Flushing is what happens when you ride the 7 to the end and step out into a different city. Main Street is packed, the signs are mostly in Chinese and Korean, and the best food in New York is underground, in a mall, under fluorescent lights, served by someone who doesn't care what you look like. It's perfect.
On this page
The Flushing vibe and how to get there
Main Street and Roosevelt Ave are one of the busiest intersections in the city, and nobody on it is a tourist. Towers are climbing up around the old storefronts, the bakeries are always full, and a bubble tea is never more than a few steps away.
The 7 ends at Flushing-Main St, and the express runs at rush hour. The Long Island Rail Road also stops here, which saves real time from Penn or Grand Central. Riding back, get off at Jackson Heights and start over.
Flushing munchies: food halls, soup dumplings and noodles
The New World Mall food court is the classic, a basement of stalls with hand-pulled noodles, skewers, dumplings, hot pot and things you'll have to point at. Golden Mall, the old basement legend, came back after a long closure. Go hungry. Go slow. Don't expect a menu in English at every stall, and don't let that stop you.
Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao is the soup dumpling move, a proper sit-down. Bite, sip, burn your mouth anyway. Xi'an Famous Foods has a location here too, with the cumin lamb noodles that clear your sinuses. For something sweet, the bakeries sell pork buns and egg tarts for almost nothing, and the bubble tea shops are everywhere. Citywide picks are in NYC munchies, and late-night NYC covers how late this neighborhood goes.
Things to do in Flushing when you're baked
One stop back on the 7 at Mets-Willets Point, Flushing Meadows Corona Park has the Unisphere, the giant steel globe that looks even bigger when you're floating. Next to it, the Queens Museum holds the Panorama: all five boroughs in miniature, nearly every building, with the lights cycling from day to night. You will spend twenty minutes looking for your block.
Back near Main Street, the Queens Botanical Garden is a calm patch of green when the sidewalks get to be too much. Flushing Town Hall is a historic building with a real arts calendar. And the Queens Zoo is in the park too, if you need to look at a sea lion for a while. Check our things to do high in NYC for more.
Where you can sesh near Flushing
Flushing Meadows is a city park, so it's smoke-free. So is everything on the 7. Sesh at home before the ride, because it's a long one. Edibles, start low: a 7 train stuck between stations is not where you want to find out. The plain-English version is in where you can sesh in NYC.
Flushing: the good and the annoying
The good
Some of the best and cheapest food in the country, a world-class museum surprise and a park with a giant globe in it.
The annoying
Main Street sidewalks are a contact sport. It's a long ride from most of Brooklyn. And stalls open, close and swap places, so go in with a type of food in mind, not one exact name.
