Weekend Cooking- A Visit to a Chinatown Grocery

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

Every year, our friends from Auburn, Barbara and Mike, come to visit during the San Gennaro Festival. We all have our favorites- sausage, peppers and onion sandwiches, pizza, cannoli, Peroni beer and hand rolled cigars.

This year we started out with a trip to the Hester Street Fair, which is close by and I had never been. It is much smaller than I thought, but they had some unique vendors. One woman made hair bands out of old, ugly men's ties, which were really cute. Another artist made necklaces and bracelets out of dried roses. They were gorgeous and so fragrant. The booth selling necklaces and earrings made from old teeth, yeah, I skipped that one.

One booth enticed us with the delicious smell of paella, made with chicken and chorizo. It was as lovely to see as to smell. If it wasn't so early in the morning, I would have tried some.

A lovely paella

We walked through Chinatown towards Little Italy, and a Chinese bakery caught my eye. We popped in and saw the prettiest little cakes there, I loved the pink fruit cakes.

Baked goods in Chinatown

My husband spotted an interesting storefront and we made our way in. In the front of the store was lottery machine, textiles and a wall of DVDs. But once you got beyond that, a bright, huge grocery store was there. There were so many vegetables I had never seen before, and if I was planning to make an authentic Chinese meal, this is the place I would shop.

Green bitter melon

Bright purple Chinese eggplant

Kohirbi

Long squash (opo)

Chinese okra

The produce looked so fresh, but when we got to the fish area, a tank jam packed with tilapia ensured that my husband will never eat tilapia again.

Tilapia tank

The candy aisle was right by the checkout and bigger than any I had ever seen, filled with lots of treats that I'm sure the kiddies just beg Mom and Dad to buy. Interestingly, KitKat bars were the one American treat I saw.

Candy & cookies line the checkout aisle

We did make it to the San Gennaro Festival, where we didn't eat as much as we have in the past. But we'll end with a photo of cannoli from Ferrara, a famous bakery in Little Italy.

Yum- cannoli

The San Gennaro Festival continues through Sunday, September 22nd. If you have never gone, you should visit at least once in your lifetime. If you go early on the weekend, it's not too crowded.

The link to the San Gennaro Festival is here. 

The link to the Hester Street Fair is here. They are open on Saturdays from April through October.

More information about Chinatown is here.
My post from last year about our San Gennaro visit is here. 

Weekend Cooking: Feast of San Gennaro

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

This year marks the 86th annual Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy, one of the biggest festivals in NYC, and we were lucky enough to have our friends Barbara and Mike visiting.

We watched the annual parade from inside a restaurant on Mulberry Street that provided much more entertainment than the parade. The place was maybe half-full, but the staff was running around like   chickens with their heads cut off.

At the table next to us, a woman was justifiably upset as she showed her waiter the glass of wine that he brought her was dirty; it had a brown stain on that that looked like dried chocolate mousse. That table left.

We ordered two glasses of sangria that were served in large soda fountain glasses and did not taste like sangria. There was no fruit, no spritzer, it just tasted like watered down wine. The guys got Peroni beer, first served in tall beer glasses, the second round served in wine goblets. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what beverage receptacle one received.

We got two small pizzas that were tasty and came out to our table before our beverages. We were lucky; the table next to us waited forever for their food and when it finally came, it was not their order. It took them three tries to get it right. There were many waiters just wandering around, carrying trays of food asking people if this was their order. It was comical, almost like watching a movie. (Sure we could laugh, we got our order.)

Then when the checks were brought, we noticed several tables saying their checks were wrong. (Ours was right.) The waiters were frazzled, the manager was screaming ("WTF Nesto?" was a popular refrain and is now my go-to phrase when things go wrong), and I just wanted to stand up and say "Keep Calm and Carry On." Our poor waiter wistfully said he was going back to Italy for a vacation; I'm not sure he'll return to this place.

Things looked up as we moved north up Mulberry Street. My husband was dying for sausage, peppers and onions, and he and Mike shared a sandwich from Marie's.

My favorite is the zeppoles, small balls of fried dough placed in a bag with confectioners sugar and shaken. We all shared those and even took some home for breakfast the next day. It was warm and melty and oh so tasty.

Mike likes cigars, so we stopped the cigar man who hand rolls the cigars in front of you. He also bought some torrone (a hazelnut nougat candy) for the trip home.

The cigar man

sangria container

We stopped at another bar/restaurant and the guys had two more Peronis, while we ladies were reluctant to try any more sangria, but I did like their sangria container sitting at the end of the bar.









The highlight of the Feast of San Gennaro this year was the grand marshal, Miss Connie Francis. We ended up near the main stage and got in line to get a signed photo and the chance to meet her. By the time we got to her, she was getting very tired. She said she had fifteen minutes and then she was going home.

Scott, Connie Francis and me

The festival was a lot of fun, and if you ever plan an early September visit to NYC, be sure to check out the Feast of San Gennaro. This year's lasts until September 23rd.  It helps if you fast the day before so you can taste all the goodies. We didn't even get to the cannolis or gelato this year!