Where to eat in Chinatown

 My mystery novel, The Girl at the End of the Line, features a jaunt through New York City’s Chinatown and a dim sum lunch.

If, like Molly and Nell O’Hara, you’ve never experienced such a repast you’re in for a treat.  There are plenty of places to try if you find yourself in the Big Apple, but the restaurant in my book was loosely based on Jing Fong on 20 Elizabeth Street between Bayard and Canal. 

  Okay, it doesn’t look like much from the outside — in fact it looks distinctly forbidding, plus you have to ascend a daunting escalator.  But inside on the second floor you will be rewarded with one of the largest and most exotic restaurants in New York. 

A lot of sites will give you eight million choices of where to eat, but if you’re like me this is no help.  I don’t want someone to give me options.  I want advice.  So here’s my advice to you: if you want to eat one meal in Chinatown and don’t want a weird exotic location like Jing Fong with weird and exotic food (some dim sum is distinctly strange for a Western palate), if you just want some great and surprisingly inexpensive Chinese food, I say GREAT NEW YORK NOODLETOWN at 28 1/2 Bowery at Bayard Street.  The ambiance is zero but the food is incredible.  Try the salt-baked combo (or if you don’t like squid and scallops, go for just the salt baked shrimp).  The duck with asparagus is out of this world.  And if you don’t believe me that this is the best joint in Chinatown, even Zagat and Martha Stewart sing this place’s praises.