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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens

JL;DR SUMMARY In an unexpected culinary crossover, San Wei, a noodle stall in Queens Center Mall, bridges Chinese and Jewish American food traditions by offering a classic pastrami sandwich. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Food CultureChinese CuisineQueensPastramiAmerican IdentityMulticulturalismJewish DelicatessenShopping MallsSan WeiShang Dai

Places mentioned

Queens, New York, United States
"it was San Wei, a newly opened hand-pulled noodle stall next to a Chick-fil-A in the Queens Center Mall food court."
Valley Stream, New York, United States
"San Wei is set to open locations soon in Grand Central Terminal, and at the Green Acres mall in Valley Stream, Long Island."
Jackson Heights, New York, United States
"I learned about San Wei a few weeks ago from a Facebook post by Jeffrey Orlick, who founded the popular Jackson Heights Momo Crawl in 2012."
Flushing, New York, United States
"Take Xian Famous Foods, which started out in a gritty basement stall at the Golden Mall serving recent immigrants in Chinatown Flushing."
Elmhurst, New York, United States
"San Wei is located in the immigrant-dense neighborhood of Elmhurst, but the Queens Center Mall with its atriums, JC Penney and Aunt Annies is not some deep insider spot."
Manhattan, New York, United States
"Dai, who once did hundreds of millions of dollars in property deals, was now working behind the counter in a Queens food court."
Danbury, Connecticut, United States
"Last year, the developer who agreed by email to let me use his namep; opened Chomp Chomp in the Connecticut shopping center Danbury Fair, seeing an opportunity after a McDonalds closed."
Newark, New York, United States
"Hobbys in Newark and the old Stage Deli that food writers drool over."
New Jersey, United States
"Katzs is rare in that they cure their own meat, doing so in a New Jersey facility."
New York, United States
"Delis are a Jewish experience that connects us to our Garment District forebears."
Corona, New York, United States
"Since the mall opened in 1974, the Archie Bunker detached homes of Elmhurst and Corona have become subdivided and over-crowded with East Asian and Latin American arrivals."

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Cairo Item ID 50265
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-04-27 05:31:19 UTC
Curated 2025-04-27 08:30:26 UTC