Christmas bustles like few other days in Chinatown. With restaurants closed elsewhere, it’s almost become a cliché: we Chinese sitting shoulder to shoulder with our Jewish brethren, shoveling lo mein into our maws. 

Several years ago, perhaps out of irony to score Instagram points, I thought it’d be funny if my Chinese family ate at a Jewish deli on Christmas Day. But the more I pondered the idea, the more it held merit. For one, I live in Wilmette, and unlike Chinatown, at least a half-hour drive down the Kennedy, Kaufman’s in Skokie is only two miles away. 

More importantly, the Venn diagram of our culinary cultures overlaps. Matzo balls are basically dumplings in chicken broth. Gefilte fish and Chinese fish balls are first cousins. And we both love fatty roast meats: char siu for the Chinese, corned beef deckle for the Jews. 

So it’s become a Christmas tradition: My son wakes up too early to open presents, we spin “Jingle Bell Rock” on repeat, then we head to Kaufman’s to pick up the finest sandwich on the North Shore, the New York Special — fatty corned beef, chopped chicken liver, onions, and horseradish on rye. After all the business our Jewish friends have brought to our people, it’s the least this Chinese gentile can do.