At the corner of Jackson Avenue and 44th Drive in Long Island City, Tingting Li and Yuhui Sun move with practiced rhythm. Their kitchen is tiny — a pink food truck of about 50-square-feet. Inside, the aroma of Chongqing chilies and Sichuan peppercorns from the steaming, spicy dishes of Sichuan Cuisine drifts down the street. Heads turn. Noses inhale. People line up. Named Guo Ge Zui Yin, their truck is roughly translated as “Get addicted to your mouth.”
Li and Sun specialize in a trendy street favorite among Chinese immigrants: bone broth malatang. As with many of their dishes, the translations to English are approximate at best. Malatang, translated as “Numbing spicy hot/boil,” is a build-your-own street-style mini hot pot of sorts, where meats, vegetables, and noodles are blanched to order, then served in a savory bone-based soup, often spicy but customizable to taste.
Around 12:30 pm on a Friday in June, a group of young Chinese passersby pause in front of the menu posted on the food truck. They’re intrigued. At the heart of the menu is the malatang dish, offered in spice levels from mild to fiery. To complement the heat, Li and Sun serve soothing cold drinks with distinctly East Asian flavors, such as osmanthus rice milk tea and matcha jasmine milk tea.
“One signature malatang, no cilantro, please,” a young woman orders in Mandarin.
“Can I have the golden broth with fatty sliced beef, medium spicy? Thanks!” says a man behind her.
Li, who handles orders, punches in the requests while her business partner, Sun, goes to work. Sun fills slotted ladles with a medley of ingredients, including sliced beef, glass noodles, fish cake, napa cabbage, quail eggs, and luncheon meat, before plunging them into a bubbling cauldron. Once blanched and drained, she bathes the cooked ingredients in a creamy bone broth and drizzles them with a spicy sauce. Li then carefully packs the dishes into containers along with a box of rice. In just a few minutes, the piping hot meals are in the customers’ hands.
The duo, along with another business partner Xia Zhang, who handles prep work from a central kitchen in Bayside, used to operate near the gates of Columbia University, where they built a loyal following among Asian students. But with the campus quiet for summer break, they’ve since piloted a new location in Long Island City.
“It was actually Columbia students who suggested we come here,” says Li. “They told us there are lots of young Chinese people and international students in the area. So we thought, why not give it a try?”
The malatang-focused food truck, which started in 2021, draws flavor and inspiration from Li and Sun’s hometowns. Li is from Chongqing, a southwestern Chinese city known for its fiery cuisine which uses peppers and peppercorns to create bold, spicy and pungent flavors. Sun hails from Harbin in northeastern China, where mala ban — a dry-style variation of malatang that delivers the same spicy, sometimes sweet flavors without the broth — is a local favorite. They import key ingredients like Sichuan peppercorns, which create a distinctive numbing sensation on the tongue, and chili from Chongqing to keep the flavors authentic.
The trio, all immigrants from China, say they bonded over shared values and a love for food. When they first launched their food truck in 2018 outside Columbia University, they served Chinese lunch boxes with rice, boiled eggs and stir-fried dishes. But the physically demanding nature of cooking large batches of stir-fried dishes using big woks wore them down.
“By the end of the day, we couldn’t even lift our arms,” Li recalls.
After about a year, the pandemic forced them to shut down. When they returned in late 2021, they had reinvented themselves with a streamlined menu focused on malatang. The response was immediate and enthusiastic, especially among Columbia students and nearby residents.
Over the past three years, Li and Sun have seen waves of students come and go, with each graduation season always bringing a touch of melancholy.
“Every year, it’s hard to say goodbye,” Li said. She recalled a Columbia student from South Korea who visited the truck for one last meal before flying home after graduation, even posing for a photo with the team. Then there was the heartfelt card from a Chinese student who just graduated this spring, Sun recalled. “The kids are all so kind,” she said with a smile.
When not working, Li sometimes heads to Asian Jewels, a dim sum restaurant in Flushing, for weekend brunch with friends. “I don’t dine out much, but my favorite Sichuan place used to be DaXi Sichuan in Flushing,” she said. “Unfortunately, it was permanently closed last year.”
Nearly two months into their Long Island City trial run, Guo Ge Zui Yin is starting to build a steady local following. On RedNote, a Chinese social media platform similar to Instagram, Li even started a chat group for customers. New members regularly pop in to ask about the menu.
Li is excited about their trial run in Long Island City. “If business continues to grow, we will consider launching a second truck operating in the neighborhood permanently,” said Li.
