Flushing's Yi Lan Halal Restaurant is New York's first real Muslim Chinese establishment. While the city has seen plenty of Halal East Asian food (such as Brooklyn's No Pork Chinese Kitchen), these places merely reconfigure Cantonese fare for observant devotees of Islam. By contrast, Yi Lan represents the cooking of the Muslim population of northern China. It resembles restaurants I've eagerly sought out in L.A. and the Silicon Valley, where a small number have flourished over the past decade, characterized by dome-shaped and seeded wheat breads, lots of familiar and unfamiliar seafood prepared in delightful and unusual ways, fist-size dumplings, and assorted lamb cuts that make their way into stir-fries, grills, and salads,... More >>>