The Village Voice: Close Up on Sunset Park
Just a rickshaw ride from Windsor Terrace is Sunset Park, a neighborhood which has been getting more attention around here for having some of the last affordable brownstones within relatively convenient commuting distance of Manhattan. Of course, like this week’s Village Voice piece, the neighborhood’s diversity is what most articles tend to focus on: Only…
Just a rickshaw ride from Windsor Terrace is Sunset Park, a neighborhood which has been getting more attention around here for having some of the last affordable brownstones within relatively convenient commuting distance of Manhattan. Of course, like this week’s Village Voice piece, the neighborhood’s diversity is what most articles tend
to focus on:
Only thirty minutes from Union Square, Sunset Park’s Eighth Avenue could make anyone think they should have brought their passport. For twenty blocks in this Brooklyn neighborhood one can choose from a myriad of Chinese, Malaysian, and Vietnamese restaurants or barter for exotic raw meats and strange produce from omnipresent street hawkers. Over on Fifth Avenue Latino music serenades customers at area taquerias as residents socialize on street corners. These two Asian and Latino arteries define Sunset Park: The cement between them is a virtual Pacific Ocean.
The Voice lists a number of restaurants, including Ba Xuyen, An Dong and Chinese Ocean Restaurant, all on Eighth Avenue. We’d be curious to hear from readers what their favorites are, as we have to admit to never having sampled the local cuisine.
Close-Up on Sunset Park [Village Voice]
I’ve been living in Sunset Park for about five years and I must admit, I love it. The commute to Manhattan is short, parking is easy to find. Food, clothing, and other goods are a lot cheaper than in Park Slope. For example — a pound of quite large fresh shrimp in any chinatown fish store is $3.99, pound of fresh cod can be even less. I also found that the people are friendly and respectful. There are many beautiful churches, brownstone and limestone blocks in the area and it’s wedged nicely between 5th Ave, teeming with inexpensive latino restaurants, and the ever expanding chinatown on 8th. 6th avenue is gorgeous in terms of architecture, lined with carved stone buildings. My favorite place is one of a number of the new dumpling shops. It’s located on 8th and 49th, and is called Kaifeng Fu dumpling house. You get 5 delicious plump dumplings for $1! There are some interesting equadorian and salvadorean restaurants between 39th and 42nd streets, and there is a great chino-latino place called Nueva Victoria on 5th and 47th — broiled fillet of fish and lobster in spicy sauce are to die for. There’s a nice malaysian place called Nyonya, and many awesome noodle shops on 8th ave. Lately there’s been an explosion of new, more sofisticated places both in Chinatown and on 5th and 4th avenues, for example the nice looking Eclipse (Mexican) on 43rd and 4th.
Sunset park: separate but equal
The fast food chicken place closed in less than a year. I tried it and it was terrible. A surprise to me, since I had heard that it was supposed to be pretty good, and is successful out West. I hardly ever saw anyone in there.
There are constant arguments about which Vietnamese sandwich place on the 8th Ave. strip is better, An Dong or Ba Xuyen. I’m a Ba Xuyen man myself — their chicken fu sandwich is to die for — although they seemed better in the old location on 7th Ave.
Some of the Chinese restaurants in the neighborhood are OK, but the Chinese population there is largely Fujianese, which is a poorer part of the country meaning the food is somewhat rougher and stronger in taste than the Cantonese or Shanghai stuff most non-Chinese NYers are used to. There is also a spreading Chinese presence in Bensonhurst and a quite good dim sum place down in Borough Park.
There is a sublme Central American chicken place on 5th Ave. (whose name escapes me) which is actually part of a chain from that part of the world, hence a rather fast-foody look to the place. There are also a couple of dynamite Hispanic bakeries in Sunset Park, and some really good Mexican sandwich shops in Greenwood Heights.
Of course I have now left brownstone Brooklyn for an even more ethnically mixed part of the city, where Hispanic places and Asian places sit side by side and there is far wider range of stuff available than anywhere in Brooklyn. And it’s much cheaper and much closer to Manhattan, but I’d hate to brag…
Sorry to hear about your negative experiences in SP, sl. I guess that there will always be ignorant morons out there.
I’ve never lived in SP, but I’ve always enjoyed visiting. The restaurants are great and the park provides a wonderful view of the harbor. Plus, there are some great, old-school dive bars on Fourth and Fifth Avenues (the Irish Haven, the Green Isle, and the bar formerly known as Furlong’s).
The best thing about Sunset Park Chinatown is the attitude. People are way friendlier and much more relaxed than in Manhattan. Folks actually smile, kids play, la la la. Store and restaurant owners answer questions.
The restaurants are mostly southern chinese with a few vietamese/chinese and malaysian/chinese places. I do not think there is a Shanghai place. There are several good markets. The largest is the Hong Kong market which is accross the street from the 8th Avenue train station. There are also lots of small and extremely cheap vegetable markets, fisk markets and bakeries.
Interestingly, there is still a small middle estern/turkish population in the area with two turkish markets and a mosque.
What’s amazing about Sunset Park Chinatown is how rapidly it has expanded in recent years. 5 years ago it was about 4-blocks long between 55th and 59th street. It is spreading North/West at a rate of at least a block a year. There are now stores and restaurants extending almost to 50th street and several businesses on 7th avenue.
I highly recommend that you all visit.
I tried living in Sunset Park (40th and 7th) for a year (2004) to take advantage of cheap rent. I moved out after my next door neighbor threatened to knock me out after I got upset that he double parked in front of me and kept me from getting to work. My primary issue with the area though was that everything shut down way too early which made it hard to find a meal once I got back home late from work. Still, though, there were some great places to get mofongo and rice/beans right on the park. There’s a fair amount of tension between the Chinese and latino community in the area. Being Korean American and able to speak Spanish didn’t really help me since people saw fit to vandalize my car and make ignorant comments.
There are many terrific hispanic cuisine restaurants and asian restaurants in sunset park.
I rarely see non asian or non hispanic customers in these restaurants, with the exception of some of the larger establishments, some of which are mentioned in the village voice article.