“You’ve never had xiaolongbao? They’re the bomb.”

Typically, when “the bomb” is used is a predicate, I expect disproportionate amounts of irony or gravity. Not so in this instance: When Boykji drops “the bomb,” the delivery mechanism tends to be an oversized grin. The target tends to be my stomach.

Since we first shared a steamer of pork soup dumplings at Oakland’s Shanghai Restaurant, I’ve gone on to drop the xiaolongbomb wherever it seems the obvious choice. But the more food enthusiasts become aware of this humble yet refined Chinese delicacy, the more I come across conversations that leave the binary charm of “the bomb” and enter the tedious tabulation of “best soup dumpling” comparisons.

It’s not that I don’t believe in culinary standards. It’s just that after eating xiaolongbao at locally and internationally revered outposts like Arcadia’s Din Tai Fung and Queens’ Nan Xiang Xiaolongbao, I’ve learned that xiaolongbao in this country are either “the bomb” or “not the bomb.” Anyone who pays attention to the details of what she’s eating will be able to pick a side immediately. Anyone who can describe the finer points of soup dumpling structure is capable of expressing his preferences without being dogmatic about how to measure a bite of food.

At the end of the day, most Americans who talk about xiaolongbao – present conversationalist included – have never been to Shanghai. And even in Shanghai, soup dumplings don’t play by one set of rules. This attitude is what allows me to declare that the soup dumplings at Manhattan Chinatown’ 456 Shanghai are just as enjoyable as the soup dumplings I’ve had at Nan Xiang Xiaolongbao, Din Tai Fung, Shanghai Restaurant, and any other restaurant in America that consistently drops the bomb. I happen to gravitate towards small, thin-skinned and delicate xiaolongbao – more at the dumpling end than the bun end of the scale – and 456 churns out steamers of this type without pause.

My stance on shengjianbao is even less militant. My experience with these pan-fried, juice-filled pork buns is extremely limited, but that hasn’t stopped me from relishing 456′s enormous plates of “tiny fried buns with pork” (absurdly priced at $4.95 for eight bao the size of McDonald’s hamburgers).

While more dense than I’d like, they’re as good as 456′s soup dumplings. The bottom of each bun is anointed with a golden brown ring, the body of the bun pleasing upon service but completely lifeless when left to cool. One bite releases a small stream of fatty pork juices, and the mildly flavored nugget of meat inside is satisfying. If this bao isn’t the type to end an argument, it’s still the kind of food that sparks conversations, and a welcome start to any meal.

As it turns out, the megaton player at 456 Shanghai is neither bun nor dumpling. It’s “Ningbo Fried Two Delights,” a platter of filleted yellow fish, deep fried in wrappers made of tofu skin, then presented in a circle anchored by breaded, fried pork chops. The fried tofu skin matches hefty crunch with meaty chew, while the fish locked inside remains delicately tender, as if freshly steamed. As with xiaolongbao, attention to detail in this dish belies the simplicity of its enjoyment; it’s refined, not ornate.

Highlighted by former Times dining critic Sam Sifton, 456′s eggplant in garlic sauce is more obviously a knockout of flavor and texture: slightly crisp edges, succulent flesh, and a seasoning job that brightens the taste buds with a skillful balance of sweet, spicy, and savory flavors. It’s an undeniable crowd pleaser, not to be left off a group order.

From the restaurant’s mix-and-match starch menu, rice cakes with seafood is a nice counterpoint to 456′s bolder offerings. The oval-shaped cakes are wok-fried with bits of green and a generous spread of scallops, squid, shrimp, turning out a clean-tasting bowl of seafood with smoky undertones. This combination would be too redundant to enjoy on one’s own (I would prefer a stronger sautee), but when shared with friends alongside more heavily seasoned selections it’s an appreciable addition to the table.

Is 456 Shanghai the bomb? Examined defensively, it certainly is not. Taken in stride, it’s good enough to make me play the Chinatown card. After all, I’m not one to turn down an excuse to eat soup dumplings or romanticize Doomsday.

