Fuzhou cuisine

Fuzhou is the capital city of Fujian province in Southeastern China. Fujian province is one of the most linguistically diverse province, so the idea that people from Fujian province all speak Fujian dialect is apparently not true. Anyway, so why am I so interested in this? My paternal grandparents are from Fuzhou, so technically, I am a Malaysia-born-Chinese-Fuzhou, my paternal grandmother speaks Fuzhou to my dad and his siblings, unfortunately I don't speak one word of it. I did grow up eating some Fuzhou dishes, and my favorite to this day is still the Fuzhou fishball soup that my grandma & aunt make.

Fuzhou fishballs are slightly different from the regular fishballs because they usually come with stuffed minced pork inside. If you don't know what a fishball is and you are starting to wonder if fish have balls, or if I am talking about fish genitals, then sorry to disappoint, it's not that exotic. Fishballs are made by pounding fish meat into a soft paste, adding flour and making into round shapes. The end result is these little yummy things cooked in clear broth (see second photo).

On the corner of Eldridge & Broome is this unattractive looking small restaurant that sells Fuzhou food, I always see people eating there (note: only Chinese though) so last weekend I went and ordered the fishball soup & ban mien (noodle with peanut sauce). The fishballs weren't as good as the ones I grew up eating, but it was comfort food nonetheless. I thought peanut sauce (and some soy sauce) on noodles would be a bit weird but it was actually quite delicious. And the best part was, two ban mien and a bowl of large fishball soup (with 11 fishballs) only came up to $7 for two people!


Address: Fuzhou restaurant (no idea what the name is in English), corner of Eldridge & Broome.