Taiwan: Lunch at Gu Shine via Flushing, Queens, New York

Gu-Shine Taiwanese Restaurant in Flushing, Queens

Subway: Main St. stop (Last stop in Flushing)

Location: 135-38 39th Ave, Flushing, NY 11355 (718)939-5468

Short: Bald, how do you feel about fish ball soup?

Bald: Hmm…fish balls…mmm. Fish testi…Oh! You mean balls made out of fish!

Short: Yes.

Bald: I thought you meant –

Short: I know. That’s why I said it. Let’s go to Taiwan!

Flushing Queens has an abundance of Chinese and Korean restaurants, but it’s also home to some good Taiwanese restaurants. Taiwanese cuisine is similar to that of mainland China, but there are some subtle differences.

For example, though it’s changing now, in the past, Taiwanese avoided beef due to their large Buddhist population. Also, being a small island, Taiwan couldn’t rely on land-based agriculture, so their diet has a larger seafood component.

Short: But the most surprising influence you may not know about, Bald. There are Japanese themes in Taiwanese cuisine because Japan occupied Taiwan from 1895 to 1945.

Bald: Didn’t know that.

Short: You should get out more.

Bald: You are!

Short: That doesn’t even make sense.

Bald: You are!

We asked around for a recommendation and a woman near the station suggested this place, Gu-Shine, for some of the best, home-cooked style Taiwanese food in the area.

Bald: What do we have to to lose, huh?

Short: It’s always best to listen to a local, don’t you think?

Bald: Absolutely! But then again, she was wearing a Gu-Shine T-Shirt, with a Gu-Shine hat and sign, and her business card did say, Edna Gu-Shine.

The outside looks very down to earth. Short thinks ‘Gu-Shine’ means “Hometown” but Bald thinks it means, “Balls! Fish balls!”

As soon as we sat down, they served us tea, which was a nice, warm touch on this overcast day. We had a few questions about the menu but the staff didn’t seem confident speaking English.

Bald: To be honest, they seemed a bit grumpy. I got the sense that they mainly cater to Taiwanese clientele, and not mono-lingual, bald Aussies!

Short: As a non-native English speaker, I can understand their frustration. Lucky for us, there were some very friendly Taiwanese people at a nearby table who were happy to answer all our questions and recommend some dishes.

Bald: One of them actually looked a bit like that woman from the station again. Is she following us?

Gu-Shine has a great lunch special, a choice of two main dishes and one soup for $14.95, which is more than enough for two people!

No prizes for guessing which soup we ordered. It was delivered quickly, too.

Bald: Fish Ball Soup! Yay! These must be BIG fish, huh?

Short: How old are you, honestly?

The balls themselves were lightly chewy, with a faintly fishy, smoky flavor. The broth was delicious! Warm, savory and salty with a hint of onions.

Short: The green vegetables are Chinese Celery. This soup is light, clean and very addictive.

For our first main dish, we ordered Squid Taiwanese style. It was a very generous sized dish and there was plenty of squid sauteed with onion, carrot, hot peppers and shiitake mushrooms.

Short: The sauce was surprisingly spicy. Not as spicy as Korean, but still, it had a definite zing!

Time for your closeup, Squid DeMille! As you could see here, the squid was really fresh and sweet.

Short: Chewing the squid and shiitake mushroom together was just perfect. It melted in your mouth. Once again, simple and addictive.

Bald: Will you stop talking about me in public. It’s embarrassing.

For our second main dish, we ordered Shredded Pork with Bamboo Shoots. Like the squid, this dish had a great combination of textures. The pork is chewy and dense, while the bamboo shoots are crunchy and light.

Unfortunately, however, the pork wasn’t well-seasoned, so it seemed a bit uninteresting.

Bald: I thought the pork was just overwhelmed by the heavy sauce and got a bit lost. Didn’t stop me wolfing down the whole dish, of course!

Our Overall Impression of Gu-Shine:

1. It’s a REAL Taiwanese restaurant, frequented by Taiwanese patrons. So don’t go there expecting to be fussed over the way you do in more “touristy” places.

2. The food is tasty, filling and fairly simple. The menu gives you a lot of options, so you’re guaranteed to find something to your taste.

3. It’s really good value. You and a partner can eat there for less than $20.

4. The decor is basic and so is the service, really. But isn’t that a nice change now and then?

5. We enjoyed our meal, especially the fish ball soup. We dare you to go there on a rainy day, down a bowl of warming fish ball soup and not feel a million times better afterwards!

While we were in the area, we decided to take the Flushing Queens, Freedom Mile walk.

Short: Learn something, as well as walk off some of that lunch!

In 1987 a committee was formed to preserve and promote some of the more significant historic sites in Queens and they were linked to form the Queens Freedom Mile. Here’s the information: http://www.queenshistoricalsociety.org

We were surprised to learn the age and importance of some of these Queens landmarks, which have connections to diverse events like the liberation of southern slaves in the form of the “Underground Railroad” and the rights of Quakers to congregate.

Each site associated with the Underground Railroad is marked with the symbol of Harriet Tubman leading the slaves to freedom.  http://www.queenshistoricalsociety.org

This building is called The Friends Meeting House. It was built by the Quakers in 1694, but the membership grew so quickly that it was doubled in size in 1714 and nothing has been altered on the outside since. Members of the Society acted as “conductors” on the Underground Railroad leading up to the Civil War.  http://www.queenshistoricalsociety.org

Bald: Aren’t those old shingles and that high, pitched roof beautiful. You can tell it dates from the early 1700’s, and that’s really old for a fairly new country like the U.S.

Short: And now it’s surrounded by high-rise buildings and busy highways.

Bald: The old Quakers from those days, would sure be quaking in their shoes now to see this.

Short: Really? Quaker jokes?

Bald: Who doesn’t like a good Quaker joke?

Short: I don’t know. Maybe Quakers?

Flushing Town Hall was built in the Romanesque Revivalist style in1862, and it served as Flushing’s focal point for the next fifty years. The famous African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass spoke here in 1865.

This is the Flushing Armory, built in 1905. According to the always reliable Wikipedia, it has been used for the National Guard, as a homeless shelter, a gymnastics shelter, an NYPD stationhouse and as a launching pad for rocket ships made out of cheese.

Bald: All right! I made the cheese bit up, but it just goes to show, you can’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia. I did once, until I followed Wikipedia’s hair restoration instructions, and…

Short: Bald… you’ll always be my Bald.

This is interesting: “On this site (in Michael Milner’s home) the Flushing Remonstrance was signed December 27, 1657 to protest Governor Peter Stuyvesant’s ban against Quakers and his restrictions on religious freedom.

The freeholders of the town who dared to sign their names stated, “we are bounded by the law of God and man to doe good unto all men and evil to noe man.” Their courageous action has been called the first declaration of religious tolerance by any group of ordinary citizens in American history.”  http://www.queenshistoricalsociety.org

Flushing High School is the oldest free public secondary school in New York City; its charter was received in 1875. This building was constructed between 1912 and 1915. In 1954, they added an east wing dedicated to former students who died in World War II.” http://www.queenshistoricalsociety.org

Some school, huh? Wouldn’t look out of place amid the rambling, manicured lawns of Oxford or Cambridge.

Well, that’s our trip to Taiwan via Flushing, Queens. We hope you had fun! We have another gigantic gastronomic adventure planned, so we hope you’re metrocard-passport is in your bum-bag, cause we’re leaving soon! All aboard!