You may have noticed that my blog has been quiet for over a week. I assure you, such silence has not been due to forgetfulness, laziness or inattention (okay, well, maybe laziness is a tiny little part of it...), but rather I was on vacation last week in my second favorite city in the world—New York. I still have many Pittsburgh adventures from before and after my trip to catch up on in this blog, and I assure you they will eventually all appear in typical, un-chronological fashion. But interspersed among my regular ramblings will be tales of my week of fun and excitement in the NYC Metro area.

Smokey may look innocent but his teeth are lethal to fake Prada

The occasioning of this trip was three-fold—first, NYC being my second favorite city in the world makes it a logical destination for summer vacation; second, I too rarely get to see my Aunt TC, youngest of the Kane sisters, Bronxville resident and archivist extraordinaire, and so visiting her is as good a reason as any to head east; and finally, my stock of fake Prada purses obtained on previous visits to NYC has been practically obliterated by the treacherous teeth of my family cat Smokey, who cannot resist the tactile temptation of a leather shoe or handbag. And so, first order of business upon arrival was a trip to Manhattan's Chinatown, the fake Prada capital of the eastern seaboard. I arrived on Amtrak Thursday evening, and Friday morning, we were on Metro North, riding back into the city.

Aunt TC at Hale and Hearty Soups

To keep our strength up for the arduous day ahead, we stopped at the Hale and Hearty Soups counter in Grand Central station. Aunt TC got a medium of the Pasta E Fagioli, as it is not only one of her favorite soups, but according to TC, Hale and Hearty offers one of the finest varieties in the NYC area. I opted for something a little different and crazy, getting the Chilled Carrot and Ginger soup—after all, we were bracing for ninety degree weather. The soup was definitely tasty, though after offering Aunt TC a taste, we both agreed that it could have used more ginger. The spicier the better, I always say. We could not, however, object on grounds of the soups not being hale or hearty, so mission duly accomplished.

The Streets of Chinatown

Next we took the subway down through Manhattan to Canal Street. We surfaced in Chinatown and found ourselves with no shortage of skinny, corridor-style shops and kiosks brimming with fake handbags. I remember a time circa 2002 when Chinatown knockoff shops featured fake handbags with label and all right out in the open. Since that time, occasional police raids have put the shops on guard, but have not eliminated the vast opportunities for knockoff buying. All of the purses featured in these shops are knockoffs, of course, but most out on display are "legal" knockoffs, which is to say purses that look like the originals, but have no label or a "mis-named" label (see also my blog on the distinction between "real fake Prada" and "fake fake Prada"). Many vendors operating immediately street-side were wary when asked whether they had label purses, but further back from the streets in the corridor shops—many of which featured kiosks from more than one vendor—we found many vendors much more forthcoming with Prada label purses.

A Knockoff Prada Triangle ready to be switched in

The trick? They have the "fake fake" purses on display, but upon request, they switch out the "Milano" or "Pregio" triangle for an actual Prada knock-off triangle. The downside of this is that many of the more colorful Prada purses have colorful triangles to match the bag, but only the plain black Prada triangles are available for getting switched in. Still, black never clashes with any color, and the bags are a great price at an average of $15-$25. I was also pleased to find a vendor willing to put a Gucci label on the Gucci knockoff purses, though this is a trickier endeavor since these purses did not already have a fake label in place, and so small slits must be cut in the purse for insertion and securing of the label—the risk of this being that the label might not be quite perfectly placed. No matter, though, since I can correct most of these slightly off-center or off-kilter labels at home.

The assembled result of my knockoff shopping spree

All told, I ended up buying nine knockoff bags, one wallet and one watch, and in the process amassed a large, unwieldy shopping bag, but also gathered some interesting observations along the way. For whatever reason, Dolce & Gabbana knockoffs were displayed throughout the shops with seemingly little concern, while Prada, Gucci and other bags were offered with varying levels of secrecy. Does D&G; subscribe to the philosophy that all advertising is good advertising? One shop spirited visitors to a back room in order to browse already labeled bags. This was clearly a tourist trap, because once I picked out a bag, the vendor tried to pretend it was a real Prada being sold illegally with much cloak & dagger drama, and priced it at over three times what I was paying for bags at other shops. It was a nice bag, unique among the shops I went to that day, and so I compromised at a price much higher than what I had paid for each of the rest of the bags—but that was after bargaining the vendor down to half of the originally-quoted $65 dollars. Clearly these folks are hoping that Midwestern suburbanites are going to believe the act and think they're getting a real bag for cheap.

My Favorite— the Pricy Pink Prada

Do yourselves a favor, suburbanites, and if a bag is offered to you over $25 or $30 in Chinatown, be suspicious. And never believe that it's real. You're shopping for fakes, make no mistake. Browsing the back room, I spotted many identical bags with different labels—that's right, the same bag, only on one shelf with a Prada label, on another shelf with a Gucci label. Such practice bothers me none, because I have no pretensions of carrying a real bag, but I find it amusing nonetheless. My favorite of the bags is probably the pink purse I got at the back room place. Perhaps it's just psychological because I paid more for it, and bargained down the price, but I hadn't seen anything else like it that day. Silly me, though, that I end up liking the pink bag so much as it's one of the more difficult colors to coordinate with my wardrobe.

Ping's on Mott

Fully laden down with knockoff bags, we headed down Mott Street to Ping's Seafood Restaurant for dim sum. First were shrimp dumplings and scallop dumplings, each wrapped in a gossamer-like noodle pouch. I'm never a big fan of shrimp, so the scallops were definitely my favored choice. The pork dumplings were also excellent, especially dipped in hot pepper sauce. Sticky rice wrapped up and cooked with pork and savory sauce was a great complement. Further we got some stuffed eggplant which Aunt TC wasn't too fond of, but I found quite tasty. All of it was well-complemented with a pot of dandelion tea. This yummy late lunch buoyed us for the trip home, negotiating the subway with bulky shopping bags, and then back to Metro North and back home to Bronxville, where there are no knockoff handbags for sale, but much culinary adventure to be had, all of which will be detailed in future blogs.