Food And Drink: Xie Xie in Hell's Kitchen, NYC

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Xie Xie in Hell's Kitchen, NYC

When we hear of the 1000-year-old egg (also known as "century egg" and "100-year-old egg"), we think of Chinese New Year dinners with the family and those pitch-black preserved duck eggs.

As a child, I always had mixed feelings about those dark eggs. They looked scary to me (like the anti-thesis of happily colored Easter eggs) but the gelatinous texture reminded me of Jello.

So when we heard that Xie Xie (meaning "Thank you" in Mandarin), was serving a 1000 year old ice cream sandwich, we were intrigued and headed over to the small, cafeteria-style restaurant to check it out.

With the menu featuring sandwiches and salads all around $10, we decided to share a savory bite. After all, we're big fans of other Asian sandwich shops like Num Pang, Baoguette, and Baoguette Cafe.

We ordered the most popular sandwich on the menu: Vietnamese BBQ Beef Sandwich ($10.50)

As you can see, the sandwich was piled high with BBQ beef. We loved the bright spiciness and crunchiness of the carrot kimchee with the light basil mayo. The meat was nicely marinated - a mix of sweetness and tang (from the lemongrass).

After finishing our sandwich, we eagerly got our dessert: 1000 year old Ice Cream Sandwich ($5). So this ice cream sandwich didn't contain actual 1000 year old eggs nor did it taste like them (which is probably a good thing!). It was 2 thin dark chocolate cookies sandwiching a thick amount of vanilla ice cream. In the center was black caramel, which resembled the look of the 1000 year old egg.

This dessert was well worth the trip to Hell's Kitchen! The salted black caramel soon softened and gently oozed together with the ice cream. It added a nice savory taste to balance the ice cream. After a few photos, we quickly ate the dessert as our tray was beginning to look like a Jackson Pollack painting from the dripping caramel!