Suzanne Ma Online

Bao 包 on the Lower East Side

Monday, March 15th, 2010 | Photos, posts | No Comments

Flickr/blizzardzz

Earlier this month, a friend and I decided to try Baohaus on the Lower East Side.

The small eatery on Rivington Street near Essex specializes in Taiwanese hamburgers－ Guobao 刮包 － white, fluffly Chinese buns, or 馒头 mantou (like the sweet bbq pork buns you get at dimsum) stuffed with savory slices of beef or pork belly and topped with Taiwanese condiments like crushed peanuts, pickled mustard greens 酸菜, red sugar and chopped cilantro.

It’s one of few places in the city that offers such Taiwanese street fare. Momofuku, the overpriced ramen shop in the East Village that is all the rage, has a similar dish except they stuff the bun with Peking duck.

It quickly became the next foodie thing blogs and food columns in the city, and was even featured on the Food Network and reviewed in the New York Times.

I had to try this place.

It turns out, all that publicity was both a blessing and a curse.

When I got down to Baohaus on a Tuesday night around 7:15 p.m. and the place – all 440 square feet of it – was packed.

In the basement of a narrow building on Rivington, Baohaus had a communal table (painted blue) that tightly sits about 10 people. There was a separate table near the door that seats 4. A television against the wall was showing an NBA game, while a stereo system blasted top 40 music. It was chaos.

The door was open, letting a draft sweep down into the eatery and causing all the patrons to shiver in their down jackets while many waited – an hour! – for their food.

When I went up to the cash register to order and pay, I had to stand for about 15 minutes as the cashier struggled to keep up with the orders. She took each order down on a sticky note…. one of which fell down behind the stove, causing a panic because that order had yet to be cooked. The cashier ended up having to take that order again.

I ordered the Royal Frush – $28.00 for any 6 baos, bao fries (sliced up mantou, deep fried and drizzled in black sesame sauce), a cup of boiled peanuts. We tried all three baos, ones with Angus Steak in it, others with Niman Ranch Pork Belly, and the tofu bao.

It took an hour for them to deliver the food. By then, it was nearly 8 p.m. and the staff told us they had a birthday party coming in and that we would have to eat out food outside.

“We’ve been waiting nearly an hour for our food, and now you’re telling us to eat outside?” I asked.

Yes, was the answer. They had a birthday party coming in and everyone had to leave.

I told them that we’d eat quickly and insisted they let us stay – it was pretty ridonkulous that we had to eat outside after waiting so long for Taiwanese street food to be prepared. We stayed, as long as could. When the food finally came, we were so hungry and so rushed that we even forgot to take a photo of the baos before eating them. So I’ve pulled a photo off Flickr instead.

Angus Steak bao was a good quality piece of beef, toppings compliment the beef, which was soft, stringy and tasty. Pork belly bao was tender, juicy, but not as tasty as the steak.

I am all for supporting small Lower East Side eateries, especially creative Chinese-run enterprises…Baohaus is the brainchild of 27-year-old Eddie Huang, an American born Chinese whose parents are from Taiwan.

But seriously. This place has to clean up its act and deal with the crowds a little better. They could start by fixing up the place. The blue communal table isn’t pretty and just doesn’t work with their little space.

Perhaps others have complained this month because Baohaus is now closed for renovations. On Eddie Huang’s blog: Baohaus closed Monday (3/15) thru Wednesday (3/17) next week for interior renovations!!!

I won’t be going back to Baohaus – I’m headed to Asia next month and can get the real stuff for way cheaper than $4 a bao – but I’d be curious to see how the renovations go and how this business survives.

Baohaus

137 Rivington St.

New York, New York 10002

646-684-3835

Tags: angus beef, baohaus, guobao, Lower East Side, mantou, NYC, pork belly, restaurants, taiwanese, taiwanese street food

Hidden Gem on Canal Street

Friday, January 15th, 2010 | posts | No Comments

The Loews Canal Street Theater in its heyday. (credit: New York Public Library, left/Rebecca Lepkoff, right)

Admittedly, I have walked by 31 Canal St. and never looked twice.

It is an old, shuttered electronics shop with a sign that reads “ABC  enith”  – It’s missing the Z in “Zenith.”

But if I looked up, I would have seen this beautiful white façade, festooned by masks, wreaths and griffins.

And inside, the old chandeliers and much of the original terra-cotta details remain, although the movie theater seats — which held 2,314 people with 1,481 on the first floor and 833 on the balcony — were cleared out long ago.

Yes, 31 Canal St. was once a Loews “movie palace” and when it opened in the 1920s, black and white pictures moved silently on the screen while a man at the front of the theater played classical music on the piano.

Today, the neighborhood is much changed. Chinatown residents, looking to establish a culture center for the community, believe the former Loew’s theater may be the right spot.

Here’s my latest on a hidden gem in our incredible city of New York:

By Suzanne Ma

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

LOWER EAST SIDE — On summer weekends, Rebecca Lepkoff remembers holding 15 cents in her hand and lining up to get into the Loew’s Canal Street Theater to escape the heat of her Hester Street tenement.

