We always ordered bean sprouts with black bean sauce and vegetable chow mai fun. Incredible as it may sound, growing up in New England, I had never eaten Chinese before. Now, coached by our friend Dick, we were sophisticated. We knew what those menu items were, what to order, and most importantly, where to eat.
Dick was a native New Yorker, introduced to us by Ferris Butler. He was much older and wiser, perhaps 25. He knew everything about New York City, because, after all, he was a taxi driver. And he assured us that the best Chinese in New York City was Wo Hop at 17 Mott Street in Chinatown. It never occurred to us to question him.
Wo Hop, love it or hate it, is an institution, established in 1938. Reading various reviews, I found that many shared the same sentiments about the place and the reasons patrons eat there.
Many of the people who dine at Wo Hop go there just to be reassured. Reassured that the restaurant that they long ago decided was the best in Chinatown is still there, and that the staff still remembers them.
It’s bland, hastily prepared and gloppy with sauce. There are huge amounts of it and you suspect a lot of it began life frozen. It’s unreformed, Americanized Cantonese cuisine from the World War II era. Many a foodie will tell you that this is some of the worst food in Chinatown. The devoted, however, tend to find the dishes that please and bring them comfort and stick to them. … It still retains a certain romance of a bygone Chinatown, when such food and surroundings would have seemed exotic. Everyone knows about Wo Hop. But it still feels like a secret.
Brian Silverman of New York Magazine says:
Popular with the bridge-and-tunnel crowd and glassy eyed civil servants, this tiny subterranean dinosaur serves all the classics you loved in your youth: egg drop soup, chow mein, egg foo young, subgum vegetables. Much of the food is simply prepared and heavily battered. And corn starch-thickened oyster and black bean sauces rule. But there’s something comforting about it. Maybe it’s because day or night, Wo Hop is there for you with a bowl of wonton soup, brimming with wontons freshly rolled by the kitchen staff, or soy sauce-soaked chunks of brown roast pork—and not the food-dyed red pork you’ll get at other joints. Whatever you order, you will not leave hungry: Portions are elephantine and the food dense. And if you charge in here, post-clubbing, you may just exit up the stairs when the sun is breaking in the east.
We used to visit Wo Hop at all hours, day and night. There was one waiter in particular who appeared to be working regardless of the time we visited. We nicknamed him “24-hour man.” Early evening, late night, early morning – he was there.
Yesterday, on a visit to Chinatown, I felt compelled to visit. I took the steps down into the subterranean depths for the first time in decades. I felt as if I recognized one of the waiters, but it is doubtful that any of the staff has remained in a span of 40 years. No, I’m sure it was just a wave of nostalgia clouding my memory. Here, in New York City, in such a highly stressful environment, old, familiar places are a palliative. For many, Wo Hop is one stop in The Comfort Zone 🙂
Back in the 70s it was said that Wo Hop was the favorite place of Woody Allen. I do not know if that is true or not, but college friends and I ate there on that rumor. The food was fun reminiscent of the Chinese restaurants of our youth where things were overly corn starched and we were told it was good. An era where waiters were rude and fortune cookies were exotic treats giving us our compass direction for the future. So we ate there on a regular basis.
What was interesting one night when I was there with friends in 1978 was that I had with me one of my college textbooks. I was taking Yiddish in college as a language requirement. One of the waiters saw the book and immediately tried to converse with me in Yiddish.
I grew up in a home where YIddish was spoken primarily to keep the kids or the hired help from understanding the conversation. My Yiddish was rather non existent and I ended up even with help from my family, a classmate and a tutor getting a D. The professor passed me if I promised not to take Yiddish 2.
Well the waiter saw the book and started to ask me if I was Jewish. I said yes and he started to converse with me in beautiful YIddish. He opened the book and was having fun with other waiters who knew some enough Yiddish words to have a conversation. As my Irish Catholic friends stared and laughed, so did the rest of the guests at the restaurant. Others who were able to converse in YIddish did so with the staff.
