Three Chopstick Digits: 111 Mott Street
Three Chopstick Digits

The three chopstick digits of its door number (111 Mott Street) make the New Chao Chow's address an easy one to remember. Inside I have dined a dozen times with a friend. Our happy ghosts are still there, white spectres forming in the steam of boiling rice.

In the course of 1996, I spent four summer months holed up in old New York. Living on an absurdly small fraction of US dollars per day, I wandered frequently in to Chinatown from a hot box basement dungeon in which I was staying on nearby Clinton Street (Avenue B). The New Chao Chow was one of the places I went to eat at least once a week - usually selecting one of its "on rice" dishes (beef with Chinese broccoli for example). And each time, the waiters would supply a pot of either hot or cold tea.

Sit and eat. Master chop sticks. Feel this is the heart of something that you will never forget.

I got into delicious wan ton soup there too. The New Chao Chow stands out for being the kind of mythical low-profile, incredibly cheap and excellent-quality place that you like to think exists in all the cities that you might ever have called home. The dishes back then were at little at 3 bucks 25 cents.

I’d call it a very favourite place.
   [16 Aug 2004 10:50:06]

Food:    Service:    Ambiance:    Overall: 
Recommended Dishes: Wan ton soup, 'on rice' dishes, free hot/icedtea, mmm

     ­Spornick