Bing filled with Peking duck
NEW York City, an incredibly vibrant cosmopolitan city, is bursting with culinary surprises.
With my daughter Patricia and grandkids in tow, we find so much excitement in exploring New York City. So after Patricia’s work every Friday, we meet up with her in midtown Manhattan for shopping and eating adventures. And we usually have fun walking blocks, checking out our favorites stores and admiring the street sights along the way. A fast-paced and bustling city, we have to put up with the crowd that can be very taxing. But we always reward ourselves with good food that we discover along the way.
Greeley Square Park, not too far from Herald Square and the Iconic Macy’s, is located along Broadway between 32nd and 33rd streets, is a rest area for thousands of shoppers and office workers where tables and chairs are amongst greeneries and food stalls. Concepts from experienced chefs as well as talented up-and-coming entrepreneurs bring their concepts for the first time here.
Even before exploring the different stalls, Mr. Bing with its Chinese characters caught our attention. So after patiently waiting for an available table, we decided to try this traditional Beijing street food. Jian Bing or simply Bing, is one of Northern China’s most popular street snack and breakfast sold by street vendors.
An egg is spread on the crepe.
Bing, which translates to anything flat, round and edible, is crepe made of wheat and mung bean. The choices include vegetarian, Peking duck, BBQ pork and drunken chicken. After our orders were taken for BBQ pork and Peking duck, a young Chinese vendor prepared the bings for us by cooking the crepe on a hot circular cast iron hot plate.
After the crepes are cooked on both sides, he breaks a raw egg and scrambles this evenly on the crepe, drizzles hoisin sauce, thick soy sauce, a secret chili sauce recipe and spreads them with a brush and a rain of white and black sesame seeds. Chopped cilantro and scallions, Peking duck or BBQ pork meats are added, topped with crispy fried wontons, folded to deal contents and cut in half for easy eating. To add to the delicious zing, we spooned out crunchy chili sauce from a bottle on the side. It was deliciously different!
Bing or Chinese Crepe topped with fillings
Mr. Bing is actually a New Yorker businessman/entrepreneur, Brian Goldberg who studied in Beijing where he became obsessed with Chinese street crepes he ate from a vendor outside his dorm room.
He, in fact wrote a business plan for Goldberg Chinese Crepes, a franchise of street carts that would sell the food he loved in China but couldn’t find in America.
The writer and Sabrina infront of Mr. Bing’s food stall.
Moving people’s money around did not give him satisfaction, so he opened a café in Hong Kong.
After tasting 40 different street crepes in Northern China, he settled for the best, bought the recipe from the vendor whom he brought to Hongkong so he could teach Mr. Goldberg how to make the crepes for the first Mr. Bing.
He did open Mr. Bing shop in China and eventually brought tastes of Northern China to New York City.