456 Shanghai Cuisine
69 Mott St.
New York, NY 10013
212.964.0003

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Pure Thai’s menu, especially its lunch menu, offers a variety of “snacks” that blend street food and home cooking under a chef’s meticulous hand. The results are so consistently flavorful that my favorite dish on a recent lunch visit was the Grilled Spicy Beef Salad ($7.50). A boldly flavored toss-up of romaine lettuce, watercress, cherry tomato, red onion and green apple, the salad is garnished with expertly grilled strips of beef, sprinkled with toasted rice and dried chilies, and dressed lightly in fish sauce and sweetened lime juice. The sharpness of each flavor, playing on contrast and riding the freshness of it all, is an astonishing encounter in a city of salad bars.

Pure Thai Cookhouse
(formerly Pure Thai Shophouse)
766 Ninth Ave.
New York NY 10019
212.581.0999

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I’ve been too beleaguered by a nasty cold to spread the word properly over the past week, but in case you haven’t heard from the rest of the city: Real Cheap Eats NYC now has 22 more recommendations under $10. This season we’re keeping things relatively lean, with one recommendation per blogger (except for newcomer Chris Crowley, who’s joined our staff on behalf of the Bronx). If you’re a New Yorker or have any plans on being in the boroughs this season, check it out and start eating cheaply!

You can also keep up with Real Cheap Eats via Facebook, Twitter, our NYC blog, and our new Foursquare List. New stories from The Eaten Path are on the way… eventually…

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This is how I feel about bo zai fan, a Cantonese clay pot rice dish that recently became one of my most treasured meals. I had a sense of the dish already, having enjoyed it a few times at Chinatown’s A-Wah. But negative reports from the same Chowhounds who had put it on the map, along with a strong tip from Kathryn, led me to Noodle Village, where the dish is listed inconspicuously as “hot pot rice.” While A-Wah’s take is no Snot Boogie, the clay pot rice at Noodle Village is a real eye-opener.

The concept behind bo zai fan is extremely simple: Cooking and serving rice in a clay pot allows the bowl to transform the grains closest to its edges into a layer of crunchy, semi-caramelized delight. Noodle Village’s rendition ($9.50) arrives steaming, sizzling and topped with your choice of minced pork, pork spare ribs (my favorite), Chinese sausage, chicken, beef, or frog.

This moment, however, is mere prelude. Before diving in, mix the contents at the center of the pot, drizzling the sweet, extra thick soy sauce that arrives with your pot more liberally than common sense dictates. Inhale the intoxicating aroma as you learn forward to scoop up your rice and begin eating. Add more soy sauce as needed, as well as the occasional drizzle of chili oil if you desire an extra kick. And when you’re halfway through, scrape the crunchy, chewy layer from the bottom of the pot to cap the meal with a bite even better than the first. It may be unremarkable compared to the real deal in Hong Kong, but as long as I live one stop away from Chinatown, I’ll be chasing that moment at every opportunity.

Noodle Village
13 Mott St.
New York, NY 10013
212.233.0788

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Toddy, which is not described on the menu as the product of milk and powder, is Pepsi’s Venezuelan parallel to Nestle Quik. For better or for worse, toddy doesn’t deviate from that formula at Arepas Cafe. Perhaps its a taste of childhood, but my childhood happened to call for several more heaping spoonfuls of artificial flavoring.

Chicha, a Venezuelan dessert preparation not at all resembling a strawberry-hued bender with Tony Bourdain or a kernel-spitting session at Dogfishhead Brewery, is a much better option. A hearty relative to horchata, chicha de arroz is full-bodied and viscous, with a simple, straightforward flavor.

Each sip pulls against the force of gravity and lingers on the tongue – almost more pudding-like than milky, and emboldened by more than a pinch of cinnamon. An ice-cold glass of the stuff is filling and refreshing, making the perfect dessert for two after a double header of sweet and savory arepas.

Arepas Cafe
33-07 36th Ave.
Queens, NY 11106
718.937.3835

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Agreement on this sentiment is a bond I share with Mike, the daytime cook at Kuti’s Place. As he carves slices of fatty lamb from the glistening, heavily stacked spit of slow-roasted meat near the window, he tells me that while he’s a born-and-bred Brooklynite, living for the city isn’t about being its master.

This is where he’s from, where he is, and despite finding California life as pleasant as it’s made out to be, he’s back in the boroughs. Just like I know I’ll leave New York to build something real for myself on the West Coast, his mastery of shawarma is just one bite into the place he calls home.

