D.C
The arches of this Chinatown are majestic and stretch across the street. It made me feel like a welcome pilgrim when I arrived. I was ready to lay train tracks and wash clothes for my passage to this beautiful place. I had drove near Chinatown with my cousin a few days earlier, we assumed we were near it cause we drove through it so fast. I knew that wasn’t (couldn’t be!), the rest of the story and today I made my way back towards those arches and got out to walk.
Twenty minutes later I had made a full circle around one block of Chinese restaurants and shops. I knew something was off, like maybe there was a peninsula of other shops just not on the main street, maybe hidden along one of the alley’s. That was not the case, D.C’s Chinatown is teensy.
Traditionally i’ve gone to Chinese part of town when visiting cities cause it offers a certain multicultural jump start. China town is a great place for food during the day cause the prices are very sensitive, the food is good and the weapons are plentiful. It’s in Chinatown where you have your choice of not only good food, but budget shivs and the good stuff behind the counter, essential in a post sept 11th environment.
But this Chinatown was so small that my initial response was kinda low from the onset. So i’m here again in the cover of darkness trying to see what the night has to offer me. My best luck now is to be wowed by the food, as most of the shops are closed, and any night activities will likely be closed to my strangers face. So i type this now in a restaurant where everyone but myself is asian and Phil Collins is playing lightly on the speaker system.
It has all the ghetto appeal of a good chinese restaurant I like to frequent. The food smells very good, the decor is second hand mall cafeteria. The food is brought to me on simple blue and white porcelain plates, one of my new litmus tests of flavor for chinese restaurants is house special egg fu young. It is brought to me in a uninspired plate, moated by gravy. It smells very good. The House special egg foo young is one giant mound, looks like an alien cow patty and it resists my attempts to casually break it open. The initial taste for me is salt, but it’s quickly replaced with a rich texture, the gravy is in no way beautiful but it does wonders for the mouth. The Egg fu young itself is a marvel of egg, beef, chicken, shrimp, vegetables, and a hint of ginger. The flavors are rich and unlike most egg fu young, even the good ones that I have come to consume in the last few years, it is not heavy in the least. this meal brings a little redemption to D.C Chinatown but it is incredibly small, and a rather disappointing with it’s Fuddruckers and a CVS pharmacy on the corner, you can’t shoot a period piece here.
Great food though, so it’s small but the food is there to be found. People looking for knick knacks will be pleased at a good variety of unique asian influenced crap. People looking for good weapons will find the fundamentals but no deals, katanas are around but most of them are bottom rung, a few distinctive models stood out but you had o buy them in a trio. Chinatown fans should come here for a full belly and the basics, nothing more.