![]() Now, before you attempt to head over there, you need to know that there are actually two Wo Hops. Wo Hop is located on Mott Street between Bowery and Canal (This is for people familiar with NYC). When you get to Chinatown after 10 p.m., which is when we normally drove there because we worked retail jobs that didn’t let us out until at least 9 p.m, it is fairly easy to park. No need to feed a meter or spend over $50 in Manhattan’s overpriced lots since all of the spots are free after 7 p.m. This is probably your best and cheapest way to get into lower Manhattan if you’re coming from Staten Island since the only toll you’ll have to pay is the Verrazano. Prices are low at Wo Hop - good thing, since the restaurant is cash only.Killa’s “Down and Out,” which featured the then brand new artist Kanye West, blared out of my high-powered sound system while we crossed over the Verrazano Bridge, hopped on the BQE, and finally went over the Manhattan Bridge into Chinatown. But since they are essentially deep-fried won ton wrappers, they just added an extra punch. We asked for chips to go with the soup - a very American garnish, we suspect. Matchstick pieces of roast pork (red on the ends) floated in the broth. First of all, the dumplings were perfect. The won ton soup was more of a revelation. The chow fun was similar, but with wide soft noodles instead of crunchy ones. They combined with the slight sweetness and pronounced saltiness of the sauce to hit the comfort-food sweet spot. The crunchy noodles are much more substantive than the old La Choy variety. Wo Hop’s chow mein (above) hits all the hallmarks of Americanized Chinese food: tasty bits of meat, a few pieces of diagonally sliced onion and celery, and a brown gravy heavily seasoned with soy sauce and thickened with a simple starch. (We understand that the recipe has since been changed.) Part of the appeal was the separate can of crunchy noodles. Honestly, our experience with “chow mein” was mostly limited to the version sold in a can by La Choy many decades ago. Not finding chop suey on the menu, we opted for two won ton soups, an order of roast pork chow mein, and roast pork chow fun. The room itself has a récherché charm, with its tiny square tables in a “Broadway Boogie” color dot format (“yellow table,” our server ordered) and its walls covered with dollar bills and photos of people we presume to have once been celebrities. The original restaurant occupies a small underground space, and the line to get in backs up all the way up the stairs and onto the sidewalk on Spring Street. Americans like this style and not very many restaurants in Chinatown sell it anymore.” Heck, the restaurant even brags on its website that “we serve old-fashioned chop suey style food. The New York Times notes that Wo Hop offers an “authentic taste of an inauthentic past.” That isn’t so much a criticism as an observation that the place serves Americanized Chinese food. If you want to taste what New Yorkers used to think Chinese food was, this is where you come. The restaurant has been in business continuously since 1938, making it one of Chinatown’s most senior establishments. Since we’re spending a month in Manhattan, we made Wo Hop our first lunch-time stop. Last December, the JBF named Wo Hop (17 Mott St., New York, NY 21 ) in Manhattan’s Chinatown to the America’s Classic honor roll. ![]() Maybe more to the point, the nominations reflect a kind of culinary nostalgia for the comfort food of someone’s childhood. ![]() The James Beard Foundation’s America’s Classic designations tend to shine a spotlight on homey, old-fashioned eateries. ![]()
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