Main St Imperial Taiwanese Gourmet - Review

Intro
Main St Imperial Taiwanese Gourmet (Bay Gong) - Recommended
59-14A Main Street
Flushing, NY 11355

Went to Flushing with the wife for some Taiwan Eats. Some very tasty stuff there and definitely worth taking the trip out to Flushing if you want to get away from Manhattan and get some good eats. Main St Imperial Taiwanese Gourmet has some authentic Taiwanese food that's a bit off the main area in Flushing. The place was tasty, but based on the dishes we had; not necessarily worth shlepping out to Flushing for. Still I think I may go back to try some other dishes. Overall, I give the restaurant an 81/100.

My Menu

1) Stinky Tofu (Chou Dofu) *
2) Garlic Chives, Chili and Pork (Joe chai hwa tsow chang eeng toe) ***
3) Three Cup Chicken (San bay jee) *
4) Clams with Basil (Joe tzen tah hai gwa tze) *

Rating System
--- What the F - in a bad way * Good ** Great *** What the F – in a good way

Dish Comments
1) Friends of ours raved about the stinky tofu here being the closest to Taiwan they've had in the States. I haven't frequented many stinky tofu joints in the States, but this specific one is close but no cigar. Texture is definitely on, nice and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. However, the lure of this dish is the stinkiness which is definitely lacking that ridiculous punch - more a mini punch. Nonetheless, still a fun dish to eat.
2) This was definitely a what the f dish for me. I never realized Taiwanese food could be spicy, but this dish and other dishes at this restaurant showed me otherwise. Garlic chives are one of my favorite Chinese ingredients and this is one of the best applications of this ingredient I've ever tasted. Perfect harmony of flavors and textures - fatty with the bits of ground pork, spicy with the thinly sliced peppers, salty with the preserved black beans, and crunchy with the garlic chives.
3) A classic Taiwanese dish. Nicely cooked chicken with tasty bits of fatty skin. Wish the earthy soy based marinated penetrated the meat more though.
4) Very fresh clams cooked in a thick soy based sauce mixed with thinly sliced peppers and basil. Kinda reminded more of a Thai or Vietnamese dish than a Taiwanese dish.

Overall Restaurant Experience (81/100)

• Food 8.0/10 – 1 great dish and all the others were solid. I think they're probably some hidden gems on the menu which may be worth coming back for
  
• Service 7.9/10 – Food came out relatively quick and the waitress was nice. Caveat though that the wife speaks Mandarin, so not sure how they would react to non Mandarin speaking customers.
  
• Atmosphere 7.5/10 – Uber tiny restaurant maybe seating 20 people tops. Standard chinese looking joint, but it appeared clean and didn't seem as cluster phobic. Got there at 5:30pm and was seated immediately. However, around 6:30 there was a line to be seated. Crowd was 100% Asian with half the customers consisting of families and the other half consisting of groups of friends.
  
• Price 8.3/10 – $40 for the total meal. I think well worth it as we still have loads of leftovers.
  

Closing Comments
Good food with potentially hidden gems on the menu. I tried taking pictures, but they told me I couldn't - quite odd I thought as this wasn't a famous place and they weren't doing mind blowing things...