Eat the competition

Photographs: Talia Simhi (top left; bottom left); Benjamin Norman (top middle; top right; bottom right)

The Yangtze River is China’s culinary Mason-Dixon Line: South of it, the staple carb is rice, while in the north, locals eat mostly wheat—often in the guise of noodles, dumplings and bings, the family of savory breads and pastries that Beijingers enjoy as snacks and for breakfast. A fine example in our city is the sesame pancake with beef at Prosperity Dumpling—fluffy, sesame-studded flatbread stuffed with chewy sliced meat and julienned carrots.

Though moo shu pork comes straight from Beijing, the original bears little resemblance to the sludgy Americanized standard. In the traditional version, egg is the star, supported by a lineup of pork, wood-ear mushrooms, scallions and sometimes bamboo. A worthy moo shu can be found at Fu Run (40-09 Prince St at Roosevelt Ave, Flushing, Queens; 718-321-1363), one of the only full-scale restaurants in New York that specializes in northeastern Chinese cuisine.

1. Fu Run is also among the few places you’ll find Beijing-style caramel “fruit.” Dip a piece of molten-sugar–coated taro, apple or sweet potato into a bowl of cold water, and the scalding syrup hardens into a shell, shattering pleasantly and giving way to a tender interior when bitten. It’s like the perfect french fry, only sweet. In Manhattan, Chinese-Korean eatery Shanghai Mong serves a comparable dish using banana, in addition to apple and potato.

Chefs from the municipality of Tianjin, which shares the bread-making traditions of its western neighbor, Beijing, churn out classic chive-and-egg pancakes at Oriental Express Food (41-40 Main St between Sanford Ave and 41st Rd, Flushing, Queens; no phone). China’s answer to Hot Pockets (in Mandarin, the proper name means “chive pocket”), it’s a tender wheat crêpe folded over a fluffy scrambled egg, grassy garlic chives and slippery bean thread noodles. While you’re there, grab one of the superlative scallion pancakes.

2. Beijingers love pork as much as the next Chinese person, but an influx of Mongolian and Uighur (from the northwest province of Xinjiang) immigrants has given them a taste for lamb. One of the preferred ways to enjoy it in the capital city is in a Mongolian hot pot—a kind of DIY soup. Try it at Happy Family, also known as Little Lamb (36-35 Main St between Northern Blvd and 37th Ave, Flushing, Queens; 718-358-6667). The owner won’t divulge the recipes, but the two broths to choose from—a searing red broth and a milky white one—serve as a bases for the staggering number of lamb ingredients you add to the boiling soup, including intestines, heart, tongue and brains.

Beijing’s most famous specialty, Peking duck, requires numerous steps for preparation. Eating it is an almost equally drawn-out—but much more enjoyable—affair: The duck is served in a succession of dishes, starting with the crackling skin cut up into dozens of bite-size pieces, to be folded into thin mandarin pancakes with slivered scallions and a dab of bean sauce. The meat is then served, followed by a soup made from the bones and scraps. Few if any restaurants in New York roast their ducks over wood the way they do in China, but Chinatown Brasserie makes a respectable version by cooking the bird in a Chinese barbecue oven, then finishing it in the deep fryer. (Note: There’s no soup in this take.)

3. True to its name, Grand Sichuan specializes in the numbingly spicy food of western China, but the kitchen also does right by other provinces. Its zhajiang mian (noodles with meat and bean sauce), one of Beijing’s best-known dishes, shames the gloppy and overwhelmingly salty versions made by Manhattan’s Beijing-style dumpling houses. Grand Sichuan’s noodles—cooked unsalted and just a shade past al dente, the way the Chinese like it—are coated in a complex brown sauce chock-full of diced tofu, bits of pork, black mushrooms and edamame, and served with cooling fresh bean sprouts.

4. We bet you didn’t know that China is the world’s largest producer of walnuts. The meaty nut shows up in all kinds of dishes, from stir-fries to warm walnut soup, a traditional Beijing dessert. In the classic version, the walnuts are cooked with glutinous rice and jujubes (the fruit, not the candy), pureed, then sweetened with rock sugar. Anita Lo at Bar Q gives the soup a refined tweak, serving it with malted Rice Krispies and a sandy, halvah-like cake of Filipino milk candy called polvoron.

5. In Chinese-American restaurants, pancake is the catchall term for baked and griddled breads—few of which bear any resemblance to flapjacks. Among the traditional street fare described as “Beijing Style” at Vanessa’s Dumpling House is the onion and beef pancake, which is like a Chinese empanada: juicy filling encased in flaky pastry. Another snack worth trying is the bubbly sesame pancake, cut into a pie-like wedge.

Jen Lin-Liu, the Beijing-based author of the just-published memoir Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China,found that dumplings are the quintessential food of the city. Her favorite, fried pork dumplings laced with fragrant dill—an herb not much used elsewhere in the People’s Republic—are elusive in our country, but superb examples can be found at Lao Bei Fang (86-08 Whitney Ave at MacNish St, Elmhurst, Queens; 718-639-3996).