It’s a bite that makes me want to put down roots, even as the West African businesses around the corner are dropping like flies. The slices of well-done lamb in this $6 wrap are juicy, flavorful, and nicely browned. Going well beyond lettuce, tomato and onion, the rest of the filling is an enriching blend of stewed peas, green beans, and freshly chopped peppers. Drizzled with what seems like tahini, wrapped in a floppy sheet of lavash, then grilled to a light crunch in a panini press, Kuti’s shawarma is a taste of the city that humbles and satisfies in one fistful of New York flavor.

Kuti’s Place
355 W. 116th St.
New York NY 10026
(212) 222-1127

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Containing white rice soaked in a spicy marinade, a portentous mixing bowl greets the happy diners at Flushing’s Tong Samgyeop Gui with the scents of chili paste and sesame oil. For $2 a bowl, the mixture inside is gently plastered onto hot domes of cast iron. The resulting dish, known simply as bokkumbop (“fried rice,” but listed here as “bibimbap”), is best ordered after a full serving of Tong Samgyeop Gui’s excellent pork belly, a full course of meat, vegetables and banchan that leaves behind a savory film of juices and seasoning for the rice to absorb as it develops a crust.

After flipping this layer of rice to caramelize the other side, the staff toss handfuls of dry, roasted seaweed atop to heighten the mixture’s most satisfying flavors. Diners scrape the completed dish off the griddle in browned yet rosy chunks, each grain popping with a bottomless feeling of satisfaction. Korean food has never tasted more comforting, and for once, another shot of soju sounds just about right.

After all, the next train back to Penn Station is just another hour away.

Tong Samgyeop Gui
162-23 Depot Rd.
Flushing, NY 11358
718.359.4583

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One might not believe it, given the state of popular food today – especially in New York, where “pork belly” has become its own dining demographic. Enunciating one’s love for the pig was hardly a declarative act twenty years ago, when the very qualities of pork had to be sold piecemeal to Americans as “the other white meat.” Today, the production rate of bacon t-shirts can hardly keep pace with the smug stomachs they’ll soon be stretching to cover.

I’ve been plenty guilty of pig worship: From chicken fried bacon to bacon fat ice cream to all things barbecue, I’ve done just as much to fetisihize pork as the next hungry writer. But a healthy appreciation for all things striated with hog’s fat doesn’t necessarily translate into a limitless appetite for the same- especially when crispy pata is on the table.

Crispy pata, according to its 38-word Wikipedia entry, “can be served as party fare or an everyday dish.” I take this to mean that that every day in the Philippines is one big, fat party. I have no proof that pinoys and pinays across the Pacific spend every night huddled around a gargantuan, deep-fried pig’s knuckle, tearing off crackling, uneven sheets of skin and chewy bits of browned trotter, then dipping them into peppered vinegar before popping them into each other’s mouths. I have no way of verifying the amount of fatty pork served to CEBU inmates after each performance of Thriller.

I do have Mama Meena’s Family Restaurant to thank for this family-sized pata, the first step in a long trail of pork-centric dishes on this modest restaurant’s prodigious menu. When I joined Tom, Noah, Robyn and Melissa for my first full taste of Philipino cooking at Meena’s our more zealous, flesh-eating personalities took charge of the order, besieging the table with pork nine ways.

We had clearly abused the idea of going whole hog, but if ever there were a place to shame our families with pork, this is it. Of the menu’s nine “vegetable” dishes, seven contain meat, and five contain pork. Of 16 appetizers only one lacks meat entirely. Did I mention the giant pork knuckle? It costs $9.50.

The logical upshot to crispy pata, lechon kawali (fried pork belly) is a richer dish, if not quite as fun. Mama Meena’s lechon arrives nearly free of grease, with a satisfying crunch and hearty chew to its edges. Each chunk of belly is mostly meat or mostly fat, making a perfectly balanced morsel of all three textures a rare instance.

A small bowl of “liver sauce” accompanies the dish, seemingly daring diners to add a second layer of richness to each bite. Fortunately, the pork-liver-based concoction, cut with vinegar, sugar and onion and mixed to the consistency of applesauce, works as a sly counterweight.

There’s nothing sly about chicharong bulaklak, a dish of deep-fried ruffles cut from around the pig’s intestinal tract. By far the richest selection on the menu, these crisp flowers of fat, muscle and cartilage are decadently challenging, made comestible by the dipping bowl of vinegar and peppers offered on the side. It’s a must-order group dish, but an improbable task for two and downright sickly for one.

