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Picked up these pan-fried pork and crabmeat & pork buns (sheng jian bao, 生煎包) from Old Street Pan Fried Dumpling (the awning reads 老 街 生 煎), 135-45 Roosevelt Ave, Queens as I was exploring the neighborhood for my Flushing ethnojunket.
A perfect snack.
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You can call ’em pan-fried dumplings or you can call ’em potstickers or you can call ’em jiaozi or you can call ’em gyoza – just as long as you call for an order of #1 Signature Pork with Yellow Chive from Sanmiwago, the Taiwanese dumpling house ensconced in booth 3 at Mott Street Eatery, 96 Mott Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Eight to an order, they’re properly crispy on one side, tender and yielding on the other, thin-skinned and plentifully stuffed with a perfectly seasoned filling.
Obviously, I found them to be top notch and reason enough to return and work my way through the other five varieties; all six are available in either fried or boiled versions. My understanding is that the owner hails from Taiwan and has been serving these dumplings there since 1993 – and now we’re fortunate enough to get a taste of the real deal.
While I was there, I also picked up an order of Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken. Because popcorn chicken.
And yes, of course, these dumplings will be a feature on my Manhattan Chinatown ethnojunket resuming soon!
(You can read about my ethnojunkets and join in the fun here!)
The story began here:
Every August, as a routinely flushed, overheated child, I would join in chorus with my perspiring cohorts, boisterously importuning, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!” Little did I realize that rather than conjuring dessert, I was conjugating it and probably laying the groundwork for a lifetime of fascination with foreign languages and world food.
We lived in close proximity to one of the best dairies in town; it was known for its wide assortment of locally produced natural flavors, certainly sufficient in number and variety to satisfy any palate. Perhaps my obsession with offbeat ice cream flavors is rooted in my frustration with my father’s return home from work, invariably bearing the same kind of ice cream as the last time, Neapolitan. Neapolitan, again. My pleas to try a different flavor – just once? please? – consistently fell on deaf ears. “Neapolitan is chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. That’s three flavors right there. If you don’t want it, don’t eat it.” Some kids’ idea of rebellion involved smoking behind the garage; mine was to tuck into a bowl of Rum Raisin….
There’s lots more to the story, of course. Click here to get the full scoop! 🍨
Sampling various neighborhood snacks along the way in service of my Flavors of Little Levant and Little Yemen food tour in Bay Ridge; this time it’s Yemeni House Restaurant & Bakery, 7204 5th Avenue, Brooklyn.
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The menu describes this as Sahawiq Sauce with Cheese. Sahawiq (aka skhug or zhug in Israel and elsewhere) is a Yemeni classic; it’s a hot sauce made from blended hot green chili peppers, garlic, fresh green herbs (like cilantro and/or mint) spices (like cumin, coriander, cardamom, caraway and others), olive oil, lemon juice, and occasionally tomatoes – but recipes vary widely. Here, it’s combined with cheese to create a blisteringly spicy sauce and served with bread.
More neighborhood taste tests to come. Stay tuned.
(You can read about my ethnojunkets and join in the fun here!)
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Here’s something sweet to celebrate Pride Day: a rainbow bagel with mixed berry cream cheese and local (and by “local” I mean from a garden three blocks from my apartment) blackberries, pink champagne currants, and strawberries.
Happy Pride!
I have to admit that it was a real treat to revisit my old haunts as part of revitalizing my ethnojunket, The Flavors of Little Levant and Little Yemen in Bay Ridge (read about my ethnojunkets here); the other part, of course, was tasting the goodies I had been missing during COVID isolation for the past many months.
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These dense, rich semolina squares came from Paradise Sweets, 6739 5th Ave, Brooklyn. The nomenclature can get a bit sticky (not unlike the orange blossom/rose-water sugar-syrupy Middle Eastern treats themselves): the pistachio nut laden delicacy perched on top was identified to me as Basbousa, the two supporting players as Harissa. The harissa dressed with an almond is the basic version, the other is shot through with crunchy, flavorful fenugreek seeds.
A limited amount of interweb research (hey, you try typing with sticky fingers and see how far you get) suggested that basbousa and harissa refer to the same dessert, the choice of noun reflecting where in the world you happen to be. So far, so good. But it seems that they’re also called namoura and revani. And then, naturally, there are the English orthographic variations (haresa, hareeseh, hareesa, harisah, ad infinitum – and those are just for harissa) and a few in Arabic as well.
Wikipedia teaches us: “Basbousa is the dessert’s Egyptian name and it is called the same in North Africa. It is often called ‘hareesa’ in the Levant, and also the Egyptian city of Alexandria, though in other parts of Egypt hareesa is a different type of dessert. Also note that ‘harissa’ in North Africa is a spicy red sauce.”
