Brooklyn’s Chinatown

Butcher in Chinatown, Brooklyn
Butcher, Chinatown, Brooklyn


Butcher, Chinatown, Brooklyn

Toothpaste, Chinatown, Brooklyn
Toothpaste, Chinatown, Brooklyn

Crabs in Brooklyn's Chinatown
Having Trouble Keeping His Crabs in the Basket, Chinatown, Brooklyn

Sarah‘s latest assignment took us to Chinatown in Brooklyn to sample several Banh Mi (vietnamese sandwiches) from 2 different restaurants there. The sandwiches are overstuffed, toasted french baguettes with mayonnaise, pate, meat, pickled vegetables and cilantro. They were pretty good but I let everyone else eat most of them. I ordered a vietnamese iced coffee at the first restaurant we went to. Vietnamese iced coffee is different from regular coffee in that it’s really strong and is mixed with sweetened condensed milk. I liked the coffee I got today but I think that it’s better from the place we sometimes go to on Baxter street in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

At the second restaurant we went to they had avocado shakes. We were all intrigued by what these would taste like so we ordered one to share. I really don’t like avocado much, which almost got me kicked out of Southern California because I rarely ate guacamole, but I wanted to taste it anyway. Surprisingly, it was really good. Very sweet and it barely tasted like avocado at all. I was reminded that avocado actually is a fruit, even though it doesn’t taste like one in guacamole. The shake was so rich and creamy that I would never be able to drink the entire thing. As it was, the four of us couldn’t even finish one.

26 thoughts on “Brooklyn’s Chinatown

  1. i assume that the brooklyn chinatown smells the same as the manhattan chinatown? if so, it must have been quite stinky on a day like today.

    and what does sarah do?

  2. Inside the market was smelly because it had fish.. otherwise it didn’t smell even half as bad as mahattan’s chinatown. bleh! i avoid that place at all costs during the summer!!!!! part of the reason may be beacause manhattan’s chinatown is a lot larger than brooklyn’s. brooklyn’s runs for several blocks but only down one or two streets.

    sarah is writing an article for esquire.

  3. thanks for coming out yesterday! that was super fun. ๐Ÿ™‚ i love going on field trips.

    i totally had a stomach ache last night from SOMEthing i ate. it was either too much iced coffee, or it was the avocado shake. i have a feeling it was the avocado shake, and i think they must have used cream in it. i’m not too good with large doses of heavy cream. oog…

  4. What strikes me is that for a Chinatown post, you found links from two Filipino sources – the venerable Manong Ken (a lifer on SCF: soc.culture.filipino) and the sometimes dependable Inquirer. Was there a sizable Filipino population in/near CT3? Or you couldn’t really tell?

  5. jeannette – the link to the avocado shake recipe says it’s made of avocado, milk/sweetened condensed milk/cream, sugar and ice. so.. yeh.. that would explain it ๐Ÿ™‚

    petrol.. I’m not sure if it’s by sunset park or if there’s a large filipino population there. those just happened to be the links i found to what i was looking for.

  6. wow, that’s a whole mess o dairy product. asians + dairy = bad news. well, for some. i’m not quite there yet…but me + alcohol = not great news. i’m going to pass out now.

  7. yup – just looked at the map and we were in sunset park. i am not sure on the filipino thing. seemed like the places we were in were run by vietnamese, but i can’t distinguish between most asian languages other than japanese, chinese and korean.

    these are the places we visited:
    An รรดng
    5424 8th Avenue
    (on the corner of 55th Street).
    Brooklyn, NY. 11220

    Ba Xuyen
    6011 7th Ave.
    (between 60th and 61st)
    Brooklyn, NY 11220
    718-765-0037
    (thanks to chowhound.com for the info)

  8. Tien! Again!!!! I TOLD YOU – build a base!!!!!!!!

    Jeannette – Yvan said that at Ba Xuyen they were speaking Chinese – Cantonese, to be specific. I’m the only living girl in New York because I listened to that song 10 times yesterday!

  9. base last night was wings and rib tips. but there was all you can drink beer too. and then some drink that came in a fishbowl, which is clearly bad news.

  10. That’s not too bad of a base.. of course i think that protein AND carbs makes the best.. Like a big cheeseburger with fries. I would guess that it’s the fishbowl that did you in.

  11. tien – all your base are belong to us. where is this wings/ribs all you can drink beer place? let’s go!!

    rachelle – scratch that – i can’t tell asian languages other than korean and japanese, then (and sometimes i get those confused if there’s a lot of ambient noise).

  12. jeannette – at brother jimmy’s. every monday night. it’s not the highest quality in the world, which is unfortunate, but with all you can eat/drink, i’m not going to be complaining. pick a monday and i’m there. there are also other special days which are detailed on their website.

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