FOOD issue
In the beginning, there was
BING There’s a new challenger to ramen, and it’s name is All The Food!
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wo ingredients: flour and water. Together, they make a "bing" – a small, soft Chinese pancake. But the same ingredients also form the basis of a multitude of Chinese dishes. Which is why, in the earliest Chinese dictionary, the word bing can be defined as “all food.” “A Mongolian guy on horseback would have this dough,” explains Lucas Sin, a chef and self-confessed food history nerd. “He’d put it in his saddle and ride places. Then, when he got to his destination, he’d light a fire and heat it. He might roll it out and put meat inside it then roll it up, like a dumpling. He might shave it as a noodle into a big pot of water. If he put sugar in it, it would become a pastry. And, rolled out really thin, with a tiny bit of oil on top, it becomes the bing we have today – the perfect little parcel for anything your heart desires.” Similar to a crepe or tortilla, bings (and their noodle cousin, the less-soupythan-ramen ban mian) are the street food that could redefine how we think about Chinese cuisine. Leading the charge are Lucas, a former student at Yale who once hosted pop-up dinners in his dorm for up to 150 people, and Nicky Chang, an architect whose foodie escapades have included Dinner For Six, an exclusive dining experience in her Hell’s Kitchen home. Now they’re bringing a new breed of bings and noodles to a city always ravenous for the hottest new food trend. Say hello to Junzi Kitchen. If New Yorkers know anything at all about bings, it’s likely they’ve had
“Ingredients include lots of sheep’s heads, and there are insider tips on which direction to sleep when you’re tipsy.”
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a drunken encounter with the famed jianbing while backpacking. “Jianbing is basically a crepe made of mung beans,” says Lucas. “Americans traveling in China go to the People’s Stadium, where all the clubs are. They’ll have this ridiculous time there, stumble out of the stadium superdrunk, and there’s only one exit, which is lined with hundreds of jianbing carts. It’s very much drunk food or breakfast food.” “But we want to update the Chinese food story and tell it in a contemporary way,” says Nicky. “This is what I grew up with, so it’s deeply personal to me.” “There is a ritual,” says Lucas, “that, on the first day of spring, families get together around a big table and you have these wraps. Then you put whatever you want in it, you wrap it, and eat it. That’s the original chun bing, and it’s the cornerstone of north-eastern casual Chinese food.” Junzi Kitchen's three locations – in Columbia, Greenwich Village, and Connecticut – will, by the end of the year, be joined by a fourth, at Bryant Park. And each month, Lucas and Nicky go back to
DIGITAL EDITION
NOODLES AND BINGS
for beginners
Jaja mushroom, spring noodles Jaja is a take on Beijing’s zhajiang, a sauce of fried soy beans, which are the building blocks of northern Chinese cuisine. Three types of fermented black beans are cooked as a confit with aromatics and tossed – as per tradition – with bean sprouts and cucumbers. In lieu of minced meat, we prefer ours with stir-fried king oyster mushrooms. Tomato pork, knife noodles Every Chinese mother makes tomatoes and eggs, usually as a stirfry for rice. make it northern Chinese style, as a sauce to toss wide-cut knife noodles in. The flavors are simple – ginger, scallion, and white pepper – but the nostalgia this dish conjures, less so. A favorite pairing is with braised pork hock or tofu. Beef & cucumber, white bing On the first day of spring, families gather to celebrate around chun bing. In the middle of the table are a couple of stir-fries and braised meats. Matchstick potatoes with vinegar, bean sprouts with chives, shredded cucumber, and sliced beef shank are never missing. In one hand, you have a stretchy, flour bing. In the other you have your chopsticks, with which you assemble your chun bing. Tofu & pickled peppers, wheat bing This is my favorite. We cook tofu on the grill with a sauce of fermented tofu, black vinegar, and aromatics. It’s wonderful, a little charred, and quite savory, so best paired with the pickled peppers, matchstick potatoes, and bean threads. Chef Lucas
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