Fer is a nearby neighborhood restaurant that has similar spicy features comparable to other Chinese restaurants around the area. I’m a big fan of little shops because it usually means you can get your food pretty fast, and it feels casual. We stopped by late Saturday afternoon, and there was hardly anyone there. We were seated right away, and the food came out very fast. The menu has a lot of chili oil in all of their items, but luckily the spice was tolerable when ordered mild.

Red Sorghum has recently opened in Long Island City, and is yet another spicy Chinese restaurant. It seems that there are quite a few around Long Island City. This location replaced the closed Penny Bridge. Because this was really close to our place and we were meeting friends, we decided on this restaurant to try different dishes. They proud themselves in baijiu, which is China’s liquor to Korean soju. There are several cocktails made with them if you’re interested.

We had some tickets to attend one of those Fever “Candlelight” concert events that was located at a church right next to the “Court St” R-stop in Brooklyn. There was not too many options in terms of food within close vicinity. I looked at the prices for this soup dumpling place, and to my surprise, Din Soup Dumplings seemed not bad. My partner was also in a dumpling mood, so it was convenient to go check this place out.

Knock Knock is a nearby neighborhood cafe that has a mix of Cantonese-style dishes. The decor and the style of the food reminds me a bit of the San Gabriel Valley in Southern California, where there are a lot of small cafe shops opening serving quick eats. My cousin had visited this a few weeks ago for breakfast, and they said they were pleasantly surprised at the coffee. That was a catalyst for us to check this place out to see how its actual food was.

Taiwanese food is one of the types of cuisines that is seldomly found in Manhattan and just simply cannot compare to the San Gabriel Valley in the greater Los Angeles area in California. I asked my partner before a show if they wanted to check this out, and to my surprise they said yes! Normally they are not fond of this type of food, especially when noodles are around. This is not too far from Broadway theaters.

In our area, there has been a plethora of Chinese restaurants opening. Literally around us, there are at least 3 hot pot places. I don’t really consider Nai Brothers a hot pot, but what grabbed my attention was that it specializes in sour fish soups. Nai Brothers is a very small chain with its primary location in Flushing, and this Long Island City location being it’s smaller sibling that’s closer to Manhattan.

Occasionally, I can grab food for myself after work, and I tend to look for noodles. My partner is not a fan at all of noodles, so I took this liberty to look for something that they would not enjoy. Despite the hot and humid weather in NYC, I rarely mind eating hot soups with noodles. Silky Kitchen has a location near where I live in Astoria, so I thought I’d try out its location out in Midtown near Times Square.

We planned to meet my partner’s friend on the wonderful Roosevelt Island. For those that haven’t been to Roosevelt Island, there are literally 3 different ways to get there: the F train, the tram (cable car), or transportation via bridge from the Astoria side. With the hopefully slim possibility of living there, my partner wanted to meet their friend and also check out local food delights. Zhongzhong Noodles had been on my list for quite a while, so I figured now is a good time to try it out.

Flushing is the NYC mecca for Chinese food. It’s at the end of the 7 train line heading east, and it takes about 40 minutes from Manhattan on weekends. Many restaurants and stalls only accept cash, so it’s quite different than being in Manhattan or Long Island City. My partner had a friend that wanted to meet in Flushing to try out Korean BBQ. I thought there would be several near Main Street, but it seems all the decent Korean BBQ places are least a mile east of the Main street subway station.

We walked by this restaurant one evening as we were walking back, and I was reminded that this was something I wanted to try. At a quick glance, the interior seemed pretty spacious, and I always go back and forth on whether we can go here. My partner is never fanatical about noodles, but luckily this restaurant has other things such as dim sum and cold cut appetizers. This restaurant opened last year during the pandemic in October and seemed to have a pretty steady flow of repeat customers.