At The Table: Jason Lee

Manhattan’s Chinatown might function as a symbolic microcosm of New York; a few blocks of the city that have housed various waves of immigration over the last 200 years, and become a space of synthesis, imagination and reinvention. It’s still a little chaotic, but not as chaotic as it used to be. Chinatown has changed because the city is changing, and people are changing. Its boundaries shifting, expanding and contracting. Its commercial mixtures modulating, becoming either more or less insular depending on the wider economic landscape and cultural temperament.   

It’s a place of business, residence, and community. It’s a living thing. A place to be enjoyed. A place that caters to the eating habits of the wider city as well as those living there, and whose cuisine is part of that assimilation, constantly adapting.  

New York’s Chinatown sprang into life after the California Gold Rush brought a wave of Chinese immigration to the United States in the 1850s. That first wave of immigration came predominantly from Canton, settling around Mott, Pell and Doyers streets, in an area that had previously housed Irish and Italian immigrants.  

 The initial wave of immigration was supplanted by people from Hong Kong, Taiwan, then later Fujian, and the rest of China, and restaurants opened catering to those communities as well as changing tastes of New Yorkers and tourists, and also as the area was diluted by non-Asian immigration: although the Chinese immigrant population has steadily risen in New York, the actual number of Chinese residents in Chinatown has declined by about 30 percent since 2000, pushed out by rising rents, gentrification, and migration to Queens and Brooklyn, which also now have their own flourishing Chinatowns. But Chinatown still has a certain feeling of aliveness that Little Italy doesn’t, and which has fallen to generic tourist pastiche and souvenir kitsch.   

We’re with Jason Lee, a food writer who runs a column called Cooked for Interview Magazine, and host of the very recently launched podcast Expense Account, with Feed Me, whose debut episode features him in conversation with chef and writer Alison Roman. I first met Jason about a decade ago, probably not far from Chinatown, at an after party or a gallery opening, and always knew him as someone who knew exactly where to eat, what to eat when you got there, and how to talk about what’s on the table with precision and enjoyment.   

He’s just got back to the city from a trip to Uzbekistan, and we’re discussing the country’s food scene as we navigate down Canal Street from the Drake’s store towards Lei Wine, to begin an evening of eating and drinking around some of his favourite spots in Chinatown.  

Lei Wine is a new-ish spot on Doyers Street, and which feels very at home here despite it being possible to describe Lei Wine, although reductively, as a European-style wine bar: it serves small plates and natural-ish wine from around the world. It’s run by Annie Shi, who is also the co-owner of the West Village’s French-Italian restaurant King and its sibling, Jupiter.  

“It's a little wine bar with an eclectic list that sits on Doyers Street, a tiny winding historic street in the heart of Chinatown. It’s one of the newer additions to an ever-changing Chinatown,” Jason says, as we sit down and a waiter passes us a huge wine list, stretching out over 30 pages, which we deeply consider. The list spans from French beaujolais to Greek orange, as well as some from Chinese producers as well.    

But Lei Wine is something of a bridge between a few different cultures. Doyers is a rare, car-free street in the city. Lending the wine bar, which overflows in tables on the street, an air of European-ish feeling, but despite the formal, superficial familiarity to places you might’ve spent an evening in in Barcelona or Paris, it’s very much rooted in the specifics of the neighbourhood.  

“The food is of course influenced by the post-Parisian small plate wine bar cuisine that has taken over cities across the world,” Jason continues, as we look through the menu. “But there is a distinctly Chinese flair to it all. Rather than thinly sliced prosciutto or Jamón Ibérico, at Lei they serve Chinese Jinhua ham, and their salad is made with chrysanthemum greens. Lei Wine stands out while also fitting right in.”  

Lei’s culinary influence draws from Annie’s personal history, as well as the wider culinary narratives of the area, although more by trying to avoid replicating or doing badly what others do so well: so there are no roast meats for example, instead the vibe draws on Shanghai's cuisine, where her dad is from, or her mum’s roots in northern China, and that area’s seafood preparations, focusing a lot on braising and steaming. The cuisine was conceptualised in collaboration with chef Patty Lee, formerly of Mission Chinese, and leans on tradition without being “traditional”. An ethos that extends to the design of the space as well: there are deep-cherry coloured mahogany wood tables and chairs, rush weaving, green tiling, a beautiful wallpaper in the bathroom was made by Dominique Fung, and a mural depicts scenes from Journey to the West, a traditional Chinese folk tale.  

