A Day in Chinatown with Angela Dimayuga
Welcome to the latest installment of our “A Day in Chinatown with…” series, where our fellow New Yorkers (or NYC fanatics) share their favorite Chinatown spots with us. Today, we’re spotlighting Angela Dimayuga!
Angela Dimayuga (they/she) is a New York City based chef, cultural producer and transdisciplinary artist. They are the co-author of Filipinx: Heritage Recipes from the Diaspora, an anthropologic, memoire-manifesto and design driven cookbook. As a humanities degree graduate, Angela often works in the ephemeral and impermanent for emergent social praxis, engaging and producing experiences sometimes with food, other artists, advocating community care, and often via nightlife celebrating queer, trans BIPOC communities. As a James Beard finalist, they were formerly the Creative Director of Food and Culture of The Standard Hotels international and executive chef of Mission Chinese New York. They are currently a mentor-in-residence for The New Museum of Contemporary Arts' Creative Science cohort, and worked as curator for “Microbial Lores” in The Compendium, an archive for Serpentine Gallery's Synthetic Ecologies Research Lab.
It’s my 16 year anniversary living in the Big Apple this year! Chinatown has been an important neighborhood to me during my life here. One of my most favorite memories is attending the Lunar New Year parade and celebrating in a big way with all the other diasporic Asians. It continues to be one of the most dynamic neighborhoods and visual feasts for your eyes and mouth.
I’ve repped being Filipino-American my whole life, and recently found out my maternal grandmother (who is my reason for cooking!) is 100% Chinese! Her family were migrant settlers in Pampanga, Philippines. It’s comforting to know my natural inclination and curiosity of Chinese and Taiwanese culture was pure ancestral intuition. Protect Chinatown at all costs! Spend your money in the businesses that have been there for decades, and don’t forget to respect the elders whose neighborhood it's been long before you :)
SHOPPING & LIFESTYLE
OPTICAL 88
116 Mott St
I’ve been told I have a sunglasses kink, and the folks at Optical 88 know it. I used to go for affordable vision care, contacts and glasses before I got eye surgery during the pandemic, but I’m still a regular for all my sunglasses needs. It feels so good to walk in there and be greeted familiarly with a “Welcome back!” between trips away from NYC, or even compliments on a new hairdo :P. On top of that, eye exams without insurance and custom lenses are both affordable. I love modding my sunglasses with custom cut lenses to my exact spec of color and hue. Getting your frames custom fit to your face is also gratis!
MAGIC JEWELRY
238 Canal St
When I have friends in town who have a spiritual practice and love magic, I bring them to Magic Jewelry. You can get your aura photo taken and get a personal reading all for a 20 dollar bill. Your aura color cycle goes through a 3-month period, and it’s a nice memento to capture what color energy you were radiating during that visit. I like to use the photos as bookmarks, forget about them, then find them later as a reminder of what was going on in my life at that time.
NEW YORK MART
128 Mott St
This is obviously one of the great grocery stores of NYC! I like to pop in here and grab whatever I can carry back on the train. I always get some seasonal asian fruit and greens, mountain yam, a pack of individually wrapped chinese sausage (for emergency food, I toss in a pack in before I start steaming rice in my Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy!!), and fresh seafood for the week, usually a piece of salmon filet or one small whole mackerel. My favorite trick is to make NY Mart my last stop so I can prepare myself to carry everything home and buy a pack of ready made roast duck or poached chicken by the pound from the cooked meat counter. This way I’ll have something to immediately devour as soon as I get home, tired from exploring and shopping. I’ll eat half by itself as that initial snack, then make it a meal by sauteing a big pile of green cabbage with the rest later.
FOR MEALS
PINGS
22 Mott St
My good friend Humberto Leon, who’s Chinese and an excellent eater among dozens of other great qualities, brought me here first for dim sum. The cuisine is HK / Canto style. You can always get a table here, and the dim sum is great, and so are the options for dinner. If they have the fried crispy whole baby shrimp available for dinner, get it!!!
BODHI
77 Mulberry St
I ate Cantonese food with my family every Sunday after church growing up in San Jose. This means I ate a lot of dim sum, and a lot of dishes including pork, seafood, or chicken. My partner taught me about the vegan dim sum at Bodhi, and I don’t miss any of the meat! I think it’s equally as impressive here, and hits the spot just right.
THAI SON
89 Baxter St
As a San Jose, CA native, who grew up amongst plentiful 99 cent banh mis and incredible Vietnamese food, I crave the cuisine in NYC often. I’ve been going to Thai Son for the last 16 years and my classics order is delicious. I love to get the rice paper wrapped crispy fried spring rolls, strong iced coffee, Pho #1. Only in the last year have I been ordering the banh mi for lunch. I like the way they do it there, a long, skinny, crispy and chewy Vietnamese style banh mi baguette, and a thin (and the key here) very even and consistent layering of ingredients in the classic, makes this a neat, tasty, and tidy banh mi eating experience. I love this unique style as an different option amongst other more juicier, more generously stuffed banh mi choices in the city.
NIGHT OUT
ROOFTOP 93
93 Bowery
One of my favorite little Chinatown tricks is to go to the rooftop bar, Rooftop 93, at the Wyndham Garden Chinatown. It’s a no frills spot, with classic colorful LED lights and never really overwhelmed with tourists. The open air rooftop balcony has an incredible 360-view of Manhattan with a rare POV of The Bowery looking stately and grand tiptoeing uphill and uptown. I’ve organized birthday drinks there once, and it feels so special to have the awe-inspiring feeling you get from uptown views, but even better because you’re in Chinatown.
UP STAIRS BAR
59 Canal St
I was a regular at the staple Karaoke Bar, Upstairs Bar as early as 2012, before their renovation. I have deep affection for Raina who runs the bar, and Peter who also works there. Back then, my order would be a simple shot and beer after a kitchen shift, or when I’m hosting and feeling festive in the summer my order would be a Miami Vice (a layering of a pina colada and strawberry daiquiri. When I was super hungry I’d feel very satisfied with an order of fries and chicken fingers, but this wasn’t a must for the experience. Hanging with Raina and Peter for a catch up and hugs was all I needed. One of my all-time favorite NYC memories as a regular bar patron was in 2014, when I tried to take some new kitchen staff for a nightcap at Upstairs Bar. On the way there, I saw Raina on the street. She told me she closed up early because it was slow, but insisted on walking back with us to roll the gates back up, and reopen the bar just for us :*)
