Grand Jury Duty - Silver Lining

Roast Meat and Dried Seafood in Chinatown

No one really wants to do grand jury duty, but there is no escape if you're called. Postponements, yes, but ultimately you've got to serve. I just completed two weeks of full-day service, with at least an hour for lunch. Here's the silver lining: 60 Centre Street, where I was serving, is just five minutes from Chinatown. So every day was an opportunity to eat Chinese or Vietnamese food, especially noodles in my case, and to see the food sights in this interesting part of town.

Day 1: Pho Viet Huong - daily special with pork, spring roll, rice noodles and cabbage soup, good but not great
Day 2: Nha Trang - excellent Pho with shrimp
Day 3: Great NY Noodle Company - excellent soy sauce fried noodles with pork
Day 4: Joe's Shanghai - famous (and delicious) soup dumplings
Day 5: Mandarin Court - mediocre dim sum
Day 6: New Bo Ky - excellent seafood soup noodles, followed by a sesame ball from Fay Da Bakery
Day 7: Bouley Upstairs - not Chinese but very nice, casual food with Bouley stamp
Day 8: Odeon - also not Chinese but nice; this was one of the Tribeca pioneers and is still good
Day 9: New Yeah - Good Shanghainese braised noodles with vegetables and "yellow" fish with scallions
Day 10: Jing Fong for wonderful dim sum in an enormous 2nd floor restaurant

So don't despair when your civic duty calls. Grab your Zagat and seek out culinary adventures!

Bobby Jay