Over The Moon: The Shanghi wontons from Mooncake Foods.   (Photo: Kenneth Chen)

Chinatown

My 4-year-old daughter still considers a bowl of the wavy, mustard-green-stuffed wontons at YEAH SHANGHAI DELUXE, in Chinatown, among the greatest foods in all of New York. When we dragged her down to the genial mom-and-pop operation MOONCAKE FOODS, on Watts Street at the bottom of Soho, she was politely complimentary about the crawfish wontons filled with shiitake mushrooms and the fusion family-style dishes like chicken wings glazed with honey and soy sauce. For a more basic Chinatown experience, I repair to CONGEE, down among the Bowery’s kitchen-equipment stores, for pots of simmering rice porridge loaded with Chinese sausage or slivers of thousand-year-old egg, heaping platters of salt-baked shredded squid with cashews, and deep-fried chicken with garlic-and-scallion sauce. If you’re still not satisfied, then join the lunchtime scrum at JOE’S GINGER RESTAURANT, the bright, tidy alternative to the tired old Joe’s Shanghai mother ship. There are soup dumplings, of course (we liked the ones stuffed with crab), but pay special attention to the pepper-skinned duck and exotic chef’s specialties like fried ginger shrimp, which are lightly breaded, flash-fried, and garnished with bok-choy leaf and sweet, ruby-colored ginger.