It was entertaining to hear the bakeries asking each other in Chinese,"Why are there so many Caucasians today?"-- I wonder if they felt like they were being punked like Improv Everywhere 2004: Best Gig Ever. The creator of NYC Food Crawl did try to forewarn establishments that huge groups would be visiting them solely for pork buns--but obviously there was language barriers.
Anyways, I have to commend NY Food Crawl for putting a well organized event. We were divided into our own groups, given detailed instructions, maps with addresses and visual, given suggestions on how to split the cost, etc etc etc. It was a happy crawl and we even made a new friend, Josh. (Good luck in culinary school!)
Overall it took us 1 1/2 hours to hit all 6 places.
1. Tai Pan Bakery- 194 Canal btwn Mott and Mulberry
*Lots of sweet meat, but not a fan of the bread. Their bo-lo-bao was especially dry and stale.
2. Fay Da Bakery-- 83 Mott St
*Wanted to sell us cold pork buns. Booo....
3. Lung Moon Bakery-- 81 Mulberry St
* My second favorite. Smaller portion than Tai Pan, but quality beats quantity.
4. Mei Li Wah Bakery-- 64 Bayard St
*The best of the best. Everything seemed just right. New find for me, but Lisa (center) knew about this already.
5. Vegetarian Dim Sum House-- 24 Pell St
*Per Scott " Tastes like faux meat wrapped in Wonderbread.". Worst of the worst. You cant fake char siu!
6. Golden Fung Wong Bakery-- 41 Mott St
*Sells mooncakes. Didnt have any pork buns by the time we got there.
