A buck bought you a lot of food at the Rice Bowl, a Cantonese place at 44 Mott Street: “in the heart of Chinatown,” as the massive menu points out.
Open from 1939 to 1970, it was a “sophisticated high-class restaurant that required gentlemen to dress in suit and tie,” writes Daniel Ostrow and Mary Sham, authors of Manhattan’s Chinatown.
The Rice Bowl had quite an assortment of chow mein, the Americanized noodle dish topped with soupy vegetables that epitomized Chinese food decades ago.
It’s tough to find a bowl of chow mein in the city today, amid all the trendy Asian fusion spots. Even the last chow mein neon sign is gone.
Tags: 44 Mott Street, Chinatown in the 1960s, Chinese food New York City, Chow Mein in New York City, Chow Mein sign East Village, old Chinatown restaurants, The Rice Bowl, vintage menus
Ephemeral New York 
May 10, 2012 at 1:12 pm |
Heh – well, this certainly explains why my Jewish grandmother, who lived in New York City for her entire life, ordered only chow mein when we went to a Chinese restaurant. She certainly wasn’t familiar with anything else!
May 10, 2012 at 2:02 pm |
yeah, but so many varieties to choose from!
May 11, 2012 at 2:11 am |
I think there is a Chow Mein sign (without the original restaurant) on Pitkin Avenue in Brownsville, Brooklyn. North side of the street but I forget the cross street (Thatford? Osborne? Not sure.)
June 2, 2012 at 5:06 am |
But keep in mind what the average wage was at the time.
June 4, 2012 at 5:56 pm |
Reblogged this on Pix In Motion – Leo Bar and commented:
Ahh delicious… And so affordable.
June 13, 2012 at 12:51 am |
Reblogged this on Flowers in the barrel of a gun. and commented:
I just found this really cool blog about “the ghosts” of New York – the remains of different periods, through which the city has been. Here is for example a menu of “a sophisticated restaurant” in Chinatown from the 1960’s… pretty close to the Chow Mein that Henry Miller was ordering with his muse June…
June 13, 2012 at 1:01 am |
Reblogged this on http://flowersintebarrelofagun.com !!! So cool