Raise Your Glass To New Experiences!

I have often been described as a person who is not afraid of a little adventure, and yet for all my interest in the culture of food, I do not have a litany of notches in my culinary belt. I have never traveled outside of North America, I have not eaten at any of the gastronomic temples of haute cuisine, and my experience with most ethnic foods is limited. If someone would like to pay for me to do any of these things, I am more than willing. Until then, I will have to make do with my books, my home cooking, and the fact that I am privileged enough to live in New York City where cultural diversity is a way of life.

This weekend I ventured out to Flushing, Queens for the very first time. I had an appointment in the vicinity, and with its reputation as the Asian capital of New York, I must say I was thrilled to check it out. My plan was to shoot out to Flushing on the subway, grab a bite to eat, and head to my appointment. It seemed simple enough, until I strode up the stairs of the subway station onto Main St., and my head nearly exploded. It was Saturday night and the sidewalk was an undulating mass of people moving in every possible direction. It was a situation where the quick pedestrian merge was required, lest someone barrel me over. My decided advantage in the situation was my height, allowing me to peer out over the throngs of people. My decided disadvantage was my height which made me stick out like a sore thumb in this crowd of primarily Asian people of shorter stature. That and the fact that I had no idea where I was or where I was headed. I didn't hear a single person speaking English, so instead of asking for directions, I did what so many male travelers have done before me, I pretended I knew where I was going. After walking a few blocks I realized I was headed in the wrong direction so I decided to cross the street, then head back from where I came. Why didn't I just stop and turn around? That's a very good question. I suppose I was convinced that the elderly Chinese woman directly behind me would spend the remainder of the evening telling her whole family about the uncomfortably tall white man who didn't know where he was going. I know it's silly, but in that moment, that's exactly what was going through my head.

As I walked down Main St. I was overcome by an urge to eat. There was roast duck hanging in several windows, glistening, calling out to me in some primordial kind of way. There were markets overflowing with produce, some of which were completely foreign to me. There were people hawking various food items right on the sidewalk, shouting out in what I am guessing was Mandarin (Mandarin is the dialect of choice in Flushing). There were smells wafting out of every restaurant, scenting the early evening air with an intoxicating perfume of culinary triumph. Seriously, the whole scene was amazing. So I did what any good aspiring gourmand would do: I freaked out. That's right, sensory overload got the best of me and I froze like a flagpole in a Midwestern winter. I had given myself so little time that I felt pressured to make a choice about what to eat. Unfortunately most of the restaurants used Chinese as their only form of writing which did not exactly help my cause. The other problem was that I saw so many exciting things that I just didn't know where to start. The lights, the sounds, the smells, the foreign language, the fast-paced excitement, it got to me. I realized that I would have to walk to my appointment, on an empty belly no less. As I strolled through the residential neighborhoods of Flushing the reality that I am not the culinary equivalent of Indiana Jones set in. It was a tough blow.

After my appointment two acquaintances asked me to go out for a bite to eat, upon whose completion they would give me a ride back into Manhattan. If I'm being honest, I must confess that my initial reaction was clouded with a great deal of skepticism. You see, I have been the victim of countless outings where the company was far better than the food. I have a real problem with going to a hack restaurant where I'm charged an incredulous sum for some insipid meal that makes me curse my decision to attend. Am I a food snob? Maybe, but not in an arrogant highfalutin kind of way. I just like to eat good food, where I don't feel completely ripped off. Tales of $8 bowls of watery oatmeal and the $12 Diner Pancake incident of 2009 come to mind (where I could actually see the Biquick on the shelf in the kitchen, I guess this is acceptable on the Upper East Side). Or maybe the unspeakable moments of terror induced by the phenomenon of "friends making friends go to bad restaurants". Everyone has been a victim of this cultural malady. You have a group of friends who always go to the same place. The food has always been bad at said place, it's never getting any better, but they 'know us there' goes the logic, as if we were inviting the staff to dine with us. Some how I'm convinced that they aren't the only restaurant that will gladly take our money. It's better to eat bad food at a place that knows us than try and go to a place where the food is actually enjoyable to eat. I make a proclamation right here, right now: people who do this are being stupid! There, I said it. I feel better already. The thing is, I love many of the people who are all to happy to fall victim to this gastronomic transgression. But alas, I digress. (I've always wanted to say that)

I decided to agree to a meal with my new close friends Dan and Simone. Whenever I am putting my eating fate in the hands of someone else, we have officially become quite close, hence my new close friends. Fortunately I didn't make a huge mistake. I asked where we were going to be dining, expecting a response that would induce fear, maybe 'Charlie O'Toole's' or 'BJ's Grill', or any other faux Irish or generic American sounding restaurant of which I had no desire to offer my patronage. As I cowered in the back seat like a child who had just pissed Dad off, ready for a verbal scolding, Dan eased all my fears by saying that we were going to a little place in Flushing called OK Ryan. Strange name to say the least, but I was intrigued. It was a small place located in a strip mall slightly off the beaten path. When we arrived I had an overwhelming sense that everything would be okay. And it was.

The menu at OK Ryan seemed like some amalgamation of Chinese with a Taiwanese influence, but that is gathered from the ten seconds I spent looking at the menu. Basically I deferred to Dan and Simone, deciding that we would share several dishes, their choice, being that they had experience with this restaurant. This is where I must confess that I am a vociferous omnivore, with a substantial appetite, and incredibly poor food blogging skills. As the food started to come, I suppose the thing to do was to begin taking pictures of each dish, with the camera that was in my pocket the whole time. Instead I was drawn in by the food and the great conversation to the point where I forgot about my food writer aspirations. And yet, as I write this I am beginning to feel that this might not be a bad thing, that food is to be enjoyed more than fetishized. And the truth is that I enjoyed every minute of our meal, every morsel of food, every aroma. To my recollection the meal consisted of this:

Eggplant with Chiles and Minced Pork: Unbelievably good, to the point where I kept going back for seconds, then thirds, then the "well.....if no else wants to finish this I guess I will have to."

Smoked Eel: My only experience with eel is Unagi sushi, but this was long fillets in a red sauce, maybe Taiwanese, but I'm not sure. It was melt in my mouth fantastic, very rich.

Noodles: A chow mein type dish that was good, but not the highlight.

Pork with Bamboo Shoots and Vinegar: It was very unusual. Unlike anything I have ever had in its tang. That said, it was addicting!

Salt and Pepper Soft-Shell Crabs: I believe that I was born to eat soft-shells. Some people are born to hit a baseball, some folks are drawn to be doctors, and some paint exquisite landscapes. I believe I may have been placed on this earth to eat soft-shell crabs, and this version of fried soft-shells in a salt and pepper spiked coating was just so good.

Orange Slices: Who doesn't love the orange slices at the end of a meal? It is an awesome end to a meal. I love it every time.

It was a great meal, and my gratitude goes out to Dan and Simone for a wonderful Flushing experience, my very first, and for reinstating my deeply held belief that good food for reasonable money still exists. I will be returning to Flushing very soon to explore, to learn, and to seek out the deliciousness I smelled and spotted when I first landed on Main St.