New World Mall

This is another long overdue post; for a while everyone was talking about New World Mall, and kept asking me to go with them.  Sure… why not? 

And so I went and took scads of photos. 

Some random shots around the food court.  This isn’t a real mall – there are hardly any retail stores upstairs. 

The food court takes up a ton of room.  By the way, cell phone reception down there is awful.

The first time I went, StB and I decided to split some things.  She went to Lan Zhou Hand Made Noodle – I wondered if it was related to Lam Zhou in Chinatown, but we weren’t able to determine. 

Meanwhile I walked over here to get something else. 

StB’s beef hand pulled noodles.  They were ok; I didn’t try too much of them but she seemed OK with them.  Then she said “I’ve never had hand pulled noodles before” and I had to laugh. 

I decided get dan dan mian.  It wasn’t very spicy, and actually was more like Chinese spaghetti… there were a ton of bell peppers in the sauce, too, which was rather… different than what I was expecting.  

Afterwards, we went to get SnoPo, which I posted about already. 

But a week later, after I mentioned it to BF and subsequently set off a social media frenzy over the word SnoPo, he really wanted to go get some.  It was weird.  I’ve never seen him so intent on a food item, and we went pretty far out of our way to get it – not that Flushing is far from me, but we went there, and then to the movies.  Very odd.  He got mango.  They sort of got mad at us because we ordered, then wandered away while they made it, and went to look at the other stalls, so by the time we picked up our order it had melted a little.  “It’s been ready for a while!” the woman groused at me, but I shrugged.  That’s why these two plates aren’t as fluffy. 

I got lychee. 

Then we went to the same stall where I got dan dan mian and picked up dumplings.  I thought these were OK; they grew progressively spicier.  BF liked them a lot, though, and I wanted to say “eff this noise! let’s go to White Bear!” but it was too late, haha. 

A few weeks later, I went back with StB and E.  The above stall is easily the biggest in the food court (or was at the time)- it’s red, and to the right of SnoPo and Lan Zhou Hand Pulled Noodles. 

We all got “hot pot” items. 

Don’t ask me the names, I don’t know. 

I asked for mine to be less spicy.  I’m sure I was obliged because mine isn’t bright red with chili oil.  But I was still struggling to eat this – I managed to eat just about all of it, but I was sweating profusely while eating the whole thing, which was OK… I don’t know how I feel about this type of dish.  Regardless, I’m going to recommend you not go there, since all three of us subsequently got very very sick.  Unpleasantly so.  Dunno why: maybe something is not kept clean? 

A visit to New World Mall is not complete without SnoPo, so here is StB’s Oriental Milk Snowy. 

E’s, but with green tea jello added.  50c extra, decent size portion.

For 50c extra, I got this much caramel popcorn.  Boo. 

Then I took TT and TC.  Here is his honeydew SnoPo, which was actually pretty good.  Tasted like a very sweet honeydew; I think he liked it.  I know he enjoyed it and thought it was unique like I’d promised. 

TC decided to get the $12.95 lobster special from the fresh fish place in the corner.  Not a bad portion size, though it took FOREVER to make! 

Came with “fried” rice and some cole slaw.  He said it was okay, not bad.  I didn’t try any. 

 

Then TC finished strong with a coffee SnoPo, which was really fully coffee flavored… I thought the coffee flavor was pretty good, actually.  I would definitely get this again. 

Overall… I think what New World Mall has going for it is actually what will be its downfall.  It’s great to have so many different types of cuisines in one place – a good number of regions of China that I am not familiar with are represented here – but at the same time, none of them does their own cuisine very well.  The reason to eat here would be, aside from convenience/quickness, if all of your friends want something different from each other.  Then I could see going here.  Otherwise, there’s absolutely no reason to go to a restaurant in the area that has the cuisine you seek (Malaysian, Vietnamese, Szechuan, hand pulled noodles…), and skipping this mess of places.  Meh.