China, Singapore, Philippines and the US. Multiple locations throughout Chinatown : http://www.ajiichiban.com.hk/eng/index.php

When searching on Google for the key word "Aji Ichiban", I found that amazing Candy Blog for truly lovers of candies throughout the world : http://www.typetive.com/candyblog/

Enjoy !