We hopped onto the Chinatown bus for NYC this past weekend to send my cousins off to residency and fellowship with what else but a big Chinese banquet with the family. But between wandering the city and meeting with old friends, our short trip took us on a culinary tour which reminded me once again why Boston is simply no match for New York City dining. Perhaps most satisfying was recapturing the soba experience from Hawaii at a cozy noodle shop in the village called Soba-Ya. Literally meaning “Soba Shop”, the place sports fresh, hand-made soba kneaded each morning from stone-milled buckwheat shipped directly from Azumino. The kaeshi (dipping sauce) is supposedly aged for days. Our other indulgences included some watercress dumplings and lotus leaf baked rice at our old favorite hole-in-the-wall in Chinatown, Sweet-n-Tart, as well as some greasy burgers and milkshakes at Burger Joint, another hole-in-the-wall interestingly hidden behind a velvet curtain in the classy lobby of Le Parker Meridien hotel. With two weddings down in New York over the upcoming months, I’m already preparing a new list of places to hit on my next trip down! =P