中國北方美食漂洋過海 征服紐約大綱

It’s easier to stumble on Taste of Northern China than to find it. The address is 88 East Broadway, but the storefront is around the corner, on Forsyth Street, with a mysterious 106 above the door (a suite number, it turns out). The name Taste of Northern China appears on the menu but not on the sign out front, or at least not in English — the Chinese characters translate roughly as Northern Delicacies, with the not-so-helpful English addendum China Local Cuisine.
偶遇“北方美食”可能還容易些，專門去找反倒不易。它的地址是百老匯東88號，但是店面實際上在街角另一邊的福賽斯街，正門上方有個神祕的106號（後來才知道是套房的編號）。菜單上有英文店名Taste of Northern China，門面上只有中文店名，旁邊加的英文註釋“China Local Cuisine”（中國地方美食）沒有太大幫助。

No matter. You’re here now, with a fistful of skewers in loose foil, smoky, salty and heady with cumin and chile: a talonlike whole green pepper, longer than the stick it’s impaled on and crazily hot; string beans cut into two-inch clips and speared horizontally, evoking vertebrae; beautifully tender little chicken hearts, lean and closer to steak than chicken; nubs of translucent beef tendon, to work the jaw; cauliflower freckled with char; a squid’s snaking arm.
不管怎樣，反正你已經來了，手裏拿着一把烤串，它們用箔紙鬆散地包着，散發出煙燻味和鹹味，上面撒着誘人的孜然和辣椒：整隻尖青椒像爪子一樣，比竹籤還長，特別辣；四季豆切成兩英寸長的條，橫着串起來，讓人想起脊椎；柔嫩的小雞心含脂肪少，更像牛排，不像雞肉；透明的牛筋塊很有嚼頭；花椰菜上佈滿碳烤的斑點；魷魚腿像蛇一樣彎曲。

Best is the griddle pancake, as it’s called on the menu, a disc of dense yet somehow still fluffy flatbread that suggests an oversize English muffin, dusted (no, that’s too delicate a word — dredged) in more of that salt-cumin-chile mix and thrust on two skewers to stay upright. It is such a pleasure to carry it, like a lollipop, through the streets of Chinatown, taking small bites of the warm, fragrant bread with the sheerest barbecue crust. Someone could serve these at Smorgasburg with artisanal salts and make a killing.
最好吃的是烤饢，它是一種扁圓麪包，筋道而又不失蓬鬆，有點像大號英式鬆餅，串在兩根竹籤上以保持直立，上面灑着（不對，應該說是塗着）更多鹽、孜然和辣椒混合物。它就像個棒棒糖，拿着它走在唐人街的大街小巷上，咬一小口這溫暖芳香的麪包（外層像燒烤的脆皮），很有幸福感。要是有人在Smorgasburg美食跳蚤市場上供應這種烤餅，和藝術鹽一起賣，一定會很暢銷。

A staple of the Uighur community in northwestern Xinjiang Province, the bread appears elsewhere on the menu stuffed with long-braised, half-collapsed pork with flickers of ginger, garlic, cassia, cloves, coriander and star anise — a Chinese burger, or rou jia mo. It shows up in soup, too, chopped down to the size of mah-jongg tiles and bobbing among translucent mung-bean noodles and thin, pliant strips of lamb.
這種饢是中國西北部新疆的維吾爾人的主食。它還出現在菜單的其他地方，比如肉夾饃，就是把豬肉用姜、蒜、桂皮、丁香、芫荽和大茴香燉得爛熟，用這種餅夾着。這種饢還出現在湯裏，被切成麻將塊大小，和透明的綠豆粉絲、柔韌的薄羊肉片一起在湯裏浮動。

The restaurant’s owner, a robust woman named Hui Jun Wang, is from Henan Province in the east, on the North China Plain. Seamed with rivers and railways, with six other provinces at its borders, Henan has been crossed by strangers from strange lands since Silk Road days. Perhaps accordingly, the menu here draws a wide map.
這家餐館的主人是個健壯的女人，名叫王慧君（音譯），來自華北平原的河南省。該省河流與鐵路線縱橫交錯，與六省接壤，從絲綢之路時起就有南來北往的旅人經過。也許這就是餐館菜單融合了好幾省美食的原因吧。

