Experienced writer for neighborhood guides

In Search of Offal for Some Reason

   Offal has a public relations problem. The term itself derives from a German word, which is bad enough; worse is that the German word in question loosely translates to "garbage." In terms of culinary marketability, that's pretty much the opposite of deriving from an Italian phrase translating to "springtime in fucking Milan" (primavera nello scopare Milano). This may explain offal's relative scarcity in the realm of Western cuisine.

    Or maybe it doesn't. After all, offal - which refers broadly to the organs of animals, as opposed to their actual meat - may be on the permanent down-low for reasons other than image. Perhaps it makes for a wonderful dish but nobody knows this except for the Chinese and a couple of Turkish sheepherders somewhere, presumably Turkey. Perhaps offal is simply a bad thing to eat and it's the Chinese and Turks who are wrong. The world is a rich tapestry of possibilities. In search of the truth, I headed over to the Main Street area in Flushing, Queens, itself home to some 50,000 Chinese, those grand global champions of utterly un-Western edibles.

   The district is more explicitly Chinese than such other Chinatowns as that of lower Manhattan. There are the obligatory store signs making liberal use of the terms "fortunate," "friendship," "family," "happy," and "happy family;" there is the ubiquitous smoking of cigarettes; there are the tables set up on the street by members of the Falun Dafa with banners exhorting passerby to quit the Chinese Communist Party, which is a pretty reasonable thing to do when you find yourself living in Queens.

    My specific destination was the underground food court of the Golden Mall, itself purported to be the city's grandest collection of ultra-authentic Chinese food in general and offal in particular. It was an educational little trip; for instance, I had no idea that I suffer from social anxiety disorder until I walked down the steps and found myself being stared at by three dozen middle-aged Asian women. Apparently I find this very intimidating.

    The food court itself is made up of nearly two dozen tiny eateries with open kitchens, with a video rental place and a shoe store thrown in at opposite ends for good measure or the Chinese equivalent thereof. Several of these little outlets specialize in regional variants of Middle Kingdom fare, though there's no particular go-to spot for offal; such things make up a small percentage of each menu or none at all, so you'll have to do a little browsing to get a sense of what's available. I suggest doing this while taking mysterious notes and occasionally pausing to stare off into space. This will ensure that you are noticed.

    My first foray into the realm of offal was beef tripe with red pepper sauce ($6), obtained at a place with no visible English name but which is located across the passageway from another joint called Happy Family, next to the shoe store. The sauce was swell, admirably spicy in the inimitable manner of a culture that's had easy access to spice for thousands of years. But the tripe itself will presumably put off the average Western palate. One problem is its necessarily soft consistency, an alarming attribute that sets off conceptual alarm bells among the uninitiated. The other problem is that it tastes terrible. Specifically, it's most reminiscent of menudo, the Mexican soup that's also made from beef tripe. But whereas menudo is generally tolerable to the novice tongue, this Chinese take on cow stomach lining is, one may presume, a more acquired taste. One can only guess how long it would take to acquire it.

    I decided to try another dish from the same place, which offered a couple of other offal options including sheered pig's tripe with red chili sauce ($6) and fried intestines with green pepper ($9). I went with the pig ears ($6), which are here served in slices with soy sauce, although I added some duck sauce into the mix just because I can. The pig ears tasted of pork, which is a fine enough thing for pig ears to taste like. And although they were of a consistency similar to that of the beef tripe, the effect here was benevolent rather than frightening. All in all, the pig ears were pleasing to my forked gweilo tongue.

    I wandered around a bit more. One place offered something called a "meat vegetable wheat pancake," which certainly is a lot of things. Another stall seemed to specialize in hands; the menu listed pig hands, ox hands, even eel hands. Then I realized that these weren't hands at all, but rather pig, ox, and eel served with "hand-pulled noodles." The eel should have tipped me off.

    One place advantageously located in the midst of everything, known as Xi'an Small Delights, offered stewed lamb spine ($7). This, apparently, is an extreme rarity outside of northern China, which is a damned shame; ripping the flesh from an animal's spine with one's teeth really gets the blood pumping (I did this in an unnecessarily savage manner for the benefit of the small children who were staring at me from the next table). The flesh itself, aside from being only slightly recognizable as lamb, was awash in some sort of flowery flavor that was pleasant but hard to place; this turned out to be anise, an ingredient commonly found in such dishes. I sure cracked that case!

    Golden Mall is worth a visit if you're the adventurous sort, and if it turns out that offal doesn't do it for you, there are also some hundred or so dishes of the exotic-but-not-too-exotic variety. Plus there's ol' Joe's Bestburger down the street; they have milkshakes, and you can quit the Chinese Communist Party while you're over there. USA! USA!

Golden Mall
41-28 Main Street
Queens, NY
11355

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