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Golden Shopping Mall's Gourmet Noodles & Delicacies Gets an Upgrade

Posted by Joe DiStefano, October 10, 2008 at 1:30 PM

It’s only a five-minute walk from Flushing’s Chinatown, but College Point Boulevard has always been a wasteland when it comes to Chinese food, regional or otherwise. Now that is starting to change thanks to a new Chinese spot that sprang up seemingly overnight in a former check cashing store, next to a joint called El Palacio de las Empanadas. Gourmet Noodles and Delicacies, or Huang Jin Jiao Feng Wei Xiao Chi (which technically means “Golden Corner Local Delicacies”), isn’t exactly new though. It’s an outpost of a stall from the Golden Shopping Mall that serves cuisine from Wenzhou, a coastal Chinese city south of Shanghai. For whatever reason I’d never explored the food in the Wenzhou stall. Perhaps it’s because the food court has so many other distractions to dazzle the taste buds. Both locations are run by a charming couple. The husband hails from Taiwan, and the wife, who’s the chef, comes from Wenzhou. Photos of about 30 such delicacies line the wall, many of them cold dishes showcasing one form of offal or another. Right now most don’t have names or descriptions, but the folks behind the counter will be glad to help you order. In the past week I managed to work my way through six of these dishes.

Since it’s a specialty of the house, I had to get a plate of Wenzhou noodles. The toothsome ribbons are topped with just a touch of pork and green onion and dressed lightly with vinegar and garlic. It’s quite simple, yet quite delicious.

I’ve never eaten duck gizzards before so I tried a dish that combined the chewy organ meat with mushrooms, carrots and Chinese celery. When it comes to eating Chinese offal, I’m more accustomed to Sichuan dishes ablaze with hot pepper. It was a refreshing and delicious change of pace to try something a tad more subtle.

While choosing from the cold dishes in the display case I saw some pieces of pork tied with twine. The chef informed me that they were pig’s trotters that had been deboned, rolled up and then braised. Slicing one up yields a mountain of porky goodness. Each slice sports a brown layer of skin ringing a slippery stratum of gelatin surrounding a core of meat. A quick dip in a mixture of soy sauce and black vinegar makes them taste even better. I also sampled a cold pig’s foot that had been similarly braised and then hacked into little pieces. It was mighty chewy, but I could see acquiring a taste for it. I never thought I’d say it, but a heap of translucent beef tendon tossed with tripe deserves to be called a delicacy.

I can never get enough noodle soup or spare ribs, so I rounded out my Wenzhou feast with a dish that combines both: spare rib noodle soup. A generous portion of insanely tender ribs float like a life raft in a broth bobbing with spring onions and pickled mustard greens. Sadly my one disappointment with the place also involves spare ribs. On both occasions that I visited they were out of salt and pepper spare ribs.

As with many regional Chinese snack shops the prices here are incredibly cheap. You’d be hard pressed to spend $20 for two.

Gourmet Noodles & Delicacies

42-15 College Point Boulevard, Queens NY 11355 (map)
718-886-0123

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Tags: Flushing, Flushing Chinatown, Golden Shopping Mall, Gourmet Noodles and Delicacies, Queens, Wenzhou