Assignment 1

At the beginning of the semester, I read an article concerning the Taiwanese immigration wave that hit NYC, more specifically Flushing, in the 1970s. It was here that I started seeking more clarity of what Taiwan and being Taiwanese meant: Taiwan is an island that’s off the east coast of “Mainland” China, and that’s just about the easiest description I could ever really give you because everything after that is really complicated. After reading the article, I really wanted to try and explore Taiwanese cuisine – I have an appreciation for East Asian cuisine since so many food items are shared with Puerto Rican cuisine as well (i.e. rice and chicken) – and so I decided to look around and see if there were any Taiwanese restaurants left in Queens. After googling around, I across an Eater article chock full or recommendations and the one that stuck out to me was Taiwanese Specialties and I was particularly determined to try “…Taiwan’s national dish of three-cup chicken…”

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screenshot of the EATER article referenced above

So it’s about 7pm on a Tuesday night, I think. I was excited to go about my food adventure. I walked up some stairs as I exit the M/R Elmhurst Ave subway station, intrigued by the small shops that lie between the train station below and Elmhurst Ave above – it formed some type of underground strip mall – and made my way down to the restaurant. I’m not a Queens native but the area was a little familiar after being here once before to eat at Joju (highly recommend visiting). As I’m walking down the 3-4 between the train and my destination I was feeling a little nervous, snapping my neck back and between my map and the street, really hoping the store front wasn’t covered in logographs exclusively in case I missed it. Thankfully I managed to cross the street at the right time and come across this:

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Taiwanese Specialties’s strorefront

I was really nervous about how I was going to document adventure with notes and pictures without being intrusive on fellow diners or creeping anyone out. The lobby, if you wanna call it that, was really small and people were in and out so I couldn’t get many pictures, but I picked up a take out menu and captured this chalk board with characters; I have no idea what it said but I thought the chalk was pretty.

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I walked through the second door, after the first one hit me in the back as another customer was walking in, and was directed to my table by my attending waitress – I think her name was Angela but don’t quote me on that. The boundaries of the restaurant are surrounded by windows, which makes for plenty of people watching opportunities on both fronts. From the ceiling there are lines of red cards and rows of lit lanterns covered in Chinese paraphernalia. On the walls there are black and white photos hanging in frames – they’re probably random stock photos but who could tell for certain- and underneath the photo closest to me were red cards ordered to spell out some Chinese character. Scattered randomly are some of the restaurant’s acclaimed reviews hanging in frames. One piece of decor that immediately sticks out for me, and probably most people are the ancient armored tunics that hang on big red frames on the walls. It adds an interesting element to the environment; It makes it feel older, more established and maybe even more “authentic”(sorry I couldn’t get any photos in, I wasn’t brave enough to walk around the restaurant taking pictures and risk looking like the tourist I very much was).

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The restaurant is pretty small but it’s nice that way, it caters to a small, intimate family dinner, which is what I saw plenty of during my visit. In front of my table were two men and two children sitting down for dinner. One of the children was watching My Hero Academia it’s my favorite anime/manga series – on a phone so their table was constantly on my radar. That family in particular was constantly being greeted by staff and patrons alike. I don’t think there was a single customer that walked in after me that didn’t greet this family. Adjacent to myself and the aforementioned family was another family of two women and two girls (I presume it be a mother and her 3 children) and they had an interesting dynamic going. One of the daughters was commenting on her distaste of the head and eyes of the fish which they were all sharing. I actually got to see the chef come out from the back and pick out their fish from the tanks in the back of the space. It was a sight I hadn’t witnessed ever, but who really gets to see a chef go “fishing” for dinner?

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My meal starts with off with hot green tea and an interesting appetizer that I’ll to in a second. I’m not much of a tea guy myself but green tea has a nice mild tea that makes it go down easy and on a cold night its good for warming up (plus I had some phlegm in my throat that could use some loosening up). I was really intrigued by the cup my tea was served in actually; the cup was made from a thick ceramic so the cup was never too hot and it had these grooves that made way for my fingers to wrap around and fit into perfectly. It was also just pretty to look at.

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My interesting appetizer was, to my surprise, peanuts. Now these aren’t your “run of the mill”, “take me out to the ball game” kind of peanuts, these peanuts were cold and wet, which removed any salty flavor that I typically associated with peanuts and they were softer and more brittle.

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Not long after me dabbling into the bowl of peanuts, my waitress offered my pickled radish, which I accepted. I initially assumed this was kimchi, but kimchi is made with pickled cabbage instead of radish and the difference shows. Like kimchi, the radish is cold, wet, has an acidic taste from the fermentation and has some kick to it from the pepper flakes but it’s acceptable even to me, who doesn’t like spicy flavors. The distinction comes from the crisp and firm texture of the radish, it feels similar to biting into an apple. In fact, there was subtle sweetness to it.

The main dish of the night was the popular Taiwanese dish “three cup chicken” which is a literal translation of the Chinese word Sanbeiji (三杯雞 or sān bēi jī). As the story goes, the dish spawned from a compassionate prison warden, serving the Mongol Empire, who offered to feed a Chinese war hero who was set to be executed with whatever ingredients he could obtain. The “cup” is a reference to the equals parts of soy sauce, sesame oil and rice wine used to prepare the dish. The word “soy” appears to have Japanese roots, known more colloquially as “shō-yu”, with this form making its way to Malay and Dutch language and later arose in Chinese language as “shi-yu” (shi referring to salted beans and yu for oil). Sesame comes from the Latin word sēsamum but the current form we have comes from a French translation of Arabian Nights (sésame). Lastly, “rice” dates back to as early as the 13th century with its origin is placed somewhere between the Anglo-Norman and Old French ris and the Latin risa. It’s really interesting to see how these words have travelled across the world, especially when these ingredients are so closely associated with Asian cuisine.

Enough etymology, lets talk food. I wanna start off with how familiar the dish looks. The chicken came served in a small steel pot, which I only ever saw used in restaurants in Puerto Rico to serve rice. The deep, dark brown color made think of pollo guisado. My first bite was met with a ton of umami and some salty flavors. The chicken is tender and definitely moist, which is a minimum standard for good chicken. The dish is heavily coated in it’s own broth, which pools at the bottom; it’s got a rich, savory flavor to it. There are plenty of tiny, fragile chicken bones present, so be cautious as you chow down on this lovely dish, there are a few pieces of ginger floating around that will definitely wake you up with it’s sharp spiciness, as well as things get a little messy so I wouldn’t suggest wearing white (I wonder if pouring the broth onto the rice might help). Overall, I had a wonderful time eating and immersing myself in an environment very different than the spaces I keep myself to and I would very much encourage people to eat here. There are plenty of dishes meant for the more “adventurous” folks out there like the ones below:

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Single page off the menu

Sources