Chinatown and South China Garden

So for the past two weekends Alex and I have fallen into the routine of my going to pilates at 10am and then heading down to Chinatown for dim sum or an early lunch.  Last weekend we went to Ping's Seafood on Mott Street for dim sum and stuffed our faces.  We had all of your standard dim sum dishes, cheong fun (a sheet of steamed rice noodle filled with char siu or shrimp), ha gao (shrimp dumplings), siu mai (shrimp and pork dumplings), char siu sou (flaky pastry filled with char siu), fried shrimp balls, and a variety of scallop and shrimp dumplings.  My favorites were the ha gao and the scallop dumplings.  Both were sweet and fresh-tasting.  Their cheong fun was gummy and tasted like it had been made hours prior to our arrival and considering that we got there at 11:30 am, that might have been the case (although the dim sum selections that early in the day are usually pretty fresh).  Since we had dim sum last week, I wanted something different today.  I started playing around on Yelp and Chowhound trying to decide between a few places that I have been wanting to try (Amazing 66, South China Garden aka Cantoon Garden, and New Wonton Garden were all options we discussed), and ended up deciding on South China Garden.  I have to say that the deciding factor for me was the number of people in one Chowhound post that raved about the salt-baked squid (pictured above).  I freaking love salt-baked squid.  Great NY Noodletown has a great salt-baked soft shelled crab during the summer when soft shelled crab is in season, but the salt-baked squid at South China Garden might literally be the best that I have ever tasted.  The squid was incredibly tender, with a very thin batter on the outside (I can't really come up with anything to compare it to - Alex suggested tempura, but it's so much thinner and crispier than tempura batter).  Plus it was super flavorful.  I was literally in love with this dish.  I really wanted to try the sauteed ginger scallion lobster or the garlic crab with ho fun, but since it was just the two of us that seemed a little excessive.  Instead we ended up getting the seafood pan-fried noodles and the garlic fried chicken.  We over-ordered just a bit.  Both the pan-fried noodles and the fried chicken were good (although the noodles needed a little salt), but neither could compete with the salt-baked squid.

More after the jump (including pictures of the pan-fried noodles and the fried chicken)!

Since we were going to be down in Chinatown anyway, I started looking up Thai and Vietnamese grocery stores on Yelp.  When we go to Chinatown we tend to hit the same Chinese grocery stores over and over (Hong Kong Supermarket on Hester, New York Supermarket East Broadway under the Manhattan Bridge and Kam Man Supermarket on Canal), and they barely carry any Southeast Asian ingredients.  Sure you can always find fish sauce, and a variety of curry pastes and other random sauces, but I have been looking for Thai basil and kaffir lime leaves for months to no avail.  The only place I had been able to find those ingredients was Kalustyans in Curry Hill, which always struck me as strange.  Anyway, after a little research I came up with a Thai market called Bangkok Center Grocery on Mosco Street (which might very well be the shortest street in all of Manhattan) and a Vietnamese market called Tan Tin-Hung Supermarket on Bowery.  So I have to give both of these places rave reviews, with a slight preference for Bangkok Center Grocery (partially because the staff there was super friendly and incredibly helpful).  I would characterize it more as a market than a grocery store, as it is fairly small and has a limited selection of carefully selected Thai ingredients and produce.  We picked up some curry paste, lemongrass, fresh galangal, Thai eggplants, Thai iced tea mix, Thai basil, holy basil, dried shrimp, and a few other things.  Then we headed over to Tan Tin-Hung for culantro and rice vermicelli noodles.  I really wanted to buy a Vietnamese dessert that I love called banh bo, but they were all out, which made me very sad.  But considering how excited I am that I finally found two Southeast Asian grocery stores I can't find it in me to get all that upset.