When was the last time you looked up from the plate and proclaimed to your friends, "This food is amazing!" I had the pleasure recently at Henan Feng Wei ("Henan Flavors"), a newish northern Chinese restaurant hidden on a side street in downtown Flushing. Before me sat "fatty beef casserole" ($6), a rather ho-hum name for the reservoir of angry red oil that burbled in a metal chafing dish. Floating on top were wads of paradoxically lean brisket, bright green baby bok choys, cloud-ear 'shrooms undulating like brown jellyfish, and orange jujubes—not the Western candy, but miniature Asian dates. A further surprise awaited us: Concealed below the surface were seaweed-like masses of yuba, a rubbery fettucine made from bean-curd skin and more fun to eat than you can imagine.
The restaurant presents food from Henan, a small-but-populous province that lies northwest of Shanghai just south of the Yellow River, regarded as the cradle of Chinese civilization. You'd never suspect Henan Feng Wei was so good just by gazing down at the basement premises from the street. Situated in a vertical mall of five stories populated by importers and massage parlors, the establishment occupies a painfully well-lit space approached from an exterior stairway. The dining room is boxy, with a counter than runs along two walls, behind which women in hairnets pat small thick flatbreads, prepare oil-slicked vegetable and offal salads, noisily slap noodles on the counter, and assemble soups and dumplings. That's the totality of the menu, which is refreshing if you're accustomed to plowing through the hundreds of dishes on most Chinese menus.
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