Handy Nasty, my soul thanks you.
One of the traits of growing up as a city boy was that you grew up with memories of things from back in the days, which makes you feel uncomfortable because it:
A) Dates you
B) Makes you feel old and helpless.
Take for example the area around Junior's cheesecake, which some today call City Point, and others like me remember as Albee Square - the Albee square/Fulton mall pedestrian zone back in the 90s were a retail area catering to the middle class African Americans - you can buy gold chains, AirMax 97s, mix tapes, Shea butter and incense, then pick up some hot dogs at the Papaya joint on Hoyt before the subway ride home from Lawrence, DeKalb or Jay. Me? I used to run around the Albee square mall with my buddy Leon looking for knock-off Dragonball Z VHS tapes and the latest bootleg Wu-Tang CDs. It was grimy with a sense of faded splendor, and just like the twin towers, Chinatown sweatshop sponge cakes, or the after-school Elios bread pizza, it was part of my upbringing.
Then the state decided to gentrify the area in the mid-2000s and gave developers some cushy deals, then seemingly overnight the Conways and the Dr. Jays vanished, and the big box stores like H&M and TJMaxx moved in. All the old buildings were knocked down and the place transitioned into yet another boring area with luxury condos and mixed use five-and-ones. The food hall opened with all of the pompousness of a hipster trying to pose authenticity. Yeah, quite a food hall. There used to be Nigerian restaurants, Jamaican Patty shops and "soul food" (fried whiting / slaw / Mac and cheese) joints on Fulton and the side streets that were priced out of the area. And what was it replaced with?
Sorta Hawaiian food (did the hipsters sneer when you say it's a poke joint?), more bubble tea and ramen places than you'll ever need, Kraft beer joints, Katz's deli (not the same as the LES but they are happy to charge you the same price tag), Berlin doner (eeeh) and a single Jerk chicken stand (we can all use a token). Then there's Trader Joe's (aka Aldi North but with a Polynesian vibe). What else do we have? Ample hills? Yeah, they are Brooklyn - they were so Brooklyn they overspent on a Red Hook loft and went bankrupt even with Disney and Oprah support. And then there's Han Dynasty, which is a Philadelphia based Szechuan joint. Should I commence shitting on them too?
No - they are actually a solid restaurant doing the lord's work shitting on hipsters and dotcom bros. They don't pretend to be universally Chinese (so no half ass soup dumplings here) nor does it cater to your Americanized Chinese nonsense, so fuck right off General Tso - they are a Szechuan joint and they serve things that hurt. Their cold sesame and Dan-Dans are as good as the ones on the Handwritten Chinese menus in Sunset Park, and their firecracker stir fries? Even better - searingly hot and they don't hold back for the boys from Indiana. You live upstairs because you got a 6 digit job from Google? Fuck you, this isn't Brownstreak Dragon Asian fusion from West Bumblefuck, you are gonna get your tastebuds pushed in and you'll like it. Man up or your girl will think you are a wuss because you can't handle some dried red peppers. You know what else you are gonna like? The value. Oh, the dot com job lets you drop money like toilet paper? Guess what? Instead of spending 15 dollars on a bowl of ramen noodle outside, for 21 dollars you are getting a hot steaming pile of food that's good for 2 meals for 2. Nothing says OH SHIT like being pelted with a wet load of napalm infused food that you'll want to doggybag for the next day. And then discovering the effects of spicy peppers upon bowel movements the next day. The Pacific Ring of Fire is both a geological phenomenon and a medical issue caused by overindulgence upon spicy Szechuan foods.
So yeah, thanks Handy Nasty, thanks for being here to stick up for a bunch of displaced Brooklynites and deliver some indirect chemical revenge. Handy and nasty, but in a spicy and delicious way. I go out of my way to torture coworkers who needs to be take down a peg or six by inviting them here. read more