New York

This is one of those Chinatown gems that you can walk past for weeks or months and never enter, only to one day go inside, take a look around, and curse your inattention. The product: jerky. Jerky has always seemed like the perfect substance, the equivalent of meat chewing gum, a bite-sized injection of salty-sweet meatiness at those times when it’s most needed (most notably, when hung-over). But there are problems, the most glaring of which is that jerky, more often than not, is crappy. Either it is not toothsome enough, or it tastes disgusting. At New Beef King, an unknown cut of meat is marinated for hours, then slow-roasted at four different oven temperatures, then cut into strips and grilled. The result is a very soft yet chewy deliciousness that is unrivaled in the world of jerky. The jerky, either pork or beef, comes in strips or in little bite size balls, with a range of flavors from spicy to oyster-flavored. In my experience, they’re all great, and from the thriving business the place gets both from in-store customers and online orders, many would agree with me. Give it a try: you’ll never look at a Slim Jim again.

Photo:  Sho Spaeth