Snacking in Chinatown

If you do get to see The Ryan Case 1873 (see my last post) one of these Saturdays (and I hope you do), here are a couple of suggestions of where you might grab a bite to eat both before and after the show.

The day we went, the play began at the Church of the Transfiguration on the corner of Mott and Mosco Streets at 3PM. Shortly before that, we stepped into Bo Ky Restaurant at 80 Bayard Street (between Mott and Mulberry Streets) and just a couple of blocks away from the church for bowls of what I consider to be the best Vietnamese Seafood Noodle Soup in Chinatown, chock full of calamari, shrimp and fish balls. The price is right, too, at $5.25 a bowl. There are lots of other soup choices on the menu and a limited number of non-soup choices as well and I’ve tried a number of them, but the Seafood Noodle Soup remains my favorite.

With a little time still left to kill before the show was scheduled to start, we strolled over to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, located less than a block away at 65 Bayard Street (between Elizabeth and Mott Streets) for ice cream cones. Our toughest decision was picking a flavor: the choices here include many we’ve seen nowhere else, including Avocado, Black Sesame, Durian, Ginger, Lychee, Coffee Brandy, Pumpkin Pie and Wasabi. But whatever you choose, I don’t think you can go wrong.

After the show, we weren’t yet ready for dinner but we thought we could do with a small snack. And there, just steps from the church at 106 Mosco Street (between Mulberry and Mott Streets) we found just what we were looking for: a tiny hole-in-the-wall snack bar, most appropriately named Fried Dumplings, that sells a plate of five fried dumplings for just one buck. The restaurant (if you even can call it that) has a very limited menu including four pork buns that are also priced at a buck, but in our experience the only thing you really can be sure they’re going to have on hand are the dumplings (which really are a steal), so try not to have your heart set on getting anything else.