In the Early 70's our favorite restaurant in New York's China Town was Bo-Bo's on Pell Street. The menu was up on a board, and even if there was a 30 to 45 minute wait, it was so very worth it. New York city is one of the largest of metropolitan small worlds. I had graduated from Georgia State College, you can see in the lower right, I'm taking a self portrait, to my right is a friend from GSC who had come up to visit, and to my right a fraternity brother and a friend of his, who had just happened to come by and was pleasantly surprised to see me.
During that year I met a young lady who was in my physical anthropology class, and a fellow my age who knew an art major who I had photographed a couple of years earlier for the Rampway, the GSU yearbook, but this will be the subject of another posting.
A year ago I was at a cinema in South Beach and we had been watching some Wong Kar Wai films on DVD. I was Googling Chinese cinema, and it turns out that Ester Eng, who had the restaurant next to Bo-Bo's was one of the early directors in Chinese cinema. She was as I had learned was a partner in Bo-Bo's, is is only an understatement which explains why we always saw these beautiful film actresses who ran the restaurant. This but an understatement. They had a most definite presence.
I would say their Chow Gai Kew, was about the best I had ever tasted. My Brother Mel Stein, and his good friend from U. Mich, Paul Markham Khan were both actuaries and devotees of superb Chinese cuisine. They both were winners of the Society of Actuaries coveted "Triennial Prize" in sucession . Another pleasant memory of good company.
Surprisingly it's difficult to find a good recipe for Gai Kew. At Bo-Bo's they had wonderful delicious tender black mushrooms, baby corn, snow peas, and water chestnuts. Around the corner was our favorite place for steamed and baked bao, but that's for another posting as well.
Bo-Bo's sadly closed a number of years ago.