It’s the kind of place you can come before or after going to somewhere else. Which is exactly what we’re doing, drinking a few glasses of red and white wine perched at a high table. Lei feels quite hopeful for the area, especially after the tribulations brought on by the pandemic, and the rise in anti-Asian racism suffered by the residents of Chinatown, and points to the continued cultural importance of Chinatown, and its perpetual ability to reinvent itself.  

If many first generation immigrants came to Chinatown to find employment in restaurants here, many of their children went on to other occupations. Although some, like Annie, returned, and Lei could be described as a celebration of that heritage.   

Just next door, for example, is Nom Wah Tea Parlor, one of Chinatown’s oldest establishments, which has been in operation since 1920. Now run by Wilson Tang, who, also like Annie, used to work in finance before taking over the business from his uncle in 2011, and is keeping alive the café’s nostalgic aura.  

“Hop Kee is one of the last remaining truly old-school Cantonese spots in Manhattan. It reminds me of the kinds of places I'd eat with my grandparents.”

Our wines drunk and we’re heading to Hop Kee for dinner, a place where time has stood still to a certain extent. It looks like a Chinese restaurant if you were to dream of a Chinese restaurant. In a basement on Mott Street, it’s a true and honest old school kind of place. It used to be open 24 hours a day, although it’s recently had to scale back its hours. It’s still owned by the Lee family. It’s a place of ever-revolving Lazy Susans, waving Chinese lucky cats, cash only, banquet rooms and family dinners. It’s a place for celebration of any occasion, the decor deep red and fading wood veneer panels. We’re seated by Peter, the owner, under a wall of photos of Anthony Bourdain, who loved the place and dined here often, featuring it on an episode of Parts Unknown.   

“Hop Kee is one of the last remaining truly old school Cantonese spots in Manhattan.  It reminds me of the kinds of places I'd eat with my grandparents,” Jason says. “Places that were opened by Cantonese immigrants, the flavors tweaked just a little bit for Western palates. Often these kinds of places were open late, and full of smoke.”  

It’s a very classic iteration of Chinese American cooking, leaning heavily on Cantonese dishes. Peter Lee, the current owner, serves us. His family emigrated here from Hong Kong in the 1960s, when he was two years old. His dad was originally the chef at Wo Hop, next door, Hop Kee was run, at that time, by Peter’s dad’s cousins, and eventually his dad took over, before he did. He’s made few changes over the years, aiming instead for it to be a place that contains an important link to the past. Jason orders for us, and soon big delicious plates of food are arriving on our table. Beef ho fun, Chinese greens in oyster sauce, fried rice. “You can never go wrong with a plate of salt and pepper pork chops, or salt and pepper squid for that matter,” Jason says. “This is food that pairs perfectly with an ice-cold Tsingtao. Long live Hop Kee.”  

We head out into the Chinatown evening and to The River, which opened only a couple of years ago, but already feels like an integral part of an evening out. We order martinis and find a corner deep in the wood-panelled room. “The River is a favourite bar of mine,” Jason says. “It sits across the street from Columbus Park, where elderly Chinese residents practice tai chi during the day. There are no windows at the River, the outside world doesn't exist, it's always the same time, time for a martini. Their martinis are strong, and cold, and the room is often full of hot people that I know, and hot people that I don't know.”  

“There are no windows at The River — the outside world doesn’t exist. It’s always the same time: time for a martini.”

One of the bar’s owners, Yasmin, who is also a widely-exhibited artist, and a friend of Jason’s joins us and insists we try one of their hotdogs, which arrives on a silver platter and, despite the amount of food we’ve consumed this evening, is quickly and gratefully eaten.   

The River is the kind of bar you could get lost in, and where evenings are long and disappear easily. It’s a Chinatown hangout for a new kind of Chinatown citizen, overspilling from a more generalised Downtown creative scene.    

“But against all odds Chinatown persists. It holds strong to its identity while embracing diversity.”

“I worry often that Chinatown will be consumed by Soho and the Lower East Side,” Jason says. “I sometimes feel guilty drinking wine and martinis at these new establishments. But against all odds Chinatown persists. It holds strong to its identity while embracing diversity. It's the great thing about New York City. There's room for everyone and hopefully we can all grow together.”