The perfect flip-side to crackling knuckle, fatty belly, and enriched intestinal fat, Mama Meena’s sizzling sisig is also the only menu item I’d be happy to eat every day. Complex yet comforting, sisig is a platter of bits chopped from a hog’s head, boiled, flavored with vinegar, lemon juice and soy sauce, spiced and browned on cast iron, and served hot off the burner with a raw egg cracked atop.

When mixed together, the dish itself cooks the egg. The skillet-crisped bits of ear and cheek are pleasantly gritty but rarely gristly. The mix of earthy, salty and tart flavors is dizzying. And the medley of tastes and textures merge into one heaping spoonful when taken with white rice.

Vegetables play a role in more than a few dishes at Mama Meena’s, but rarely are those dishes vegetarian. Little more than a plate of sauteed string beans, squash and shrimp in a thickened coconut milk, ginataang sitaw at kalabasa drapes a flash of color in a coat of sweetness. Pinakbet, a melange of vegetables typically livened by fish sauce, shrimp paste and garlic, is fortified at Meena’s with shrimp and pork. The slightly soft squash, bitter melon, purple eggplant and green beans in this dish are competently cooked and conservatively seasoned, making it an accessible sample of the traditional preparation.

Meena’s turns out a full roster of pancit, a word that refers generally to “noodles,” typically tossed with varying degrees of funk, flavor and topping. The kitchen’s springy pancit malabon, enhanced by a sweet shrimp flavor, coated with dried pork crumbles and brightened with lemon juice and spring onion, hardly needs the prawns and hard-boiled eggs plunked on top to satisfy. I’ve had pancit that resembled Chinese take-out more than this clearly pronounced interplay of ingredients, so I found it an especially gratifying plate of noodles.

Sweets on the menu, taking the form of house-made drinks and slurpable desserts, are a required taste. “Melon,” a from-scratch drink made with freshly julienned canteloupe and a generous dose of sugar, makes for a refreshing and restorative end to such a heavy meal. The same goes for sago at gulaman, mixed to order.

Halo-halo, the Philippines’ grab bag of shaved ice, condensed milk and a jumble of other ingredients, can and should be taken with a crown of purple yam ice cream. Meena’s wait staff will recommend that you translate the phrase “halo-halo” into action by mixing it all together, but scooping the layers as they are makes for a dessert as sweet on the eyes as it is on the palate.

When ice cream, condensed milk, and sugary, tropical drinks are necessary to lighten the load of a meal, doubt quickly follows. Thankfully, the act of pigging out at Mama Meena’s is a rite flavored by culture as much as it is by bravura.

Just don’t expect your pot belly to know the difference.

Mama Meena’s Family Restaurant
94-20 Jamaica Ave.
Woodhaven, NY 11421
718.696.8882

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If you’ve wondering where exactly I’ve been over the past few weeks, the answer isn’t “Chicago” – all of these Chicago meals (the last of which will be on Serious Eats national in the near future) took place at the end of July.

For the past few weeks, the answer has actually been, “chained to a computer at ungodly hours of the night.” But it was all worth it, because Real Cheap Eats NYC now has 50 more recommendations under $10. It also has a much smoother Android and iOS user interface, so whip out those smart phones and start eating cheaply!

You can also keep up with Real Cheap Eats via Facebook, Twitter, and our new NYC blog. And to those of you who couldn’t give fewer shits about this: New stories and single-serving recs from New York and elsewhere are on the way! The Eaten Path is still alive and well.

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I suppose this question begs another: How often do Japanese kids beg their parents?

McChildhood culture aside, Otafuku‘s takoyaki beckon the cravings center of my brain anytime I’m within a few blocks from E. 9th St. At this Japanese take-out counter, these fluffy, golden-brown, spherical griddle cakes are stuffed with springy octopus meat, slathered in a salty/sweet mystery sauce, drizzled lightly with mayo, sprinkled with dried seaweed flakes and topped off with a fistful of super savory katsuobushi.

$8 gets you 6 takoyaki with okonomiyaki (great for an early lunch) or seafood-centric yakisoba (perfect for a post-happy-hour snack). Otafuku offers one hardy bench outside its door for a brief urban picnic; all you really need is a sunny day and an off hour to make this an oishii! meal.

Otafuku
236 E. 9th St.
New York, NY 10003

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