A Chinatown Restaurant and My Personal Lower Manhattan

My close friend Bob and I went to our favorite Chinatown restaurant this evening.

It reopened after a brush with the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. We laughed when we saw the ominous bureaucratic "Closed" signs on the joint some months ago. The restaurant, which I will only identify by its Bowery location, always had the knack of being on the frontiers of cleanliness. The cramped bathroom was graffiti-filled and offered a hint of human stink in what passed for air. The kitchen -- and I have walked through many restaurant kitchens as a food writer -- resembled an exaggerated image of a busy, sweaty facility not fully dedicated to sanitary practices. The glass tables were hurriedly wiped off with some sort of wet cloth.

Of course, Bob and I thrive there. We appreciated its funk. We could deal with the cramped tables. We got used to working the harried, grumpy waiters. Most importantly, we enjoyed the food, which were things we couldn't get at home and that would horrify just about anyone else we knew.

Nearly all the food we ordered -- and we get just about the same thing each time we dine there -- is amazingly unhealthy and we love it. Bob has a weakness for salt baked scallops. My taste runs toward shrimp in the shells getting the salt baked treatment, but I easily wolfed down the scallops. We both enjoyed the roast duck. The restaurant has a number of broken-necked creatures hanging on hooks in the window facing a side street. Half of one duck, with crispy skin and just enough fat to add flavor, is sacrificed for our benefit. We find our way to a somewhat spicy noodle dish. Our one concession to "healthy" dining is a dish of some green vegetable the home team appears to be eating that evening. It tastes good and we typically order it. We wash down this entire feast with Chinese beer.

The check arrives with some orange slices, and two hand towel packets. No fortune cookies, thankfully.

I look forward to these dinners for many reasons. One irresistible draw for me is that it gives me an excuse to connect with my personal history in New York. To reach Chinatown, I typically stroll from the ferry slips on the Hudson River across town. As a result, I often walk past the Municipal Building, where my grandfather worked. On the way to Chinatown is the city office where death certificates are issued. I went there many evenings as a high school student; my best friend, whose father was a mortician, needed the documents to conduct the family business. If I go a little out of my way, I can walk past my father's former office on Broadway and Wall Street. My dentist had his practice just a block uptown from where my dad worked. My first summer job, with a financial PR firm, was in the building next door. At the foot of Broadway is the Staten Island Ferry terminal where I said good-night for the first time to the woman to whom I'm now happily married.

Chinatown itself became my culinary home after college, and I've always felt comfortable with most Chinese food since that time. (I admit I avoid some of the more exotic, non-Western dishes.) I taught in Chinatown, and coincidentally took -- and passed -- my Series 7 exam in the same school building where I had conducted my classes.

A lot of good personal history there. Good food, too. All of that, and the opportunity to connect with a close, long-standing friend, makes the trip something I always enjoy.