Flushing Food Crawl

After hearing lots of great things about food in Flushing, I really wanted to have a Flushing Food Crawl event.

FYI, Flushing cuisine is heavily Northern Chinese (i.e, Szechuan, Hunan, Xi'an), which is hotter, spicier and less sugary. This contrasts with Manhantan China Town, where it is dominated by Guang Dong (Hong Kong) foods.

The glorious Flushing 

What is a "food crawl", you ask?

By my definition, it is basically a trip with multiple visits to different restaurants / food stands. The group will share the foods heavily to ensure that we could try as many different dishes as possible, while still ensuring that we won't be full too early in the game.
It is basically a food tasting event, but at different restaurants.

I attended 1 event before with a meetup group, but wasn't satisfied with their restaurant selections, so I decided to organize my own event.

 Luckily I was able to gather 7 other lovely friends for this event. My restaurant selection was heavily influenced by this youtube video from Fung Bros: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7D_f9Pw3vM

Anyways, let's get it started!

Our first stop was Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao

1) Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao

https://www.yelp.com/biz/nan-xiang-xiao-long-bao-flushing

I got there at 11 AM, and waited a bit for 6 others to arrive at 11:30 AM to try these 7 lovely Xiao Long Bao. Yes! 7 lovely xiao long bao for 7 lovely people.

Nan Xian xiao long bao

I thought their Xiao Long Bao(s) were very good! If you haven't know, XLB(s) are soup dumplings: They are filled with pork + crab + their juice. You have to be careful to avoid burning your tongue if you eat too quickly.

I really liked their XLB(s). I thought they were better than the ones at Joe's Shanghai in Manhattan. The crab flavor was pretty noticeable.

Everything came out to be $10 including tips + tax for a portion of XLB. 

Our group was big (7 people), and we only ordered 1 dish, but the server didn't seem to mind, so a BIG PLUS for them.

I shamelessly paid $10 for seven of us and left. :P

2) White Bear (spicy wontons)

https://www.yelp.com/biz/white-bear-flushing

After Nan Xiang, the last of our members showed up so we had everyone by that time. We walked a little bit to our 2nd stop: White Bear spicy wontons.

Spicy wonton at White Bear

About the food, just order #6 if you're in doubt! The spicy wontons had a nice skin color, and they were pretty fresh. They weren't too spicy though. Would definitely come back.



This shop was pretty small. We all occupied almost the entire space.
$6 for 12 wontons, great deal!

3) Pumpkin Tangyuan (sweet rice dumplings) at Golden Shopping Mall

https://www.yelp.com/biz/tianjin-hanmade-dumpling-flushing

After spicy dumplings, we made our way to the world-renowned Golden Shopping Mall (just youtube it). Lots of famous food chains originated from this old small food court, such as LamZhou Handmade Noodle or Xi'an Famous Foods.

Outside of Golden Shopping mall 

Golden Shopping Mall lower level

We switched to dessert mode and got the Pumpkin Tangyuan (sweet rice pumpkin dumplings). The Tangyuan had a nice texture and color. The fillings tasted more like sesame than pumpkin. I wasn't too impressed, but at $4 for 10, it was also a very good deal!

Pumpkin Tangyuan

Some of our friends also got $1 milk tea here as well. Oh yeah, and the lamb pancake here was pretty good! Try it!

4) LaoMa Mala Tang (Mala Dry Pot) at New World Mall

https://www.yelp.com/biz/laoma-malatang-flushing
https://www.yelp.com/biz/new-world-mall-food-court-flushing
http://www.newworldmallny.com/en/food-court

After Golden Shopping Mall, we decided to have our main course at the glorious New World Mall. Once inside this food court, you won't feel like you are in the US at all. You would feel like you were in Asia because a lot of food stalls didn't use English at all.

Inside of New World Mall food court

We got the Mala Dry Pot, which was basically hot pot but without the soup: You pick the ingredients and they stir fry the ingredients using their special sauce and spices.

Fresh ingredients before stir fry

Finished Mala Dry Pot

The food wasn't sizzling hot when it came out. We also ordered only mild so it wasn't spicy at all. We had it with some rice and shared among ourselves.
All this for $40. Great deal!

5) Ruimilk (cotton candy over ice cream)

https://www.yelp.com/biz/ruimilk-flushing-2

After the New World Mall, I realized that we were close to Ruimilk, where they were known for over-the-top cotton candy decoration and ice cream. Just look at what we ordered below

Baymax cotton candy over ice cream

Minion cotton candy over ice cream

The cotton candy was too cute to eat. They added the seaweed strips for decorations as well. I liked the ice cream because it wasn't too sweet. One ice cream was priced at $7. We also shared this among 4-5 of ourselves.

6) Prince Tea House (tea and cake)

https://www.yelp.com/biz/prince-tea-house-flushing-2

By this time, most of us were full already, so we decided to have our final dessert stop at Prince Tea House. It was a tea house that used fancy tea set and utensils, and had a British tea theme.

Fancy tea set

We ordered the rose milk tea, which was very good. Everyone was excited when they brought out the tea set. So cute and fancy!

We also ordered 2 slices of mille crepes - the matcha mille crepe and fruit mille crepe

So what are mille crepes? They are cakes that are made with layers of crepes and creams - or you can call them thousand-layered crepe cake haha.

Matcha mille crepe

So how were the tea and the cakes? The tea was good! Nice milk tea with rose aroma. I liked my tea, but was more impressed with the tea cup set. The mille crepes were a-ok. Definitely not as good as LadyM or Antoine Patisserie in the Bay Area. 

Fruit mille crepe

We all shared the tea and the cakes so the amount of diabetes was manageable too haha. 





After this, we walked back to our train, watching some interesting food stores along the way: One place was selling durian pizza. We also took a quick look at the egg tarts at the New Flushing Bakery. I thought it wasn't as good as the egg tarts at 85 Degree bakery though.

We took the 7 train back to the city, while enjoying our last conversation after a great trip.

Overall everyone of us spent only about $16.5 per person for this whole trip. It was wonderful! Everybody loved the event, even though the food could have been better.

We missed out some restaurants due to being full, such as Mad For Chicken, or Kimganae, or the New York food court.

New York food court

I will come back to Flushing to explore more of its wonderful food FOR SURE. I would also love to organize future food crawl here, so if you are interested, let me know :)