8 Mott Street

The Chinatown Arcade is one of the best hidden spot. It beats nasty frat-boy places like XS and other Times Square based video arcades. It’s a dark L-shaped space with oldskool games like Galaga and Golden Ax, and new physical games like Dance, Dance Revolution. Anytime you go, you can pretty much see people competing with each other on the dance pods. I love to see skinny Asian boys dancing to ‘Like a Virgin’ set on a pop-techno track. ‘You are Cool!’ ‘You are great!’

On top of it all, this is used to be the old Chinatown Museum where you can feed a chicken in a cage and “depending on her mood may or may not play tic-tac-toe” (that’s what the sign above the cage would say).

Unfortunately the chicken isn’t there anymore. The only vestige of any Tic-Tac-To-ing chickens is a picture hanging above the cashier window.