The Chinese Quest Meets The Cleaver

East Meets West.  This evening, descending upon the central point of all things Chinese in New York, Flushing, NY, came three Long Islanders representing The Chinese Quest, Jonathan, the Founder of The Cleaver Quarterly, via Great Britain, and Seth, a restaurateur and contributor to The Cleaver Quarterly, from Beijing.

The Cleaver Quarterly is a print-only magazine dedicated to the world of Chinese food, wherever that is found. Everyone eats – and more people eat Chinese than any other cuisine – that’s where they come in, to tell the stories through long-form writing, photo essays and illustrations.  The Chinese Quest, needs no introduction, but for sake of introduction, read “About The Chinese Quest”.

Today the physical and meta-physical worlds met, where else, at a Chinese restaurant to discuss mutual interests.  The chosen place was “New Imperial Palace Seafood Restaurant II”, a Cantonese, Seafood Restaurant located at 136-13 37th Avenue, Flushing, NY 11354.  Since there was only three Mee’s, one shy of the required minion to make it an official review, present (Mee Gonzi Biao, Mee Magnum, and Mee Tsu Yan) the comments that follow will not count towards any official rankings of Chinese restaurants.

What will come of this meeting remains to be seen, but a splendid time was had by all.  We got to understand what The Quarterly Cleaver was all about; And they got to meet up close, and in person, The Chinese Quest.  As an added bonus, Mee Tsu Yan unveiled the first Questie that will be presented next week.  The Cleaver Quarterly is a very impressive print magazine, that’s published four times a year.  Printed on very heavy stock, and filled with incredible pictures and stories, we can only hope that one day they will write an article on our great Quest.

If we were to write a formal review of New Imperial Palace Seafood Restaurant II, it would start off something like this:

Entering you’re welcomed by the most incredible aroma of Chinese food.  Never before have we walked in to a Chinese restaurant and have our Jewish noses been so graced by the taste of  Chinese food in our nostrils.  Our hopes were incredibly high, and we wished that our other brothers were present.  As usual, we “opened the menu’s, closed the menu’s, and said, ‘give us your best’“.  A traditional Chinese meal was what we were after, and a traditional meal was what we got.  So true in fact that when the owner(?) came over later and said, “You had that soup?!  Normally only Chinese eat that soup!”.

Our meal started off with a very traditional Chinese Soup (which was more than the five of us could ever have hoped to finish!), Double-Boiled Dried Scallop, Fish Maws, Sea Cucun Cucumber, Black Mushrooms & Vegetable Soup.  The broth was very nice, and settled Mee Tsu Yan’s stomach very nicely.  He said there was chicken in there… it tasted like boiled chicken (as his Grandmother used to make he said), but I don’t see chicken listed as one of the ingredients!

We were served the following four dishes:

House Special Lamb Chop – these practically fell off the bone.  I liked this dish a lot.  It was so light though that I barely felt filled after eating two.  The dish was slightly on the salty side, but otherwise quite nice.  We’re finding lots of good lamb chops recently on our Quest.  This wasn’t something I completely expected.

Steak Kew – The steak was cooked and seasoned to perfection and was like butter.  The accompanying vegetables, especially  the snow peas, were off the hook!  BEST peas EVER in this Mee’s humble opinion!

Water Spinach w/Garlic – To Mee, this wasn’t the best of vegetable dishes.  I felt it bland and it was kind of just there.  It didn’t talk to me.

Steamed Sable Fish w/Black Bean Sauce (Big Mouth Fish) – Taken live from the fish tank.  Though I couldn’t bear to watch, I did enjoy eating it.  The fish was very light, moist, and tasty.  Sadly there wasn’t enough of it.  And it was a big ‘un!

Just for fun, we filled out our usual scorecards.  Jonathan opted out and turned his voting slip over to the restaurateur, Seth.  Again, these are UNOFFICIAL scores, and will not be factored in to our official rankings.

By the way, had this officially counted, New Imperial Palace Seafood Restaurant II would have placed approximately in the 40th percentile.

At the conclusion of the meal, Mee Tsu Yan took this auspicious moment to unveil the first Questie:

The meal ended traditionally with the sweetest oranges and melons you’ll ever eat, and even sweet red bean soup.

Humbly submitted for your consumption,

—Mee Magnum  (“Chop!  Chop!”)