Triangle Trip

As a follow up to my NYC Guide post, below is a list of Chinese restaurants in New York’s Chinatown I highly recommend to tourists and locals. I am actually a frequent customer at most of the restaurants I list below. Not only are these Chinese restaurants good, they are also very cheap. Before you go into any of these Chinese restaurants (or any for that matter), make sure you have cash with you as most Chinatown businesses only accept cash.

1.  New Wonton Garden – It used to be the best wonton in the world… but quality has gone down due to new ownership. However, this is still the best wonton noodle shop in the US. I am a huge fan of wonton noodle soup and Wonton Garden in NYC has the best soup in the nation. Wonton Garden is located on Mott Street between Canal and Bayard. Each bowl of wonton noodle soup or any other dumpling with soup will cost you under US$6.

2.  Big Wong King or Big Wing Wong – Both places offer cheap Cantonese style food. You can get BBQ pork, duck and other traditional Cantonese dishes in any of these restaurants. These two restaurants are probably the cheapest on the list. You can get a wonton noodle soup or roast pork with rice for under US$4. Big Wong King is located across the street from Wonton Garden and Big Wing Wong is located on Mott between Canal and Hester.

3.  Joe’s Shanghai – There are three Joe’s Shanghai locations (NYC Chinatown, Uptown and Flushing). The Joe’s Shanghai in Chinatown is by far the best. Joe’s Shanghai offer the best Shanghai soup dumpling in the world. I am not joking or exaggerating here. I have tried the best Shanghai soup dumpling deemed by local Shanghainese pundits, and Joe’s Shanghai soup dumplings was much better. For a tray of soup dumplings, it would cost you no more than US$6. Joe’s Shanghai offers many other Shanghainese dishes which are authentic. Go early in the afternoon or late in the afternoon to avoid the long lines. Joe’s Shanghai in Chinatown is located on Pell Street between Mott and Bowery.

4.  Hop Lee – Located on 16 Mott Street near Chatham Square. Hop Lee is more of a casual dining place with traditional Chinese food. Like most traditional restaurants, food is served family style. I always order the Cantonese style lobster dish which I highly recommend for my readers. Hop Lee also offers fresh seafood and vegetable dishes. Go there for dining and you will not be disappointed. Your meal should not run you US$50 for two people and I will guarantee you will be full.

5.  Golden Unicorn – This place is usually packed on weekends and most tourists know about it. Despite the fact that it is touristy, I still highly recommend this restaurant. I believe Golden Unicorn serves great dim sum for breakfast and has a good menu for fine dining in the evenings. Golden Unicorn is also cleaner than other dim sum restaurants in New York’s Chinatown.

Hope y’all enjoyed this post and visit my NYC Chinatown favorites. Leave me a feedback after you have tried these places.

Similar to the airline offers, Marriott launched a fast track to Elite status program that goes from May 11, 2009 to June 26, 2009. You will receive double credit for each night at a Marriott. Here’s the link to register. It is hard to get Elite status at Marriott because Marriott Rewards do not count stays + nights. You can only achieve Elite status with actual nights – so checking in and out of Marriott hotels throughout the week will not get you Elite status faster.

To earn Marriott Platinum status, you will need to have 75 nights. Marriott’s current fast track to Elite status offer goes on for 7 weeks. If you are a weekly traveler with 4 nights per week, you will get 28 to 30 nights during this promotion period. With double nights, you will have 60 Marriott Reward nights — that will leave you 15 short of Platinum status. I don’t think this fast track to Elite status is worth it unless you have already been staying at a Marriott or are committed to staying at Marriott for the rest of the year.

From the promotion link, I also noticed Marriott has implemented Elite Rollover Nights. If I understand the term correctly, every additional night after the 75th night will count toward next year’s status. This would be a huge differentiator against SPG, Hilton and Hyatt. The hardest part is still getting 75 actual nights.

After a short trip to Vancouver and using my Sprint mobile broadband card for the very first time in Canada, I saw a $80 data roaming charge on my Sprint mobile broadband bill. I searched the Sprint website but was not able to locate international data roaming rates. All I could find was international voice roaming rates. I then contacted Sprint’s customer service to find out the details behind the $80 data roaming charges but could not get a direct answer from the representative. However the Sprint customer service representative was kind enough to give me an $80 refund due to the lack of information.

With the $80 refund, I was still not happy with the lack of information and requested to speak to a supervisor to get more information. I was transferred to several customer service representatives and finally found the location of international data roaming rates. I would like to share this information with my readers with Sprint or any other mobile carrier. Here’s the link to the Sprint site. Always check the roaming rates before you head abroad.