Nearly every time I start up a conversation with a Chinese restaurant worker, they’ll say they’re from the Fujian province of Southeastern China. They always seem to be serving Sichuan food, or Yunnan food, or Japanese sushi or Vietnamese pho. But never Fujian food.

That’s why this meal was so special. @dandanzou66 ‘s friend @teng_chen_films is visiting her from China and happens to be from this area. She was gracious enough to show me around the menu at this newish spot we found, @mindushengyan in Flushing, Queens.

The poshness of the restaurant surprised us both, and to her it signaled the fact that New York’s Fujian population is moving on up. The tablet menu is encyclopedic and presents highbrow versions of many popular street foods. I was surprised to see sweet and sour pork on here, but apparently it’s a classic Fujian dish.

The rest of the meal was challenging even for this seafood lover. But extremely rewarding. Marinated snails in a soy sauce had an explosive salty flavor, but took awhile to eat with all that nibbling. The marinated crab dish was too sweet, in her opinion. And this soup, the Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, was loaded with sea cucumber, abalone, quail eggs and a couple other things I couldn’t identify. According to Wikipedia, the dish is supposed to get vegetarian Buddhist monks jumping over the wall of the monastery to eat it. Wow!

#fujianfood #chinesefood #flushingqueens #flushingfood Less