The Old and the New (Chao Chow)

I remember my father (who grew up in NYC in the 1920s and 30s) telling me that when he was a boy, the East Side above 90th Street was a German neighborhood - and a rough one, where nice Jewish kids dared not go. It seemed preposterous to me at the time of hearing that the Germans could have a real ethnic neighborhood, or any need for one. Germany seems so much just one more relatively innocuous, modern and assimilated flavor of Western Europe, completely cosmopolitan and therefore non-"ethnic." But at one time Germanness was as alien a national identity as any other, I guess, and Yorktown was a big, dangerous German neighborhood, with German businesses, impenetrable German signage and weird German foods on offer.

Now - moving right along. Little Italy is disappearing. Older tourists look for it and lament when they find out that it's really only three blocks of one street, catering more or less directly to tourists. Cosmopolitan New Yorkers of my generation fume pissily at the oily smells and blaring music of San Gennaro. My children's generation (okay, grandchildren's, maybe) will, I predict, find the idea of an Italian neighborhood as odd as I find the idea of a German one, as Italy enjoys relative prosperity, modern technology, and a growing number of years from its wave of immigration into this country.

NOW... I walked up Mott Street north of Canal today, a bit taken aback. It always surprises me that there are certain streets that I just never walk down, despite being often enough in the area - just force of habit, I guess, developing my patterns. Well, Mott north of Canal doesn't feel like Mulberry north of Canal at all - it feels like Mulberry Street circa 1920, or what I would imagine it as - a rude blaze of produce and shouted foreign languages. Loud smells. Chaos, dust, construction. North of Canal Street, Chinatown is eating Little Italy, as everyone has been pointing out forever. Fair enough.

In the middle of all of this lies New Chao Chow, a small restaurant populated mostly by Chinese folks eating noodle soups. A great smell to it, maybe the best in Chinatown - savory and garlic and ginger. I don't know if something can smell "umami" but this place does. Anyway, I ordered my food, wasn't certain the fellow behind the counter heard me, wandered off to buy some mustard greens, and came back to find my food rather neatly organized in a red bag. Hooray for brusque, efficient service.

I got "Pork Chop with Onion on Rice" for the princely sum of 3.50. Very tasty but fairly unremarkable - lots of meat, lots of rice, a small pile of onions. Seemed quite fatty, but hey, that's fried pork for you.

So I'm currently planning on returning and pursuing a noodle soup.