The night before, I was thinking about how I hadn't done a post on a Chinatown block yet. So I was looking up places to eat there as a starting point for a street to visit, since I don't really know the ins and outs of that neighborhood.
(This welcome sign is on Canal Street. Couldn't the words be lit up so that my photo would look better? How rude.)
Anyway, I finally settled on Xi'an Famous Foods, which had good reviews and seemed like a cheap and quick place to get a quality dish. I was looking forward to trying it out and seeing what else was on that block.
As I walked towards my Bayard Street destination, I experienced the usual crowds on Canal Street and expected that things would clear up and mellow out once I walked onto some smaller streets in the area.
I turned a corner and noticed that there were big throngs walking in the middle of the street, and cars were apparently barred from entering.
I also saw that the street and sidewalks were covered with colorful confetti and other celebratory toys and gizmos.
It looked like a group of clowns had spontaneously self-combusted.
There were also a lot of people throwing those little poppers that make that quick cracking noise, which totally wasn't annoying at all. Buy hey, I was a guest at the celebration, and many of the throwers were kids anyway, so I tried to lighten up. By the way, apparently they're called bang snaps.
Earlier in the day I noticed on Google's home page that it was the lunar new year, but somehow I didn't connect the dots and realize that this meant it was the Chinese New Year. So as I stumbled onto these crowded streets, I decided to look up on my phone what the event was. I thought it could be the New Year but really wasn't sure. Sometimes I'm slow to catch on.
Sure enough, the internet informed me that it was the first day of the Chinese year 4714, though Wikipedia says this number can differ between some scholars based on which starting date is used. Whatever the number, it is the year of the monkey. That explained all the monkeys in the illustration around Google's logo. Like I said, sometimes it takes me a while.
Here's the corner of Bayard and Mott taken on Mott Street:
Here's a photo on our actual block for this post, with Xi'an Famous Foods and some nicely colored buildings and fire escapes:
I thought I would take refuge for a while in my original food target, before returning to the noise and commotion, which I actually didn't mind since it was such a festive atmosphere.
Hmm, that's wasn't a great sign, but I stuck to the plan.
Xi'an Famous Foods is a fairly small shop. When you walk in, there is a register straight ahead where you place your order. To the left is a counter against the wall for about 3 or 4 people to sit at. On the wall is photos and names of all the dishes they offer. There is a cozy seating area in the back of the place with several tables.
The dish I ordered was N5, which is called Mount Qi Vegetables Hand-Ripped Noodles. It's in the Hand-Pulled Noodles section of the menu.
When a dish is ready there, a dumbwaiter brings it right next to the register. The guy working the register calls out your order number and puts the food on a nearby stand that has utensils, napkins, condiments, etc. My number was called after a few minutes and I got my food tray and ate at the counter in the front of the store.
I used a fork instead of chopsticks. Sorry.
The dish was really good, with lots of nice vegetables and flat, very long noodles that were delicious.
After I finished eating and was soothed by the good warm food, I stepped back out onto jubilant Bayard Street. I could barely make out a big dragon's head bobbing up and down in the distance, but I couldn't get a good shot of it. There was still plenty to see on the block, though:
Every 30 seconds or so, there would be a big pop sound as confetti was shot out of something, probably a toy cannon type of thing.
Along with the bursts of confetti, some of these pops would shoot several small objects that were each attached to a very small pinkish parachute. Then they would gently glide down to the crowds. People wanted these things and I assumed they were toys.
I thought the mini-parachutes were very cool. You can see a few in the above photo, just to the right of the row of flags. I think you can also see some in the photo below, amid confetti that's been shot high into the air:
And in this photo:
Because of the special occasion, it was hard to survey everything else that was on this block, but I took some photos of some of the storefronts to get a sense of what else was there. Included among them were restaurants, dessert shops, and an ob/gyn:
Even though my original hope for this trip to Chinatown was to avoid big crowds and have a fairly quiet stroll to the block, I'm glad I accidentally stumbled into the middle of a Chinese New Year party. It was fun to experience the celebrations and upbeat atmosphere, and it brightened an otherwise cold February day.
Time to clean up.
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