The personal blog of Victoria Linchong, a repository of peculiar perspectives and rather unpopular ideas derived from the molotov cocktail of being Asian-American (whatever that is), female, and a starving theater/film artist from the mean streets of New York, back when there really were mean streets
I’m back in London so I thought I would resume my articles
exploring the London that isn’t in guidebooks. Something about New York City
makes it impossible to have extra-curricular activities. It’s like you’re on a
ship that is full of holes and you’re constantly in need of running down to the hold to bail out buckets
of water.
I saved the best for last back in January: the markets in East London. For my first few weeks, I was in the Marylebone area (very posh, like Madison Avenue if it were a couple hundred years older) but then I ended up way way way east in Homerton, which was a little depressing (think carpeted pubs, fish and chips shacks, and the Paki equivalent of bodegas). As an antidote, I took several trips to Brick Lane, which was my haunt back in 2005 when I was weekending in London from Oxford. It seems to have gentrified some, but it still has a gritty edge, unlike the way Williamsburg or the East Village has morphed into Miami with rats.
Typical day in Brick Lane. Cheap good food! Vintage clothing! Two of my favorite things.
Bagel shop had a line around the block. Apparently, it's spelled "beigel" here.
Street art everywhere.
Mysterious lady and her weird cat.
Angry South Asian lady yelling at the uniform Brit buildings.
Guy completing Geiger-esque street art.
Elephantopus, enormous stork and random mattresses.
The vintage shopping was amazing in Brick Lane. I was penniless so I window shopped and wistfully rifled through some wardrobe racks. Seems like there was quite a lot that could be bought for about £20.
This shop was mostly '60s and '80s, really inexpensive but not quite me.
Totally wanted that coat on the mannequin. It was £40, quite reasonable.
Self-portrait on line at the coffeeshop that I used to go to back in 2005. Seems like it's more of a bar and music club now. Gone are the free computers and copious handmade flyers for roommates and events in the back room that made it the community hub that I liked.
I also heard about Broadway Market as an example of a market that went way downhill but then recently resuscitated with local produce and specialty food. This was actually only about a 20 minute walk from where I was and there was a canal that someone said was an interesting walk. So on one of my last Sundays, I decided to take a visit and I discovered an amazing corner of London.
Turkish olive guy.
Pies, anyone?
Still have no idea what a scotch egg is. I was hungry but this didn't look that substantial and I only had about £6 to spend.
The mushroom risotto was only £5 and delicious.
Guys scraping cheese into my risotto. Mmmm, cannot wait.
Another cheap choice for eats at the Broadway Market with nice area of beach chairs.
Self-portait at Broadway Market.
Any place with second-hand books must be the place. There actually were TWO second-hand bookshops on this wee little drag.
At the end of Broadway Market, a little sign pointed to Regent's Canal down a set of stairs. Like Alice creeping down the rabbit hole, I found a whole other London, one that immediately felt like somewhere I wanted to live. It's beautiful and serene but it still has a working-class reality. The people living on the houseboats aren't wealthy yachters. They're fringe dwellers trading rusty, leaking, cramped quarters for the freedom of an affordable home and the sweetness of being right on the water. There are high-rise condos along the canal, but there are also bleak housing projects (what they call "estates" here) and houses that look like they date back at least a hundred years. You can find joggers and dog-walkers, as well as picnic parties and lonely men having a beer by themselves.
The Regent's Canal, so lovely but so very real.
Cat on a houseboat contemplating life.
Remnants of gas tanks and the industrial area this must have been.
Gas tanks and graffiti. I think about here was when I started to sing Dirty Old Town by the Clash in my mind. Freaking song was stuck in my head for days after this walk.
My parents were workaholic Taiwanese immigrants whom I was lucky to see at 8:00 at night. Most times, we grabbed fast food from Arby's or Sizzler's or some fish shack my mother liked, but occasionally, we would make a foray from the depths of Queens to Chinatown. This was before the Taiwanese community formed in Flushing, so Chinatown was where we got our dose of culture. One of the places that we regularly stopped at in Chinatown was May May on Pell Street. It was the only place in New York City you could find a decent zongzi (粽子) or bah zhang (肉粽), as they're known in Taiwan.
The food you eat as a child has a certain nostalgia. I think this is because of the way babies and small children feast on everything so completely with all their senses and their entire bodies. The taste of your first foods seep into a deep visceral layer. It combines with the feeling of security you have as a child, with love, with feeling satiated, content and whole. I always wonder what is up with American children who only will eat plain spaghetti with butter. I can't imagine a child in Asia refusing to eat something put in front of them, or wanting colorless food with no taste.
For those who don't know what a zongzi is, it's been compared to a tamale. But instead of corn husks, it's wrapped in bamboo leaves. And instead of corn meal, it's glutinous rice. In China, bah zhang is traditionally eaten during the Dragon Boat Festival, but in Taiwan, bah zhang is so iconic, it's almost synonymous with the place. It's like hot dogs and pizza to New York City. Or gumbo to New Orleans. There's even a sentimental song (烧肉粽 or "Hot Bah Zhang") that always cracks my mother up, about someone who graduated college but can't find a job so s/he's making a dismal living selling bah zhang on the street. It might be an Occupy Wall Street anthem if it weren't so syrupy. Click below for famed Taiwanese diva Teresa Teng singing the song, with subtitles in English. For the full effect of seeing this with my mom, I ought to include a high-pitched laugh track.
The bah zhang in Taiwan are studded with steamed peanuts, dried black mushrooms, and meat. Often, a roasted chestnut is included, which always seemed like an extra treat to me as a kid, like finding a gold coin in a cake. There's also a Cantonese version of bah zhang that has a dried powdery egg yolk in it. Cantonese people don't put such an emphasis on rice as Taiwanese people do and their version of bah zhang always seemed to me like pizza from some random town in the middle of America. Dry, dense, and mealy. But I know there are plenty of Cantonese people who prefer their version of bah zhang, which they call joong.
May May had about eight different kinds of Taiwanese-style bah zhangeven though it was in the heart of Cantonese Chinatown. There were even three vegetarian kinds. You could smell the aroma of rice and bamboo halfway down the street. I used to buy a half dozen at a time to put in school lunches for my kid. It was perfect for the early morning slog of trying to rouse the child, get him dressed, cook breakfast, and prepare lunch - all I had to do was steam the bah zhang for 15 minutes and pop it into his lunch box. I didn't even need to wrap it in anything since it already was wrapped in bamboo.
So when May May closed in 2007 after 42 years of serving nostalgia in a bamboo leaf to hungry Nuyorasians, I was devastated. I looked for bah zhang everywhere but I either had to go all the way to Flushing or settle for those bleh Cantonese ones.
May May before it closed.
Where May May used to be.
Last week, after a panel at CUNY's Asian-American/Asian Research Institute, I happened to sit next to Antony Wong at dinner. Talk somehow turned to Chinatown and I lamented about May May closing. Antony told me that he had just learned that some people from May May went across the street to the old coffeeshop and they are now selling bah zhang there.
That old coffeeshop is a living authentic relic of good old Chinatown. I've passed by hundreds of times and noted its sign, which has the Chinese going from right to left, so it must date from the 1960s or before. The next morning, I finally went in, and sure enough, right at the door, I encountered a big pile of three different kinds of bah zhangfor just $2.25, which is less than what May May used to charge. I bought one for lunch, and was happy to see that they're the Taiwanese-style ones. And they're really good; the only thing missing is the mushrooms. And the chestnut.
Finally, a place to find bah zhang in New York City! I've also just learned that this the place to go for roast pork buns. Mee Sum Cafe at 26 Pell. Pass it on.
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