Firs day back to New York City 2019/Carlos Pueblo

Firs day back to New York City 2019/Carlos Pueblo

In order to make my frugal budget, I arrived New York City four days before the ship embark at the Manhattan pier. I managed to make it to the Canal Street subway station in a shuttle bus from the La Quadia Airport to a subway station to take No. 6 line to Chinatown to meet Yong, my host at Staten Island. We walked to a Shabu Shabu Restaurant nearby to meet Peter, his fellow Chinese Malaysian who allowed me to use his two vouchers to reduce the cruise fares. The owner of the restaurant, also another Chinese Malaysian, is a successful first generation of immigrant. Peter is a 10% minor investor/owner of the restaurant. Most of the customers are young  generation.

Yong, a retiree of the Metro Transit Authority, used to be office at lower Manhattan and come to Chinatown for lunch with his co-workers; therefore, he is very familiar with the area. It is much better than my previous visits by myself. He introduced me to a lady vender of a fruits stand to buy queva, longan, and mango, etc. Fruits stands are still very common in NYC with much better quality control based on the basic principle of the supply and demand. Most of the fruits are supplied from the State of Florida with unusual ripe and freshness while we don't see it often in Houston oriental super market. The lady owner mentions that they still need to work hard because their last child is still attending Columbia University after their first two children become a doctor of medicine and a business consultant. I believed that I met her husband before several times in my past visit of the city. They are Chinese Vietnamese immigrants.

The third stop was Bo Ky Restaurant where I got my favorite Diaojou marinated duck. The restaurant is managed by the second generation of the family after the senior lady passed away. Every time when I visit NYC, I always purchase several of their ducks and some times I take them to Washington D.C. to give them to my host family during my hanami, cherry blossom viewing. I was told by Yong that during the 80's, the restaurant rotated three chef
to chop 180 ducks a day to meet the take out demand. I remember my conversation with the senior lady owner in Taiwanese, a similar language with Diaojou, previously. Yong is a Diaojoujin and very familiar with the owner's family, the current manager is the second son and his wife with an electrical engineer background. I have had a found memory of my love of Diaojou cuisine since my school time in the capital city of Taipei, the beef noodle, meat and fish ball noodle with the delicious broth, etc. I am going to try some again very soon in Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Singapore on my next trip.