Chinese Lunar New Year Parade 2018

Maybe because I post about a majority of the things that I do, but I often get asked, "how do you do so much?" I'm generally at a loss on how to answer this because I don't have any secrets besides doing what I like and often doing those things alone—but here's a fact that might not be too evident if you only know me through this blog or Instagram: sometimes I just don't want to do anything at all.

The most recent example of hermit mood came on Sunday, when I had planned to go to the Chinese Lunar New Year Parade. I had been hyped about this parade for literally years—the last time we went was in 2014, and every year since I've wanted to go but never made it for reasons I've since forgotten.

This year I was determined to go and put it on my calendar months in advance. I was closely monitoring the weather and knew Sunday looked rainy, but I hoped it would clear in time for the parade. After obsessively checking the radar every few minutes on Sunday morning, I texted my mom "it looks crappy out, we probably shouldn't go," but she didn't get my text and showed up at my door anyway (not a big deal, she lives upstairs). After a few more minutes of me listing reasons why we shouldn't go, I finally rallied and decided to put on my waterproof hiking shoes and hope for the best.

We missed the beginning of the parade, but we were able to catch most of it and the rain mostly held off. After the parade, we had soup dumplings at Joe's Shanghai, almond cookie ice cream at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory and walked around Chinatown marveling at the parade aftermath, having mini-heart attacks every time someone pulled a party popper.

The Chinese Lunar New Year parade is such a joyful event, with tons of confetti, lion, fan and umbrella dances, music and colorful costumes. It's more chill than the Thanksgiving Day Parade, less corporate than the Pride Parade and just as joyous as the Mermaid Parade. My only complaint is that I didn't see nearly as many dogs as I would've thought appropriate to welcome the Year of the Dog.

"Don't tell me not to live
Just sit and putter
Life's candy and the sun's
A ball of butter
Don't bring around a cloud
To rain on my parade
Don't tell me not to fly
I've simply got to..."

Nom Wah Tea Parlor + Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

Last week my friends Jim and Katie and I decided to meet for dinner in Chinatown. Katie works downtown, and wanted to shy away from the crowds in Little Italy, and I jumped at the chance to suggest the Nom Wah Tea Parlor. I had been wanting to go for a while, both for the food and the décor. The Nom Wah has been on Doyers Street since 1920, and was the first dim sum parlor in New York City. I had never had dim sum before, and I figured if it had been around for nearly a hundred years that it had to be good.

In 2010 they completely remodeled their kitchen, but you wouldn't know it from the stuck-in-the-past dining room. The place has the feel of an old diner, and is definitely worth visiting just for the atmosphere. I love any place where you order by checking off boxes, which limits both human interaction and potential errors in communication. We ended up ordering way more food than any of us could eat, but it was mostly delicious. They tell you what each dish is as they bring it to you (everything is made-as-ordered), but I'm still not entirely sure what each thing was that we ate.

Two of the dishes were much too slimy for my tastes and the tofu skin roll was a bit bland (not to mention the off-putting nature of eating anything with the word "skin" in it). But the original egg roll was delicious and it's on my list of things to definitely order next time. The star of the meal, however, was indisputably the pork bun. They're number one on the menu for a reason, and my only regret is that they came out last — I was pretty much full by the time they arrived. It was the first pork bun I'd ever had, and it was fluffy, flavorful and incredibly filling. I would be satisfied just ordering two and calling it a meal, and at only $1.95 they're a total steal.

I will definitely be returning to Nom Wah, a little more seasoned in the ways of dim sum, but probably still no better at effectively using chopsticks. I eventually resorted to just spearing my food, like an embarrassing American, which I'm not proud of, but it got the job done.

Even though we were all super full after dinner, we couldn't resist checking out the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, which had also been on my to-do list for a while. It's right around the corner from Nom Wah and open late even on weekdays. They have all sorts of interesting flavors, all of which you can sample. I sampled the almond cookie and cherry pistachio, with the almond cookie being the clear winner. Almond is one of my very favorite tastes. The ice cream version was so, so good — seriously one of the best scoops I may have ever had. I sampled Katie's pumpkin pie (amazing) and Jim's red velvet so I mean it when I say that I don't think they even sell a mediocre scoop. They have so many flavors (red bean, black sesame, ginger, lychee, etc.) that I obviously need to return quite frequently, although it might be hard not to become married to the almond cookie.

The sweetness of the ice cream was a perfect complement to the saltiness of the dim sum (aka the gallons of soy sauce I poured on everything), so it was a pretty perfect night. I also noticed that most of the open-air fish markets (aka what I hate most about Chinatown) were closed at night, which made our evening that much more pleasant and redeemed the entire neighborhood from my last less-than-thrilling experience. Any place that produces a pork bun that delicious deserves a second chance, for sure.

Chinese Lunar New Year Firecracker Festival 2013

Sunday marked the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year and this year is the year of the snake (I'm an ox, or so the Chinese restaurant place mats tell me). To celebrate, my friend Trent and I headed to Chinatown (duh) for the Firecracker Festival. We heard there would be lion dances and half a million firecrackers, which sounded pretty awesome. To be honest, it wasn't exactly awesome, but I'm still glad we went — you never know until you try, right?

We got there at 10:30am, and the festival was scheduled to begin at 11. The whole thing takes place in a sunken basketball court in Sara D. Roosevelt Park, so we were in the second row of people but couldn't really see much. Turns out, the firecrackers didn't go off until around 12:30, with the lion dances coming shortly before. The other two hours were filled with a seemingly endless stream of speeches — half in Chinese, which is understandable, but I can't tell you what they were saying — most of which consisted of councilmen/women wishing everyone a happy new year while simultaneously campaigning for themselves.

When our vote wasn't being solicited, we were treated to another seemingly endless stream of what I can only assume are semi-famous pop singers, but cultural barriers aside, no one in the crowd seemed to have any clue who these people were or why they were singing. It was all so bizarre and incredibly cold — after about 30 minutes of standing on what had basically become an ice pack, both Trent and I began to fear for the safety of our toes.

The lion dances were cool, or rather I think they were. When they began the crowd of photographers and "officials" was so densely packed around them that no one outside of the basketball court could really see anything.

At least we could see the firecrackers, and they were just as loud as you would think half a million firecrackers would be. I'm glad we stuck around long enough to finally see them, and I also loved all of the confetti — I think they should scratch the firecrackers and just do half a million confetti poppers next year. There's a parade this weekend, which is probably the better celebration of the two, with more ideal viewing conditions I would imagine. Despite loving New York I get a tad claustrophobic in loud, pushy crowds, so I'll probably skip the parade this year. We do have plans to return to Chinatown on a non-holiday weekend to try out the Nom Wah Tea Room and the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory— I've actually never eaten Chinese food in the city, which seems kind of ridiculous because I love it.

So, do I recommend the Firecracker Festival? Not really, but I'm still glad we went and now we can check it off of our to-do-lists. We were also treated to the somewhat puzzling appearance of Asian Ronald McDonald, who was the only mascot in attendance, danced along with the songs and spoke alongside councilmen and Chinatown officials to wish everyone a very Happy New Year — so that pretty much made everything worth it.