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Secret Fuzhou in Chinatown
Chinatown Restaurant's allure came from rumors of a secret, more authentic menu with a regional focus on Fuzhou (also spelled Foo Chow), a city in the Fujian province of eastern China.
Secret Fuzhou in Chinatown
According to the fundamental laws of science, there exists in Chinatown a direct inverse correlation between the imaginativeness of the restaurant name and the quality of the food. Armed with recommendations from a couple trustworthy food blogs, I decided to try out a restaurant in Chinatown called, wait for it... Chinatown Restaurant (105 N.10th St.). Actually, the sign outside of the restaurant says Chinese Restaurant, but the menus say otherwise.
This restaurant's allure came from rumors of a secret, more authentic menu with a regional focus on Fuzhou (also spelled Foo Chow), a city in the Fujian province of eastern China. Well, turns out it wasn't so secret since it was sitting on the counter next to the longer Americanized menu. However, the waitress took one look at us and reached for the Americanized menu. When I asked if we could have one of each, she just said “no.” I looked distressed, so she asked if we had ever tried food from Fuzhou before. I (lied) said yes, and she caved. Victorious, we took our seats.
From the Fuzhou menu, we ordered peanut butter noodles (a warm take on typically cold sesame peanut noodles), a fried taro cake (a fine specimen but be warned, the textures tends towards sticky and mush side of things), water spinach with garlic (not particularly interesting but tasty nonetheless) and lychee pork (a Fuzhou variant of sweet and sour pork). The lychee pork was the most interesting, named lychee not because it contains the slimy round fruit, but because the pork resembles lychees. It was a wonderful combination of roasted pork on the inside (think Sang-Kee), with a very crunchy fried crust and a lightly sweet and sour glaze. No goopy, syrupy sauce here.
Our Fuzhou choices were on the safe side, but if you are brave, you can try anything from fish stomach to pig intestines and duck tongue. You may have to fight the waitress on it, but chances are it will be worth it. That is, if you are into organs.
Also, for those hopping on the xiao long bao bandwagon, we spied Shanghai steamed juicy buns on the Americanized menu and gave in. The juicy buns were notably less juicy than others, with a thicker skin and a larger nugget of pork filling, but they had great flavor and a clear (albeit scarce) broth where others in Philly are cloudy and bland.
Chinatown Restaurant is a dive for sure (entire meal came to $20.45), but with a regional cuisine that isn't often found in other Chinatown restaurants. And luckily for us, the scientific statement above proved true.
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