Asian food in Queens (food, MomVisit09)

Even though I live closer to Manhattan than the rest of Queens, I'm still right on the 7 train so we went further into Queens for some well-known asian food hotspots.

Flushing

I rarely go into Flushing because it's a bit far and I'm don't like really big crowds. My mom wanted to go and buy some American ginseng as souvenirs so I did some research on some of the quick, cheap eats we should get there. First off the 7 train we went to the little corner stall that sold the peking duck buns. For $1, you get a warm bun filled with a couple slices of duck and decently crisp skin with hoisin sauce. Good value. Next, we went to the Mongolian skewer cart. This is very different from the meat skewers they serve at the hot dog carts. For $1, you get a stick of well-seasoned, flavorful, and tender lamb, beef, or chicken, though we only tried the lamb. The meat chunks don't look big at all, but it's quite filling because of the good mix of fat and meat. We even bought a few sticks to take home and they were still remarkably tender (especially the fat) even when they weren't hot off the grill.

We then went to the food court of the Golden Shopping Mall. Starting off at the Xi'an Famous Snacks stall downstairs, we had the lamb burger and the liang pi. The lamb burger was ok, but the liang pi was really really good. Liang pi is a mix of cold wide noodles with cold wheat gluten mixed with cilantro, bean sprouts, dried tofu, and an amazing sauce made of vinegar and chili oil. Next we went upstairs and shared a large bowl of lamb noodle soup. The soup was fragrant and clean and is meant to be good for you. The lamb was tender, but the star was the very wide and very dense perfectly cooked hand pulled noodles.

Sripraphai

We also went to the famous Thai restaurant in Woodside that's been a favorite of New Yorkers for a long time. In fact, I think its status is getting close to the Peter Luger or Difara Pizza level. We ordered the crispy Chinese watercress salad with shrimp, squid, and chicken. There was the usual great mix of flavors, but it was a little salty that night. We also got the drunken noodles and tom yum soup which were great as usual. The BBQ pork tenders are a favorite of mine, as I can't seem to find other Thai places in NYC that have these tenders, the meat of which should originate from around the pig neck area. We finished with a garlic and pepper fried whole red snapper, which was ok but dry.