chinatown: fruit

You really feel like you've stepped into a different world walking around Manhattan's Chinatown. I know, they say it's not the real Chinatown - you've got to go to Flushing, Queens or Sunset Park, Brooklyn for that (who are "they", by the way?). Flushing and Sunset Park may have bigger Chinatowns but for most of my Chinatown needs, I don't need to trek that far. My Manhattan Chinatown may be smaller but based on the signs - sometimes only written in Chinese - there are still, plenty of Chinese people who live, shop and eat here.

There's very little local, organic, or wind power-grown fruit in Chinatown. And if they have any of those attributes, like most things in Chinatown, that's not the selling point. Here, it's mainly about price. I don't know where the umpteen vendors that line the sidewalks get their produce but they all seem to buy their produce from the same distributor. There are the usual suspects: oranges, grapefruits, apples, cherries, grapes, bananas, mangoes, papayas, and watermelon. What I love is the variety that shows up seasonally, fruit you'd rarely spot in a Whole Foods, Safeway or Trader Joe's: pomelos, rambutans, sugar apples, lychees, horned melons, longans, dragon fruits, jackfruits, star fruits, mangosteens, and kumquats. Also, where else could you get a spiral cut pineapple? Or how about a fresh coconut, the top machete-d off and straw plunged in right in front of you, for a dollar or two? No, Chinatown is unique. Whichever or wherever your Chinatown may be.

(Images from top to bottom: vendor selling two different sized pomelos - the large one weighing about five pounds - and jack fruit; rambutan; red globe grapes and spiral cut pineapples; dragon fruit)