Holiday Gift Guide (Gift Cards)
The holidays are less than 5 days away! If you’re running out of time and scrambling to find a gift for friends and family, or simply don’t know what to get, buy a gift card from some of our favorite Chinatown businesses!
Swipe below to see where you can buy gift cards from — whether it’s from a restaurant, beauty store, or plant store, you can’t go wrong. Happy shopping!
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Bánh by Lauren began when COVID shut down restaurants in New York City and Lauren got laid off from her job as a pastry cook at Gramercy Tavern, a fine dining restaurant in New York City. She continued to bake at home and started creating her own recipes that focused on featuring Southeast Asian flavors in classic French pastries and desserts. Along with the French pastries, she started to bake traditional Vietnamese desserts that she couldn’t find in the city. After sharing her Vietnamese and French pastries with her friends, she realized that she could offer something that was unique and special to the city and help showcase her Vietnamese culture.
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Chef An Nguyen Hawks, originally from Vietnam, has called New York City, "home" since 2014. Growing up, she indulged in the rich flavors of Vietnamese cuisine.
When An embraced a vegetarian and vegan lifestyle, her passion for cooking soared. Exploring new ingredients and crafting vegan recipes became her favorite form of artistic expression, particularly as she endeavored to recreate the beloved dishes from her Vietnamese roots.
Joining An on this culinary journey is her husband, Erik Dornbush Hawks. Together, they share a love for experimenting with - and sharing - diverse vegan cuisines.
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Grand Tea & Imports（好茶水 佛運玄）was established in 2006 after our founder, Mr. Liu, returned to China for the first time in 15 years. After many years away from home, he was able to reconnect with old friends like it was yesterday over many cups of tea.
The trip inspired him to open a tea store that would allow Chinatown residents and visitors to relish in the flavor of his hometown and connect in appreciation of Chinese traditions, culture, and fine teas.
Today, Grand Tea & Imports is a retail and cultural anchor in the Chinatown community. We supply authentic Chinese teas and goods to a broad range of customers including immigrant households across the East Coast, Chinatown visitors, and recognized businesses.
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senti senti (formerly oo35mm) was founded in 2009.
We are based in New York City, with stores in Chinatown, Manhattan and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Our goal is to make senti senti a joyful and welcoming space that offers hard-to-find Asian beauty, indie skincare, and curated items from all over the world.
We provide well-formulated products that we research, test, and love, while keeping a pulse on community picks, cult favorites, and more. -
At Kopitiam, “coffee shop” in Hokkien, we serve as a daily gathering space introducing visitors to Nyonya cuisine, primarily a hybrid of Chinese and Malay flavors drawing ingredients and techniques from both cultures along with sprinkles of influences from the Portuguese, Dutch, and the British.
The goal of chef/owner and James Beard Semifinalist Kyo Pang, a third-generation Nyonya, is to continue carrying forward Pang’s family's recipes in New York City and preserve the fading tradition in cooking dishes the way her ancestors did.
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We specialize in Asian inspired flavors such as Ube - Purple Yam, Matcha, Black Sesame and pair them with crunchies & drizzles to make some the best soft serve ice cream in New York City!
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We're an Asian Diner located underneath the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown NY.
We specialize in serving classic NY diner dishes that have been influenced by the neighborhood.Come on by and hang out. We'd love to cook up some tasty food for you.
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Rabbit House Omakase & Sake Bar is Small-Scale Theme Restaurant in Lower East Side, Manhattan. We serve unique new Japanese style food and drinks at a cozy atmosphere in this exciting neighbor!
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Experience the art of making your very own custom candle at Lanterne Lab in New York City! With a variety of vessels, scents, and personal customizations, you can pour your own luxury candle that's one of a kind and perfectly crafted. We provide all the materials, so all you have to do is enjoy the process and have fun.
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Established in 2010, Sun's Organic Garden Chinatown (SOGC) is a small magical oasis retailing 500+ specialty organic & wildcrafted teas, herbs and wellness products in bustling New York City.
SOGC's mission is to offer a curated collection of premium quality, loose leaf teas & herbs from around the world and to educate the community on the wellness benefits of using high quality tea & herbs for health. The company aims to differentiate itself through quality product, science-backed research and personalized customer service.
The shop was originally started by a first generation Chinese female entrepreneur, who brought her love of tea as well as her family's generational herbal health recipes to America to start the first Sun's Organic Garden in NYC's well-loved Chinatown community.
Years later, she met Natalie, the current owner of the company. At the time of their meeting, Natalie was on her own health journey (from working in Tribeca immediately after 9/11) and was in search for natural healthy solutions to implement into her lifestyle. Natalie benefited greatly from the teas, herbs & caring advice shared with her at Sun's Organic Garden!
When the founder of Sun's Organic Garden announced her retirement, Natalie decided to leave her career in the financial industry behind, and keep Sun's Organic Garden alive by infusing her own love of tea & all things health, and by sharing her knowledge with the Sun's Organic Garden Chinatown community.
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Plant retailer carrying everything from desktop-size specimens to 8-foot-plus trees, plus pots and repotting services.
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In 1971, a group of young overseas Chinese men and women decided China had much to offer America and worked together to open a small “friendship” store in New York City's Chinatown. This was a radical idea at the time, as diplomatic relations between China and the United States were frozen and direct trade was strictly forbidden. Somehow, they found a way.
Mere months after the store’s opening, President Nixon and Chairman Mao shook hands in Beijing, and Pearl River’s storied place in history as the world’s first Chinese American department store began. Over the next five decades, we cultivated a reputation in NYC for being the place where you can find just about anything: from Buddha statuettes to rice snacks to chopsticks, along with countless things you can’t even name. Many of our customers walk through the doors not knowing what they want, only to walk out hours later with exactly what they were looking for.
Today, Pearl River is a beloved New York institution and a symbol for the creativity and ingenuity of Asian Americans in this country.
