How my lunch was saved by half a duck, green tea and rice
The plan for lunch was to eat at the Murray Hill Diner (222 Lexington Ave, NYC). It’s near my office and a place where my co-workers and I tend to go whenever it rains. Why? Miserable weather brings about an undeniable need for comfort food. And this place is a typical diner where the comfort is served up in tall order. However, the problem today was a missing chair, so only four out of the five in our group could actually sit.
It was pretty odd. First; how could there be a chair missing in a diner? Second; how could the diner not have any extra chairs? And third; why are New Yorkers by nature such a rude bunch (and I say that as someone who was born and raised in the shadows of this city). When asked politely if they could move so our party could have enough seats, these two ultra-cranky old biddies refused. Not only did they refuse, they insisted that they were almost done eating. This at the point of them barely sinking a fork into their food.
Pissed off, I decided to leave. The rest of my group said we should stick together. Across the street is Grand Sichuan NY (227 Lexington Ave, NYC). It’s a classic family-style Chinese restaurant with large tables and lazy susans. Their menu is kinda funny in the way it’s split up. One section is called ‘American Chinese Food’. We joked that this was their way of picking out the ‘chumps’ in the place. The other section was the more extensive, authentic ‘Sichuan Cooking’.
I’m sure the American section was fine enough, but I wanted to try something different and not fall into the safety zone of lo mein this or sweet and sour that. I was also steering clear of the typically spicy Sichuan fare. I was just not in the mood. After several minutes I went with the original plate that caught my eye. The Smoke Tea Duck–where half a duck is smoked in black tea leaves, deep-fried and chopped up into bite-sized pieces, bones and all–was delicious.
Image courtesy of grandsichuan.com
Because of how this is served, the bones can be a treacherous set of splintering obstacles. Luckily, eating with your fingers and spitting out the bones is perfectly acceptable. Quite frankly, it’s unavoidable. But I quickly forgot about all of that thanks to the the crispy skin, succulent, fatty meat and side of plum dipping sauce filling me up with warm goodness. Between that and the rice and hot green tea, I don’t know how I didn’t fall asleep on my keyboard afterwards.
See Also:
Grand Sichuan NY
