DISH OF THE WEEK: Spicy Beef Guokui at CROP CIRCLE

Every week, I document another dish that impressed and satiated me during my food adventures around New York City

SADLY, CROP CIRCLE IS NOW CLOSED.

So it’s Christmas Week and I always like to try to find some special dish around the city that somehow relates to the holiday. But, as everyone knows, this is not your typical year.

That being said, the dish I decided to write about somehow sort of accidentally ties into the holiday. But for those that don’t celebrate it.

I’m writing about a new Chinese dish you can find in Greenwich Village and as many Americans know, Jewish people usually eat Chinese food on Christmas. So hence this is as Christmas as it gets.

Crop Circle opened on Macdougal Street this summer (yes, in the middle of the pandemic) and they are serving a specific dish that had yet to be represented in the city, Guokui are a stuffed flatbread from the northern part of China specifically the Shangxi Province.

The version featured at Crop Circle is based off of a version from Hubei a little further south. I don’t know anything about Guokui except what I have read recently and this delicious taste on a normally very crowded and lively street.

These are cooked in a special oven and stuffed with your choice of tasty fillings and garnished with a generous portion of sesame seeds.

I chose the Spicy Beef and I was pleased with how spicy it was. The beef was quite thin and spread throughout the bread. The leading flavor was numbing Szechuan peppercorns with a chewy, crunchy yeasty bread. The beef was a bit more subtle.

But anything in this bread would probably have worked. It’s a great and interesting vessel for the fillings. It has similarities to Lebanese Manousheh (available nearby), Indian naan, and Beijing jianbing, but it is its own thing. Crunchy and chewy at the same time with very potent and exciting flavors inside.

Dare I call it a Christmas gift?? Price: $7.25