Pell St, Chinatown

Chinatown can be pretty overwhelming, crowded, dirty and stinky. Pell Street is a tiny street in the neighborhood that offers the least of the bad qualities while maintaining the good. It's pretty vibrant and it's very Chinatown. But, because it's so small and relatively unknown, it's much easier to walk and shop on Pell Street.
Pell only goes from Mott to Bowery and manages to pack about a million Chinese restaurants into those few blocks. I can't say that I've tried them all, but Joe's Shanghai Restaurant has some pretty stellar dumplings and there's a pretty good vegetarian restaurant on the block -- and, Chinese vegetarian is slightly hard to come by.
This street has a lot of history too, which is cool because a lot of Chinese history in New York is pretty overlooked. The "Scientific Killer" lived at 13 Pell street until 1911. He was the guy responsible for the Chinese Theatre Massacre and he was, apparently, one of the more methodical sociopaths of his day. It's not every day that a non-caucasian serial killer comes around. Strangely, for such a small street, the oldest surviving townhouse in New York City is a few steps away from that guy's former address. The Edward Mooney House was built at the end of the 18th century (now that's old). It is now a rental building, and I think there's a bank of some sort on the ground floor. It's not the most picturesque townhouse around, but it has been restored relatively recently, and the fact that it's 250 years old has got to stand for something. Edward Mooney was a butcher which I find pretty interesting. Who knew that butchers made that much money during colonial times?

Pell street runs through the middle of Chinatown and is definitely the stereotypical street in any Western Chinatown. It is possibly like walking into a fortune cookie, and not knowing which emotion you’ll experience during this visit. It is fully of shops, and restaurants tailored to fit even the most fickle tastes. A cacophony of sounds rainbows up the street from the carts on the street, the eager street vendors, the sound of food sizzling, and of course, the quite literal rainbow of all the signs on the buildings. If you are a fan of some of the hidden gems of the city, come to Pell street for some excellent Chinese food.

I am a 10 year of Chinese and have spent about 2 years of my life living in mainland China. I'm not Chinese though, so I always felt that my pallet wasn't as advanced. But after sometime spent there, I feel that I am now capable of discerning good/authentic Chinese food from the crappy stuff.

Joe's Shanghai Restaurant tastes like you're in Shanghai in a hole in the wall eating xiaolongbao (morning dumplings). They were so good! So worth taking a trip down this street in Chinatown.

In the middle of a Chinese district of New York, Pell Street is typical of any Chinese shopping street in a Western city, with colourful, incomprehensible signs fighting for space up the sides of buildings, and all the shops painted a different bright colour. Some good Chinese food to be had on this street.