Fierce Competition and Lychee Martinis at an Underground Mahjong Club

The equipment: While some Chinese Americans are lucky enough to play with vintage resin mahjong sets inherited from their parents (which are actually similar to versions you can find on Amazon), Wong and Janssens had to get creative, given the number of tiles required. They borrowed sets from friends and family; Wong, asking his parents to lend him theirs, discovered an oversize set his grandparents owned decades earlier in Hong Kong (but they didn’t send it from San Diego). The co-hosts also bought new sets from Walmart and Yellow Mountain Imports: glittery champagne versions and emerald ones that resemble pandan jellies. Slightly controversial to the purists were the American sets, which have numerals printed on tiles featuring Chinese characters, so non-Chinese speakers don’t have to guess, for instance, whether a character means five or six.

The architectural touch: Wong says that although some mahjong players forgo them, pushers — the ruler-like sticks used not just to organize the tiles into straight lines but also to count them — are essential. Depending on the style of mahjong, the pushers are the length of 13 or 16 tiles lined up side by side; because preferences differ, the implements often need to be purchased separately. Instead, some employees at Food New York crafted their own out of balsa wood, the lightweight material used for design maquettes. “We make a lot of models in the office,” Wong says, “so that was easy.”

Video: Director of photography: Timothy Mulcare. Editor: Luke Northrop. Music: Andrew Fox