My friend and I spent nine hours in Flushing eating our hearts out.

Every single time I go to New York City, I try to block off a chunk of my schedule so I can go and hop on the 7 Train to Flushing.

Once upon a time, when I used to live in the city, I was even looking at apartments in Flushing and daydreaming when I could walk outside of my house and get some great soup dumplings whenever I wanted for dinner. I ended up living in Flatbush because of my roommate’s demands and I was a pushover back in college.

Anyways, when I was coming up to New York City with my friend, who had never been, she decided she wanted to go and try the food out in Flushing.

I planned an entire day just kind of wandering around the area, allowing us the chance to snack on whatever wanted throughout the course of the day.

And that, my friends, is how we somehow ended up spending nine hours there. It isn’t the first time I’ve done this in recent years, especially because of how it takes me an hour and a half from Park Slope to get to Flushing. They really need trains across Brooklyn and Queens y’all. Someone needs to get on that soon.

Here’s what we did and ate!

Xinjiang BBQ Cart had some incredible skewers for only $2 each.

Every time I went to Flushing, I always saw the smoke from this little cart, but never bothered to venture over. I had originally planned to get satay skewers at a Malaysian restaurant, but then I found a little Instagram reel about Xinjiang and decided to go over here because it was so much cheaper.

My friend was so excited, especially because the price of these sticks were so cheap. She ordered a chicken and a beef, and I ordered a regular beef and a pork belly skewer. We ordered them not spicy, but that was an option.

The guy made these skewers with love over the charcoal, then dusted some cumin spice over them when they were cooked to perfection. We both devoured those skewers with love—they were delicious!

Joe’s Steamed Rice Rolls with fill you up—they’re a classic.

Our next stop was Joe’s in search of some rice rolls. My friend ordered the shrimp, and I got the BBQ Pork. And man, these do fill you up—we had to take an intermittent break after this round.

For $8, I got an entire plate of the steamed rice rolls and a sweet soy milk. After going to Malaysia, I have a newfound appreciation for soy milk and now ordered it on the menus whenever I go to a place that has it. We then doused our plates with chili oil and soy sauce, then ate it right up.

We both agreed, though, that this was our least favorite meal of the day. It was good, just not entirely our cup of tea. We’d both never had spring rice rolls before now.

In-between meals, we wandered the malls, bookstores, and grocery stores.

Because we had to space out the food we were eating, my friend and I just kind of took a tour around the neighborhood in order to see how people were thriving in this space. I love just walking around Flushing because of how vibrant and lively it is, and it really does remind me of Asia throughout its space.

Inside the New World Mall, there’s the J Mart that I like to go to and pick up ingredients that I can’t find back here at home. I also find this grocery store fascinating because it’s so much cheaper than the H Mart I live by here in Maryland, which you really wouldn’t expect because of how this is literally New York City.

This time, I picked up some hotpot bases and noodles, and my friend grabbed some teas and snacks. We then went to a bookstore near Chun Yang, which we kind of just spotted when we were walking past. There, I started looking for some manhua, but they didn’t have any.

Instead, I bought a journal with a pretty Tang Dynasty girl on the front, and a Chinese calligraphy pen so I could practice my Chinese and Korean calligraphy. My friend picked up some trinkets as I chatted with the cashier in Mandarin for a bit.

Shanghai You Garden is one of my new favorite places.

Shanghai You Garden is somewhere I have always wanted to go, and it appears on my social media constantly, making me want to go there even more. So I randomly turned to my friend and asked her if she wanted some xiaolongbao, or soup dumplings, and she said she worked up the appetite to do so.

So we went into Shanghai You Garden, and were so excited to see that if you spent $10, you got a free dish of soup dumplings. The dumplings on their own would have been $6, so we ordered a stir fried Shanghai rice cakes dish and got the soup dumplings for free.

Those rice cakes were delicious, but the star of the show were the xiaolongbao. The soup was so flavorful, and with the ginger and vinegar, it was like the perfect bite each time. I’m so glad we went here and had room in our stomachs after all of these meals. It helps that we split everything.

They served us complimentary tea with the meal, and at the end they gave us a free dessert too. For only $16 with tip, this was absolutely incredible. I wish they had a branch back home!

Chun Yang and Paris Baguette have excellent drinks.

Our other way to burn time was to go to drink shops, especially when we were just waiting for my other friend to come, as we had dinner plans with her at Nurlan that night after she broke her fast for Ramadan.

Chun Yang is my favorite boba shop in the area, so my friend and I grabbed drinks and sat down in their small cafe sections. This is the sixth time I’ve been here, and the workers have started recognizing me, despite the fact I live three hours away from New York City in general. It’s a problem. I ended up coming back two weeks later, too.

We then ended up in Paris Baguette later in the day as we waited for my other friend, and I ordered a Nutella latte. It didn’t taste like coffee at all, just straight up Nutella. I was perfectly fine with that, and enjoyed the drink as it started to rain.

We finished the night at Nurlan Restaurant and Mango Mango.

Nurlan has been one of my favorite spots to get Uyghur food, although it’s a bit of a walk from Main Street. Once my other friend met us at Paris Baguette, we trekked downwards towards Nurlan and ordered even more food. My other friend got the chicken lagman, which she didn’t realize was spicy, and my friend and I split a bowl of regular lagman.

We also ordered a samsa and some skewers of meat, which I didn’t eat, but know is good here. Besides my friend not liking the spice level of her food, the other minor complaint I had is that the lagman tasted like it was made with lamb, instead of the beef it’s usually made with. I’m not a lamb person, so I just kind of avoided the meat because of that.

Afterwards, we hiked to Mango Mango, and ordered some desserts. I had a fruit yogurt sago situation, which was light enough for me, while my friends got cakes. We all agreed the desserts were good here, and they were perfectly light after such a long day of eating.

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