And as if that last bit weren’t enough, we should also take note of the dish harissa (aka jareesh), a porridge made from boiled cracked wheat, which itself is another name for the meatier halissa, halim or haleem, a fixture in Central Asian cuisine around Navruz (aka Nowruz elsewhere) which I wrote about here.
Right. Not confusing at all.
But what’s in a name? That which we call rose water by any other name would taste as sweet!
The Flavors of Little Levant and Little Yemen
I resumed Exploring Eastern European Food in Little Odessa about a month ago, Ethnic Eats in Elmhurst and Snacking in Flushing – The Best of the Best more recently – and now Bay Ridge is ready to go!
Q: What’s an ethnojunket anyway?
A: An ethnojunket is a food-focused walking tour through one of New York City’s many ethnic enclaves; my mission is to introduce you to some delicious, accessible, international treats that you’ve never tasted but soon will never be able to live without.
Q: Which neighborhoods do you cover?
A: My most popular tours are described on the ethnojunkets page but there are always new ones in the works.
Q: When is your next ethnojunket to [fill in the blank: Flushing, Elmhurst, Little Odessa, Little Levant, etc.]?
A: Any day you’d like to go! Simply send me a note in the “Leave a Reply” section below or write to me directly at rich[at]ethnojunkie[dot]com and tell me when you’d like to experience a food adventure and which ethnojunket you’re interested in – I’ll bet we can find a mutually convenient day! (Pro Tip: Check the weather in advance for the day you’re interested in to facilitate making your choice; we spend a lot of time outdoors!)
Q: I’ve seen some tours that are scheduled in advance for particular dates. Do you do that?
A: Yes, in a way. When someone books a tour (unless it’s a private tour) it’s always fun to add a few more adventurous eaters to the group – not to mention the fact that we get the opportunity to taste more dishes when we have more people (although I do like to keep the group size small). You can see if there are any openings available in the “Now Boarding” section of the ethnojunkets page. Subscribers always get email notifications about these.
Q: What will we be eating in Bay Ridge?
Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge is home to so many Middle Eastern restaurants and bakeries that it should have earned the moniker “Little Levant” long ago; the influx of Lebanese, Yemeni, and other Middle Eastern and Arab Americans makes it the ideal neighborhood for an ethnic food tour. (Did you know that Bay Ridge and Beirut are cognates? Just kidding.)
But there’s a lot more to it than that: the locale was formerly home to a thriving Norwegian community and now welcomes shops and markets representing Mexico, Poland and more – and our mission is to sample the flavors of all of them! It will be an entertaining, educational, and delicious tour during which we’ll enjoy Middle Eastern, Greek, Turkish, Polish, Scandinavian, and Mexican fare.
Here are just a few of the delicacies we usually enjoy on this ethnojunket. (Not that I’m trying to tempt you to sign up! 😉)
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I hope you’ll sign up and join us! The cost is $85 per person (cash only, please) and includes a veritable cornucopia of food so bring your appetite: you won’t leave hungry, and you will leave happy!
For more information and to sign up, send me a note in the “Leave a Reply” section at the bottom of this page or write to me directly at rich[at]ethnojunkie[dot]com and I’ll email you with details.
I’m looking forward to introducing you to one of my favorite neighborhoods!
I just realized that I haven’t posted any dumpling pix in quite a while, so here’s some research from my Snacking in Flushing – The Best of the Best ethnojunket: takeout from Chinese-Korean Dumplings & Noodles, Booth 30, in Flushing’s stalwart New World Mall on 136-20 Roosevelt Ave.
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Luscious lamb dumplings, because who doesn’t love dumplings?
The inner workings.
So many great vendors there and we’ll go to a number of them. Curious about which ones we actually visit? Take the tour and find out! (Hint: The name of this ethnojunket says it all! 😉)
To learn more about my food tours, please check out my Ethnojunkets page and sign up to join in the fun!
Prowling around Manhattan’s Chinatown, I spotted a display of roasted/BBQ meats hanging in the window of Hay Hay Roasted at 81 Mott Street, the space formerly occupied by Hoy Wong. The collective term for these favorites is siu mei (燒味), not to be confused with the popular dim sum dumpling, shu mai (燒賣). Since I had never sampled their wares (thanks, COVID) I was compelled to rectify the situation. The results:
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Whole Duck. I always ask for it not to be cut into pieces; in addition to cobbling together some impressive homemade faux Peking Duck buns (you can read my Faking Peking Duck story here), the carcass provides a base for an incredible duck soup.
Roasted Crispy Skin Pig. Sweet, succulent meat lounging under a blanket of crispy skin. What more can anyone ask for?
Honey Roasted Pork. Shoulda bought more.
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Looking through my photos for a sweet way to celebrate Pride Month and I found this – from a post about some great food from Dek Sen, the Isaan Thai restaurant in Elmhurst. (Where I just happen to do an ethnojunket! 😉)
More Pride posts to come during the month. Stay tuned….