From Hubei Province, Henan’s southern neighbor, comes re gan mian, or hot-dry noodles: muscular strands, clingy but not sticky, cooked the night before and doused with sesame oil, then cooked again and tumbled with sesame paste, salted chiles and scallions. This is breakfast in Wuhan, Hubei’s capital, and hot only in temperature, more punchy than spicy.
熱乾麪來自河南省南側的湖北省：麪條筋道，有黏性但不粘牙，前一晚煮好，淋上芝麻油，第二天早上再煮一下，加入芝麻醬、鹹辣椒和蔥花攪拌。它是湖北省省會武漢的早點，這裏的“hot”是說麪條是熱的，並不太辣，很有嚼頭。

The former occupant of the shallow, stall-like space was Xi’an Famous Foods, now a thriving restaurant chain. A few Xi’an specialties, from Shaanxi Province to the west, are reprised here, including liang pi, gluten noodles in sesame paste and rousing vinegar, with the balance tilted toward the tang. Rugged hunks of gluten are tossed in, springy touches among crunchy sprouts, peanuts and cucumber.
“北方美食”位於一處路邊攤式的狹窄空間，以前屬於一家名叫“西安名吃”(Xi’an Famous Foods)的餐館，如今“西安名吃”已發展成一個興隆的餐飲連鎖公司。西安是河南省西側的陝西省的省會，那裏的幾種特色小吃這裏也有，比如涼皮，它是一種麪筋麪條，以芝麻醬和爽口的陳醋調味，兩者相得益彰、味道濃郁，並配上粗糙、有彈性的麪筋塊以及脆脆的豆芽、花生和黃瓜。

Qishan noodles, also from Shaanxi, are chewy bands in a hot-sour broth, topped by a chile-plowed heap of minced pork, carrot, wood-ear mushrooms and day-lily buds, with the faintest leavening from a crush of fresh parsley. “It looks like an exploded dumpling,” one of my companions said, and then we fell silent, chopsticks warring over it. (Note that this dish appears on the paper menu as “noodles with ingredients” and on the photo menu as simply “pork noodles.”)
岐山臊子面也來自陝西，麪條筋道，湯是酸辣味的，裏面有辣味碎豬肉、胡蘿蔔、木耳和黃花菜混合物，新鮮的碎歐芹更爲之增添風味。“看起來像是餃子爆炸了，”一個同伴說。說完我們都陷入沉默，開始用筷子跟麪條大戰。提醒一下，這種面在紙質菜單上寫的是noodles with ingredients（帶配料的麪條），在配照片的菜單上只簡單地寫着pork noodles（豬肉麪條）。

The widest noodles of all lurk in a nearly red broth mobbed by hunks of beef, cabbage and whorls of onion, with the added vehemence of doubanjiang, hot fermented bean paste, in the style of Sichuan Province to the southwest.
最寬的麪條隱藏在近乎紅色的湯裏，被牛肉塊、捲心菜和洋蔥捲包圍，調料是濃烈的豆瓣醬（來自中國西南部的四川省）。

Yes, the tiles are slightly grubby. There are only a few stools along an orange wall. The Manhattan Bridge rattles above. You must pay in cash, but this is easy at $1.25 a skewer, with not a dish over $8.
是的，瓷磚有點髒。只有幾張凳子放在一面橘色的牆邊。曼哈頓大橋的喧鬧在頭頂響起。必須用現金支付，但這不是什麼問題，因爲一個烤串才1.25美元，一餐不會超過8美元。

On a recent evening, after my friends and I had finished eating at the counter, Ms. Wang bustled out from behind the cash register, smiling and making shooing gestures. There were customers waiting on the sidewalk, and we’d lingered long enough.
前不久的一個晚上，我和朋友們在櫃檯邊用完餐，王女士急忙從收銀臺後面跑過來，微笑着示意我們離開。人行道上有顧客在等，我們逗留的時間太長了。