Fuzhou dumplings, fresh rice rolls, roast pork buns, Chinatown ice cream, and two kinds of egg tart.
This walk follows our favorite bites through Manhattan’s Chinatown, with exactly what we’d order and the neighborhood stories worth hearing between stops.
This walk is being developed and is not yet available in the app.
Chinatown, Manhattan
The story
What you’ll hear on this walk.
We went eating through Chinatown and built the crawl we’d take a friend on. Start with Fuzhou peanut noodles and boiled dumplings, then move to a freshly made Cantonese shrimp rice roll before taking a detour through the history of Five Points and Doyers Street’s Bloody Angle. From there, it’s back to eating: a roast pork bun on the sidewalk, Asian-flavored ice cream, and two very different egg tarts to finish.
Between bites, the neighborhood starts to make more sense. You’ll see how different regional Chinese communities shaped what we now call Chinatown, how markets and suppliers support the restaurants around them, and how family businesses survive, or change, as one generation hands them to the next.
Come hungry, share everything, and pay attention to what’s happening beyond the restaurant counters. The markets, suppliers, family businesses, and different regional food traditions are part of what makes Chinatown work.
Listen first
Hear the synopsis.
A short introduction to this walk.
Hear the synopsis
Along the walk
Stops on the route.
01
Little Fuzhou’s First Bite
Start with boiled pork-and-chive dumplings and peanut noodles at one of Little Fuzhou’s best-known counters.
02
Fresh Shrimp Rice Roll
Watch a working rice-noodle manufacturer make delicate Cantonese shrimp rice rolls fresh to order.
03
The Bloody Angle
Follow Doyers Street around the bend that became notorious for Chinatown’s early-20th-century tong violence.
04
The Pork Bun We’d Come Back For
Try Mei Lai Wah’s classic roast pork bun and meet the family business behind this Chinatown favorite.
05
Where Vanilla Is Exotic
Choose from pandan, taro, red bean, and other “regular” flavors at Chinatown’s longtime family-run ice cream shop.
06
Two Egg Tarts, Two Journeys
Split a Hong Kong-style and Portuguese-style egg tart and taste how two different culinary journeys ended up side by side.
