Hot pot, tea eggs and other Chinese delicacies in Flushing, Queens

I’m visiting New York this week, and more specifically, Queens, which is the land of fabulous ethnic food. A few days ago, my friend Joy and her friends Dora and Gene took me out for Chinese hot pot. (I’d been begging for anything Asian.) We went to Flushing.

You know how people visit large ethnic neighborhoods, and they can’t believe how many signs are in a different language, and they say, “It’s like little [insert country here]”? I never really identified with those sayings, because obviously the neighborhood wasn’t really like China/Mexico/whatever, it was built in America. No matter what the area has an inherent Americanness, because this is what America is all about — different languages and cultures, mishmashed together with our own.

That said, my mind felt totally blown in Flushing. The closest I’ve come to Asian culture in Mexico was the time I walked those two blocks near Parque Alameda that are lined with Chinese food restaurants. And then there was one time we had Chinese food for Alice’s birthday.

But this…

this….

Wow.

I did feel like I was in China. Like, seriously transported.

We went to Shanghai Tang for dinner, which offered all-you-can-eat hot pot, with soda or beer, for $26 a person. Gene instructed us on how to create our own dipping sauce at the condiment bar — I loaded mine with peanut sauce, chile oil, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, scallions and cilantro. I’m a newbie with all of those flavors, but it was really good. As Gene said: The sauce is pretty impossible to mess up.

We ordered a bunch of meat and veggies, and a waiter delivered a bowl simmering with two kinds of broth: one spicy, swimming with dried chiles, bay leaves and what looked like whole star anis; the other side was plain, sprinkled with a few vegetables.

The idea was to dip in our veggies and meat in the broth using our chopsticks, or a little wire basket the restaurant provided. When the items were sufficiently cooked (usually about 10 to 15 seconds, but longer for items like shrimp and fried tofu), we’d dunk them in our condiment bowls and eat them. It was fantastic.

Afterward, we wandered in search of Chinese shaved ice, but it was already around 10 p.m. and most shops had already closed. Instead we found a tea shop. Gene and Dora got frostees; Joy and I ordered passion-fruit flavored Chinese yogurt drinks with matcha agar, which are these little confetti pieces of bland Jell-O. (It’s for textural whimsy.) The yogurt tasted more like fruit punch, but I was still glad I tried it.

Gene also ordered tea eggs. They’re eggs boiled in tea, soy sauce and Chinese spices. You eat them like a hardboiled egg. I loved them — they had an intense meatiness to them, like a portobello mushroom.