Feasting in Flushing, Grubbing with Germans

I took my current couchsurfers, Anna and Monika on a 40 mile tour of the city tonight. The goal was to get the gals to Xi'an Famous Foods in Flushing for an atypical Chinese feast. 

Quoth Anna, after inhaling two plates of food:

"I could not stop eating."

I get it. It's almost impossible to stop eating the noodles from XFF if they're in front of you, even after you've crammed all of your crevices full of them. 

We walked around for a bit after dinner to continue the food tourism. We hit the Asian markets and food stalls on the streets. We exchanged with each other introductions to foods we'd previously never tried. 

I knew where to get some sweet buns, so I took us there. Anna was not into Dou Sha Bao, even though Monika and I are all about it. At a grocery store down the block, I learned longan ain't so bad. Evidently it "tonifys the heart and spleen, according to this site. 

It's not really my thing, but Anna and Monika go crazy for longan. They explained that they fell in love with the stuff on prior vacation to Cuba, where they call it mamoncillo chino, on a vacation years ago. They were excited to see it here. After they bought a bundle, we snacked on it in the street outside the store.