J & L Mall

My friend Jim and I are trying to figure out whether or not it would be a good thing to live in Flushing. On the one hand, you could have amazing (if MSG laden) food every night of the week, Chinese crullers and hot soy milk for breakfast, endless fruits and veggies all the time. On the other hand, it's like stepping out into teeming, ZPG China every morning. We are out in Flushing to meet Winnie for eats in a weird little mall off Main St. on her suggestion.

Near the entrance, I see a white couple looking as intimidated as I feel by the near total lack of signage in English. Chinese operetta review is blasting from a flat screen in the DVD mart in the front. Through a glass window, I watch a man methodically stuff rounds of dough with chive and pork filling, magically forming them into plump, airtight little Zoloft cartoon blimps. Behind him, another woman uses a long stemmed strainer to gather white fish balls from a huge vat of boiling water, arranging them on a tray lined with terry cloth towels. While we wait for Winnie, we ask for an order of each.

"To stay or to go?" the vendor asks me.

"Stay," I say. I give her my money.

"Stay!" she barks at me and cursorily waves towards the little tables next to her stall. We sit down obediently. We are rewarded with steaming white fish fluff stuffed with -- surprise! -- sienna seasoned pork. The broth is bland and uninteresting but those fish balls are pretty awesome. The huge platter of Zoloft dumplings are aggressively chive-y and appropriately happy making. We dunk them in a little styrofoam bowl of our own mixture of soy sauce, white vinegar, and chili sauce.

Winnie arrives and leads us to the back where, not only are there no signs in English, but the cooks probably don't speak enough for a post office transaction. (These little foreign pockets in urban areas always amaze me. I mean, how do people get around and do day to day business when their language is so limited? And why would you leave the macro-motherland only to live in a miniature version?) Winnie knows enough Chinese to order cold dishes from a glass display case set atop sawed off shopping carts. Now we're in Szechuan, where the peppercorn rules. Cubes of pressed tofu are tossed with red chili oil and tons of tawny skinned peanuts. Glistening, translucent tendon slices are gelatinous and cool, slick with savory red oil, sesame seeds and scallions. Dan dan mien, made with long bands of hand-pulled noodles and plenty of crushed Szechuan peppercorns, numbs the tongue completely with that peculiar, drug and allergy mimicking sensation. Like Winnie says, the sensation is cool -- it's not the kind of spicy you'd call "hot". Best of all are the dry-fried string beans, perfectly wilted in a super hot wok and sweet, tossed with preserved salted greens -- mustard? cabbage? -- and some savory sauce.

Jim has wandered over to the next station, where he spies a Korean-Chinese dish. He orders using the Korean name, ja jang myun, which makes the Chinese cook laugh with recognition. More hand-pulled noodles are dropped into the hot water, then topped with a salty, meaty slurry and pale green, cool julienned cucumber. "Korean ja jang myun is better," he says, but I don't know. It's like Italian pizza and New York pizza -- one may have spawned the other, but my stomach has room for both.

We sit in the grotty corner room and share everything on the red plastic laminate counter. I'm very cold in the corner and I notice a dirty white pile of something on the floor.

ME: How did snow get in here?

JIM: That's not snow. Don't look at it too closely.

ME: I swear to God, that's snow.

JIM: No it's not. Don't look at it!

We finish as much as we can, spending a grand total of $15 at the Szechuan stall. (Jim's ja jang myun was probably another $4, so with Winnie's friend P., that's less than $5 per person.) We're stuffed, but Winnie convinces us that we must share one lamb kabob from the delicious smelling cart on the corner. "For dessert," she says. A big chimney pipes heavenly hardwood coal smoke onto Main Street. The meat on a stick is not quite a kabob, not quite satay -- the signs are in Chinese, and the Chinese men at the grill line up a long row of the briskly selling bamboo skewered meats. I'm sure I don't have room, but Winnie insists I have a bite. What a bite! The tender, perfectly 'cued thin lamb meat is dusted with a magic pixie dust. I definitely taste cumin, red pepper, maybe coriander? It's divine. I am dreaming of this lamb skewer now. I could make a meal of just those lamb skewers, spend $10 on ten of them and be happier than a carnivorous mafioso at Peter Luger. The makeshift trash can is a red tub that used to hold 100 kg of MSG. I am of the don't ask don't tell policy when it comes to MSG, but even that will not deter me from gorging on those kabobs again.

Can't wait to go back to Flushing. Do you realize how lucky we are to live in New York? Thailand is only a few stops on the 7 train from China, which is just down the street from Korea, and a stone's throw from Greece and Italy. I'm still not sure about living in Flushing, but I'm looking forward to further research.

J & L Mall
Main St. between Maple & Sanford
Flushing, Queens
On the weekends, it's easiest to take the LIRR to Flushing Main St. Don't complain about the $10 round trip off peak ticket -- you can binge like a fiend for $10.