Posters celebrate Chinese boy bands like Mirror, as does a soundtrack that runs in the background, as customers dash in for carryout and diners both single and in groups eat in a businesslike fashion and then leave. The room has a row of small tables along each wall and its principal feature is a giant menu printed in Chinese and English, listing among dozens of dishes a series of Hong Kong-style breakfasts designated with capital letters. Named after its proprietor, S Wan is a low-key walk-down space on Eldridge just south of Grand. These are the tip of the iceberg: There are many lesser-known places to be found, especially on the Lower East Side. Mabu Café is among them, along with Toni’s Fresh Rice Noodle, and Kong Sihk Tong in Chinatown King’s Kitchen in Sunset Park, which partly concentrates on clay pot dishes and Hey Yuet in Chelsea, which specializes in dim sum. Much of the food is aimed at a breakfast and lunch crowd. There are macaroni dishes toasts smeared with butter and honey fortifying soups with sometimes-surprising ingredients dim sum and congees stews, stir fries, and curries over rice chow mein and chow fun and lots of eggs, pork chops, chicken cutlets, and Spam. Many are aimed at an immigrant constituency and their second-generation kids, but the collision of Cantonese and English food that they represent at cha chaan tengs (tea restaurants) is appealing to a broader range of diners. Hong Kong cafe cuisine is springing up like daffodils around town. Here’s the tenth installment and here’s last week’s edition. Accordingly, I resolved to keep an informal diary reflecting my unvarnished daily experiences. Those fleeting encounters with restaurants are often the most enjoyable. Many of my best dining experiences never make it to the page: If an eating establishment doesn’t merit a first look, dish of the week, is it still good?, point on a map, or paragraph in a feature story, it often disappears.
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