The waiter who must have been in his 50s back in 78 explained to me, that many lived during the 30s and 40s on the Lower East Side, close enough to Chinatown. Their parents in order to converse back in the day with their neighbors found common ground in English and Yiddish. In order to understand if they were being cheated by a dishonest landlord or by a store owner. In addition, they were friends with so many Jewish individuals in school and such, that their parents pushed them to learn English and Yiddish in order to succeed in school.
When the 50s and 60s came around, to do well, Chinese restaurants flourished in Jewish neighborhoods. The joke was that Chinese restaurants closed for renovations or vacation during the HIgh Holidays or during the Passover break. The waiter went on to tell me that many people when the Bronx and Brooklyn changed during the 60s and early 70s, Chinese restaurants out of fear closed shop because crime was rampant. Many of those who owned businesses went to work in Chinatown since they lost their businesses when the buildings burned to a crisp in the 70s.
They understood different languages because it was necessary for survival, for commerce and to add flavor to the restaurant.
One of my mom’s friends back in the 70s would come to visit and discuss such things with us also. She grew up in Chinatown and a woman would come around and say I will take the kids off your hands for the day. They were freely given over and dragged to Sunday school by the missionaries where different children would have different religions. In a family of 8 kids there might be 2 Lutheran, 1 Episcopal, 1 Catholic, 3 Baptist and 1 Protestant children. This was how it was done in the 30s and 40s and 50s back then. Mom and dad could not handle all of the children and they would go to the churches for their after school meals, their training, their clothes and such. Mom’s friend was Lutheran as I recall and raised her children Catholic.
She explained that many Chinese people from her youth during the 30s and 40s and 50s, would open the businesses that the stereotypes were known for; restaurants and laundries. All of the children in her household were successful in their own way. She worked as a CPA which is how she met my mom. I have not seen her in 32 years which is how long my mom is deceased. I enjoyed the stories she told of growing up in Chinatown. How she and her siblings were named by the Jewish doctor who delivered them as other children were named the same way. A family might have children named Giuseppe Wong or Schlomo Chen. Named by the doctor who delivered them. As the children got older and married they Anglicized their names to Joseph Wong and Steven Chen. She had a Jewish name which she Anglicized.
I enjoyed listening to those stories. I miss them.
Omg Pat, what an entertaining comment-thanks!
Brian, I love this post. When I was a kid living in NJ we would come into NYC a few times a year to go to a concert, ballet or museum with my grandmother. One of my very favorite treats was going to a large Chinese restaurant on West 57th St called Yangtze River where we stuffed ourselves with Wonton Soup and Lobster Cantonese. That was one of the highlights of my youth!
Chowing down at all hours at Wo Hop always felt special and fun, and Mr. 24 hour man was a true mystery. I do believe, though, it wasn’t Vegetarian Chow Mei Fun (chow your fun!) since we didn’t even think about becoming vegetarians back then…I’m sure it was the very yummy and ‘exotic’ Roast Duck Chow Mei Fun. :-))
Omg Pat, what an entertaining comment-thanks!
Brian, I love this post. When I was a kid living in NJ we would come into NYC a few times a year to go to a concert, ballet or museum with my grandmother. One of my very favorite treats was going to a large Chinese restaurant on West 57th St called Yangtze River where we stuffed ourselves with Wonton Soup and Lobster Cantonese. That was one of the highlights of my youth!
Chowing down at all hours at Wo Hop always felt special and fun, and Mr. 24 hour man was a true mystery. I do believe, though, it wasn’t Vegetarian Chow Mei Fun (chow your fun!) since we didn’t even think about becoming vegetarians back then…I’m sure it was the very yummy and ‘exotic’ Roast Duck Chow Mei Fun. 🙂
“I had never eaten Chinese before.” — me too.. and I don’t have any plans of eating one. But I do love dumplings and wanton, yum!
I have been eating at Wo Hop for the past 44 years. In fact a bunch of us come down every Thursday at noon for lunch and this has been going on for at least 30 years. My picture is up on the back wall. Will not eat at any other Chinese restaurant.