Traditional Chinese food and culture draw throngs of New Yorkers

NEW YORK — A Chinese food and culture festival won New Yorkers' hearts and stomachs on June 24 with its debut on a section of street at Washington Square Park in Lower Manhattan.

The festival showcased authentic Chinese food like soup dumplings, dandan noodles, kebabs, pastries, flower cakes, bingtang hulu (sugarcoated hawthorn), jianbing (a savory pancake), sugar paintings, stinky tofu and others from around 35 vendors.

Foodies waited in long lines at some popular stands and the waiting time for the jianbing event exceeded two hours.

Summer showers didn't dampen New Yorkers' enthusiasm and the street remained crowded throughout the afternoon.

More than 30,000 people joined the free event from 10 am to 6 pm last Saturday, according to Xu Xuan, founder of the festival, which is branded as Dragon Fest.

Food is the best starting point for people to understand and appreciate Chinese culture, Xu said.

Vendors from Qingmu Dessert Lab offered Chinese pastries and wore traditional Chinese clothing known as hanfu.

A set of four pastries was made to represent the four seasons with ingredients collected throughout the year, according to an associate with Qingmu Dessert Lab.

Jianbing, a popular street food in North China, drew many people's interest as its vendor Gem Bing Shop is nearby.

New Yorkers could also taste flower cake with ingredients imported from Southwest China's Yunnan province.

Meanwhile, staff members from the restaurant brand Mala Project were busy fulfilling orders for spicy dry pot, representing neo-Sichuan cuisine.

The presence of Seattle-based frozen dumpling service MiLa at the festival illustrates the popularity of authentic Chinese food in the US market. Its participation in the festival also marks the first largescale promotion of the brand in New York.

Founded in 2018, MiLa switched to online sales of frozen soup dumplings after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It then shipped products to customers across the United States as its popularity increased, said Zhang Xiaohan, brand marketing and partnership lead with MiLa.

Zhang sees enormous potential for authentic Chinese food in the mainstream market. MiLa started to supply Costco Wholesale stores on the West Coast in June.

Chinese cuisine is not merely fried dumplings, steamed buns or chow mein (fried noodles), nor does it mean American-style Chinese food, said Xu, the event's founder.

Xu said that she mulled over organizing such a festival as early as 2019 to present people with a one-stop experience of Chinese food.

Moreover, people can also try bubble tea, Sichuan-style spicy chili fried chicken, fried skewers, egg waffles, Mochi ice cream and others.

The festival is expected to be held at three other locations in Manhattan in August and September.

Xinhua