Where to eat in Sunset Park’s Chinatown, according to Bonnie's chef Calvin Eng

Farideh Sadeghin is a chef and video host based in Brooklyn. In this series, she explores New York City neighborhoods through their food and histories.

Brooklyn’s Chinatown in Sunset Park runs along 8th Avenue, which is fitting as eight is a lucky number in Chinese culture.

And according to the Brooklyn-Chinese American Association, the draw of the number eight, along with easy access to the N train from Manhattan, is what led to many Chinese immigrants to open businesses on this stretch from 36th to 65th streets in the 1980s and onward.

While I’ve spent some time exploring Sunset Park, which also has a thriving Hispanic community along 5th Avenue, I’ve been keen to get back there with my friend (and James Beard Finalist, Food and Wine Best New Chef Class of 2022 and Forbes 30 Under 30) Calvin Eng. He’s the chef and owner of the popular Cantonese-American restaurant Bonnie’s in Williamsburg.

Eng grew up in nearby Bay Ridge. His grandfather moved to the Bronx in 1938 before relocating to Sunset Park and then Bay Ridge in 1957. His mom (for whom his restaurant is named) moved to Bayard Street in Manhattan's Chinatown with her siblings on Thanksgiving day in 1964 when she was 13 to join her parents, who had come here ahead of them.

Eng learned everything he knows about Cantonese food from his mom and has done his best to preserve traditions. But his own upbringing in Brooklyn also influences his cooking.

Eng continues to frequent Sunset Park as well as the Chinatowns in Manhattan and Queens for fresh rice noodles, dried seafood and other hard to find ingredients for dishes on his menu.

We began our day by grabbing an egg tart at Xin Fa Bakery on 8th Avenue between 56th and 57th Streets. I’d heard that the popular bakery sells out fast and when we arrived, it was bustling even at 11 a.m. on a Thursday. We got in line and were fortunate to be able to snag the last egg tart.

We stepped outside onto the chaotic sidewalk and bit into the still warm tart. The custard was jiggly, creamy and sweet and the crust was flaky and crisp – the perfect way to start our day. We continued to share it, taking bites as we wandered up the street to our next destination: Park Asia.

Opened in 2005, Park Asia is about a 10-minute walk along 8th Avenue from Xin Fa Bakery, located between 65th and 66th Streets. Known for their dim sum and Cantonese food, Eng recommended we start there because any later and there was a very high chance that most of the good dim sum dishes would be gone.

Park Asia has a large dining room, which is rare in New York and Eng had his son’s 100th day celebration here in December 2022. A Chinese 100 day celebration, according to Eng, is like a wish that the baby will live to 100 years and a celebration that they made it to 100 days. To celebrate, they had shrimp and walnuts, fried crab claws, noodles, Hennessy and fish maw soup, to name a few things.

As soon as we sat down at Park Asia, we had numerous carts wheeled over to us, offering all sorts of dim sum. Speaking in Cantonese, Eng ordered us siu mai, both beef and shrimp cheung fun, stuffed eggplant, century egg and pork congee and pu’er tea.

The stuffed eggplant was my favorite, but the steamed spare ribs with cheung fun were also sticky and sweet and perfect. The restaurant was buzzing and the din of the room added to the excitement of what would be unveiled when a steaming basket of dim sum was placed on the table and the lid removed.

Afterwards, we wandered a block down to Fei Long Market. Eng often comes here to do shopping because it has a huge parking lot, which is pretty luxurious for this area that is notoriously difficult to park.

We cruised the aisles and I bought a huge — 737 gram, to be exact, which is about a pound and a half — jar of my favorite condiment, Bull Head Shallot Sauce.

From there, we bopped across the street to BK Seafood Market, located on 64th Street. The restaurant was relatively new and Eng had seen it many times when he'd shopped at Fei Long (no doubt the humongous sculpture of the Alaskan king crab hanging from the bricks outside had caught his eye).

As soon as you walk in, you’re greeted by tanks filled with Dungeness and king crabs, fish, lobster and conchs. The inside of the restaurant has numerous large tables, each with a lazy Susan in the center, the perfect way for large groups to dine.

We grabbed a booth along the wall and ordered the Dungeness crab. Our server went to the front to grab our meal from one of the tanks, fishing it out with a net before transferring it to a large bucket to be weighed, then cooked.

Less than 15 minutes later, he returned with a platter of the crab, deep-fried legs piled high on top of one another and nesting in the carapace on a bed of shredded lettuce, topped with shredded and fried taro, scallions and chilies. We cracked into it, enjoying our version of the New York power lunch.

Feeling good, and not yet too full from our previous meals, we walked down 8th Avenue to Chun Yang Tea for bubble tea, a light refreshment and pick-me-up to break up the day. We both ordered the brown sugar pearl with fresh milk; mine cold, Eng’s hot.

As we wandered to our next stop, Eng told me about how as a kid he used to load up his straw with the tapioca pearls and spit them at buses. (We did not do this, however, it was suggested, just for nostalgia’s sake.)

Boba in hand, we walked the short distance back up 8th Avenue to Bamboo Garden to grab a combination platter of roast meats. While you can choose to sit inside and order dim sum, Eng had only ever gotten roast meats to go, which is exactly what we decided to do.

Roasted and sliced duck, pork and char siu (Cantonese barbecue pork) came over a bed of steamed rice and cabbage in a clamshell container with a cup of ginger-flavored chicken broth on the side. We wandered to a nearby park to sit and eat while we finished our drinks, then headed back up 8th Avenue to find douhua (tofu pudding).

I hadn’t had douhua in years, since a friend took me to Fong Inn Too in Manhattan’s Chinatown long before it closed in 2017. But when I read about a woman selling it on the street in Sunset Park, I knew I had to try it again.

Located just around the corner from 8th Avenue on 57th Street, you’ll find “The Tofu Pudding Lady,” selling douhua from a huge stainless steel vat. Her douhua is silky and steaming and, once topped with a sweet ginger syrup, also a delightful snack to enjoy as we wandered up 8th Avenue to our next and final stop: Yun Nan Flavour Garden.

We planned to try the Crossing the Bridge Noodles at Yun Nan Flavour Garden. The dish supposedly gets its name from a Yunnan love story. Legend has it that a man was studying hard for exams on a small island and, each day, his wife would bring him lunch.

By the time she crossed the bridge and arrived with his lunch, the soup would be cold and the noodles soggy. To remedy this, she decided to transfer the broth separate from the other ingredients and found that a layer of fat or oil on the top of the soup helped to insulate the broth and retain its heat.

We sat at our table and soon after ordering a few plates arrived with Silkie chicken (known for their black skin and bones), yuba (tofu skin), mung beans, a quail egg, garlic chives and thinly sliced pork. Next, a large bowl of house-made noodles slid onto the table, finally followed by the broth.

The server dropped in the egg first, then the meats and vegetables, and finally, the cooked noodles. We divided the soup between us and when I say this broth was incredibly flavorful. Star anise and ginger permeated my nostrils, and the warmth of the broth filled my entire body.

I know soup after a big day of eating might sound like a lot, but it was light, comforting and the perfect way to end the day.

There are so many restaurants and shops to explore along 8th Avenue and other types of cuisine in Sunset Park to try, I know I’ll be heading back for another taste soon.

All the places mentioned in this article are in this Google Map, which you can save to your phone.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct that Calvin Eng's grandfather moved to the Bronx in 1938.