Funny story. Crazy story. But true Story!

It all started about 2 years ago, when I used to follow @ugeats (Underground Eats - which does not really exist anymore) on Twitter. These folks used to create incredibly tempting culinary experiences, and all one had to do was sign up to be a part of it. One such experience was called the Sichuan Pepper Trail… inspired by an article written by Robert Sietsema’s for eater.com back in Aug 2103. This article noted the best places to experience this unforgettable pepper often found in Asian cooking. For this experience, the folks at Underground Eats actually hired a party bus, and followed the stops recommended by Robert all the way from Queens to downtown Manhattan.

With a total of 11 stops on the way this promised to be a comprehensive study of the Sichuan pepper and its use in varying intensities at all these restaurants which included Chinese, Himalayan as well as Halal restaurants.

Have you ever tasted Sichuan Pepper? Or realized that you have tried it in your food? When used in all its glory - its pungent, potent, almost metallic flavor will be forever imprinted in your memory. It is weirdly not that spicy (in the context we consider spicy). If you bite into it, it will make your mouth tingle … intensely. I almost detected a sweet note among all the other sensations I experienced. After you bite into this pepper, its probably best to wait a while before you try anything else - as your palate will be too numb to appreciate anything else.

I couldn’t make it for this fabulous adventure back in 2013, but I did save the list of all the restaurants and dishes they were going to try. Yes I did! That list has been on my desktop for well over two years now.

And last week - I finally had the opportunity to traverse the trail with two of my fellow-foodies.

One by one, I googled, each restaurant and plotted it on a map to figure out how we are going to get there. Since the three of us could not hire a party bus, our trip was to be executed via Metro North railroad, subway trains, Uber and in some cases simply walking. It all started with the original location of Xi’an Famous Foods in Flushing Queens - and ended on Pell street in Manhattan Chinatown. The three of us were totally synced on the understanding that we will enter each restaurant, order the dish to be had immediately, eat a few bites (without feeling the pressure to finish everything), pay up and move on to the next stop! There was no time to waste - hitting all these stops was going to take us the better part of the day!

I was so impressed at how well we stuck to our plan. I was even more impressed when we fell into the temptation to eat few Indian snacks - as our trail took us through Little India in Jackson Heights Queens! Indian street food and desserts were calling our name! And we gave in!

Believe it or not…. but at the very end of our trip, we found ourselves at Famous Sichuan on Pell Street, directly across from Joe Shanghai. Even though Joe Shanghai was not on our list, we went in for some soup dumpling. Who can resist those babies? Seriously!!!

I do believe that after this experience, I have earned my self-proclaimed title of being a foodie! I don’t care about the debate over the use of this word… “foodie”. Damn it all…. I AM A FOODIE!!!

 

Like I said, funny story - crazy story - but true story!