It was 1928, and she was just 12 years old

The enormous movie theater on Canal Street near Ludlow was the center of the neighborhood.

“It was a lovely theater. It was a beautiful theater,” Lepkoff, now 93, told DNAinfo. “It was very roomy.”

Today, the decrepit theater, which closed down nearly four decades ago, is a warehouse.

But it may get a new life — as a Chinese performing arts center — and once again become the center of an old neighborhood, now largely dominated by Chinese immigrants.

The former movie palace is easy to miss. At first glance, 31 Canal St. looks simply like a shuttered electronics shop.

But look up and you will see a beautiful white façade, festooned by masks, wreaths and griffins.

Inside, the old chandeliers and much of the original terra-cotta details remain, although the seats — which held 2,314 people with 1,481 on the first floor and 833 on the balcony — were cleared out long ago.

Over the next six months, engineers will be surveying the 84-year-old building, which today is owned by Thomas Sung, the founder and chairman of the board of the Abacus Federal Savings Bank in Chinatown.

The building is just one of many locations Amy Chin is scouting out on behalf of a non-profit arts group in Chinatown called CREATE.

The search for a cultural center in Chinatown began after 9/11 with the help of former City Councilman Alan Gerson. CREATE received $150,000 for the performance center from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, and should receive an additional $140,000 for the next phase of planning.

“There isn’t one place where the Chinatown community can gather for cultural events or performances,” Chin told DNAinfo. “This theater is just amazing, sitting there, unused all this time.”

Tags: canal street, chinatown, CREATE, Loew's Canal Street Theater, Lower East Side, movie palace, movie theater, new york city, Rebecca Lepkoff

China focus?

Sunday, January 10th, 2010 | posts | No Comments

Someone asked me about what direction the blog will take in the coming year. You may have noticed the change of the banner, from a bubbling Sichuan hot pot to a beautiful night panorama of the Manhattan skyline taken from a Brooklyn pier.

You also may have noticed my last two posts have been about my job at DNAinfo, an exciting local Manhattan news service. Since September last year I’ve been immersed in the local neighborhood news of Chinatown and the Lower East Side. I must admit, I was opposed at first to covering the Chinatown beat. It made total sense, since I am a Chinese speaker and the only Chinese speaker on staff at DNAinfo. But having reported there during my year at Columbia, I felt like I needed to branch out and have a change of scenery.

Alas I was assigned the beat and off I went.

For the past 5 months, the reporting in Chinatown has surprised me. I am making contacts in the community and what’s interesting is how deeply rooted and passionate people are about their neighborhood. After all, it’s where they live. It is home.

People really care about a local Charter school expanding, about that new luxury hotel opening up around the corner on the Lower East Side, and about the speeding trucks racing off the Manhattan bridge that have crashed into other cars and pedestrians on narrow, busy Chinatown streets.

I have come to care about these issues too.

So I changed my banner, seeing as I’ve been in New York City for a year and a half now. This is my home, for now. This is the place I’m writing about every day.

My Tweets follow big Manhattan stories we cover, but I’m keeping my finger on China, too. I’ll tweet a good selection of news from China and about the Chinese diaspora in America.

Over wonton noodle soup last night in Chinatown, a friend and I contemplated life in the world’s big cities. She has spent considerable time in Paris. We have both lived in Beijing. We now call New York City home. We both agreed life in the big city is stressful; the rhythm of the city is exhilarating yet draining, the people here are passionate yet at times that passion is transformed into aggression and attiTUDE. Still, the stresses of our city lives are in many ways self-fabricated. We work hard (it’s that Chinese work ethic) and we’re competitive (it’s that type-A personality).

But we worry all the while, mulling over decisions and fretting about the future. Maybe it’s because we have too many options in this day and age.

We choose to live in New York City. Where will we be next year?

Tags: China, chinatown, city life, decisions, DNAinfo, Girls Prep Charter School, Lower East Side, Manhattan, Manhattan Bridge, new york city, stress

Moose or Caribou?

Thursday, January 7th, 2010 | posts | 4 Comments

Two days ago, I started getting hate mail from taxidermists, hunters and self-described animal experts. One e-mail came from as far away as Australia.

When a large animal bust reportedly fell off the wall of a Lower East Side restaurant and struck a woman on the head, many press reports identified it as that of a moose because, well, it had antlers.

The emails were pretty harsh. They attacked me, insulting my intelligence, reporting skills, and one even said I should be ashamed of being Canadian. Well, that did it.

I took to the streets with a camera and began canvassing New Yorkers. I showed them a photo of the animal head in question and asked: “Tell me what this animal is?” Check out the responses below and also surf over to DNAinfo.com and look at our cool interactive.

Tags: caribou head, DNAinfo, lawsuit, Lower East Side, Manhattan, moose head, new york, taxidermists, White Slab Palace