Taiwanese pork chops (May Wah Fast Food 美華)

In my idiotic opinion, there are few sensations as pleasureful as biting into a freshly fried Taiwanese style pork chop. If you're a dude, think about getting punched in the nuts. Unpleasant right? Now think the opposite of that. That, is the kind of effect a properly fried pork chop has on my life. The feeling of um... not getting punched in the nuts? If you're a girl, I don't know how to describe it, but it's awesome. I promise. On the surface there's nothing that would suggest this dish is anything special, but when you beat the shit out of a slab of pork, starch it up, fry it, and doll it up with that trademark sweet soy sauce and garlic marinade, my knees go weak, I lose control over my bowels, and I inevitably soil my pants in excitement. Crispy, oily, flavorful, tender, sensual are all words that would be appropriate to describe this dish. What could make it even better?

If you charge less than $5 for it. Yep, that would do it. I haven't really started my job yet, so technically speaking I'm unemployed. Also my parents cut me off... so I'm currently big on finding cost efficient meals... by which I really just mean cheap things that make me go into food coma afterward. Possibly with the added bonus of butthole pleasures. I know what you're thinking, "But wait... where is there such a deal? Fried pork over rice and anal excitement for the low low price of $5?"



This place. Random factoid - back in 2006 this place used to be called "Mei Wah." For one reason or another they closed up shop and reopened a few years later as "Wah May"... spelled even more incorrectly (from standard pinyin) and evidently with a case of dyslexia since the Chinese characters still read "Mei Wah." To be honest, I can't really tell if the food tastes any different, but the general premise is still the same - they fry up cuts of thinly pounded pork with salt, pepper, and all that other shit that makes it smell dope.



I think their standard pork chop over rice w/soy sauce egg costs $4.75... but I'm not really sure. I gave the woman at the counter a $5 bill and for some reason she gave me $5 back in change. I'm not someone who would ever question another Asian person's mathematical abilities (don't ever do it... it's straight insulting), so I didn't say anything. I guess I should probably mention that I ate this meal for free then?

Their version? Not too bad. Definitely better than the Bian Dang Truck guys... and cheaper too. Wah May's isn't as crispy as it could be, but it finds a decent balance between distribution of marinade and crust. The frying definitely plays its role in the texture, but it's not nearly as pronounced as in some versions I've had which possess a potato chip like crunch on the exterior. Whether that's a good thing or not is debatable. Not that it really matters, I'm down with pretty much any preparation of pork. A tad salty (which seems to be a complaint a lot of people had since it reopened), but the meat aspect of the dish is certainly passable. The star though... is the pile of sauce that looks like shit blanketed by the massive piece of fried pork. While this olive green and brown mixture looks like the spawn of Satan's asshole, it is in actuality worth its weight in gold. It is hands down the greatest thing Chinese people have given the world since fireworks... or kites. Kites are pimp. Little more than a blend of ground pork, soy sauce, pickled veggies, and napa cabbage, pork sauce is an instance where the sum of parts far exceeds the individual components. I don't really know how to explain how good it is, but I would have paid $5 just for them to mix pork sauce with rice.

Wah May probably isn't my "go to" pork chop place, but I'd be a huge asshole to complain about it given the price. It's good. And it's cheap. That's fine by me.

May Wah Fast Food
190 Hester St # 1, New York, NY 10013