Where’s the shrimp sauce?

M&T, a restaurant specializing in Qingdao cuisine, lives up to its Chinese name Mei Er Te, which means beautiful and special. With the possible exception of Xi’an Famous Foods in the Golden Shopping Mall, it’s my favorite Chinese spot in Flushing. (Since it’s the only one of its kind, it has earned the honor of being my favorite Qingdao eatery). Clean, fresh flavors abound, and the menu  includes such unusual specialties as jiao yan laoshan shen ($9.99), or salt and pepper Laoshan ginseng, a tangle of fried ginseng root.   

Xia Jiang Da Pai, or pork with shrimp sauce ($10), is one of their best dishes. As much as I love this basket of salty, crunchy fried pork, I’ve always wondered where the sauce—shrimp or otherwise—was. Last Sunday, I found out. A distinctly funky, though not unpleasant, aroma emanated from the morsel at the end of my chopsticks, as I brought it to my mouth. "Taleggio cheese?" I asked one of my dining companions, the Singapore-born Larry Reutens, who is the executive chef of Alias Restaurant. He smiled, and informed me that the flavor and aroma came from the fermented shrimp paste used to season the batter.

Later that afternoon, as we poked around the stalls at the Flushing Mall’s food court, that same funky cheese smell was in the air, but this time it seemed infinitely stronger. “Ah, someone’s eating stinky tofu,” Reutens said. I was somewhat ashamed to admit to I’d never tried the pungent delicacy known as chou dofu. A phone conversation with Reutens the next day revealed that I had eaten stinky tofu. He researched a similar recipe and was certain that chou dofu was bringin' in da funk to M&T’s pork with shrimp sauce.

Now the question is: Am I ready for an entire plate of the stuff? Not sure, but I’m willing to give it a shot.

Keep on eating,
Joe DiStefano

M&T Restaurant, 44-09 Kissena Blvd., Flushing, 718-539-4100

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