Category Archives: Ethnojunkets

Pro Tip: How to Book the Funnest Ethnojunket

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It’s springtime and ethnojunkets are back!

Spring means beautiful weather and rainy days and warm sunbeams and chilly fingertips and hat levitating winds and sweet gentle breezes.

And sometimes all of those on the same day.

So when should you book a food tour? Easy. Try this pro tip to maximize your enjoyment of my ethnojunkets:

Choose a date that you’d like to go. Then, three or four days before that date, open your favorite reliable weather app and see if your target date is predicted to be warm and dry – these are walking tours and we spend a lot of time outdoors! And then contact me and tell me which tour you’re interested in and on which day. If I’m available, you’re in!

Good weather, good food, good times!
 
 

Ethnojunkets FAQ:

 
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 visit and how do I contact you?
A: Click the links below to learn more:

Exploring Eastern European Food in Little Odessa

Ethnic Eats in Elmhurst

Snacking in Flushing – The Best of the Best

The Flavors of Little Levant in Bay Ridge

Q: When is your next ethnojunket to [fill in the blank: Little Odessa, Elmhurst, Flushing, Little Levant, etc.]?
A: Any day you’d like to go! (And yes, of course you can book in advance of that three or four day pro tip.) Click the links above to sign up.

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 on a scheduled tour in the “Now Boarding” section of the ethnojunkets page. Subscribers always get email notifications about these.

Q: Is “funnest” a real word?
A: 💯!
 
 

Ethnojunket: Not Your Ordinary Chinatown Tour!

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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 (hence, “ethno-”) that you’ve never tasted but soon will never be able to live without (hence, “-junkie”).

Manhattan’s Chinatown
Most tours of Manhattan’s Chinatown focus on its history and include a nod to its cuisine. Most cover pretty much the same information and sights. Most are time constrained and relatively crowded. But as the title says, this one is Not Your Ordinary Chinatown Tour!

Like all my ethnojunkets, our focus is on food. We’ll prowl around less touristy, off-the-beaten-path streets that might not be in the guidebooks as well as some areas that will probably come as a surprise to you. Don’t worry though: we’ll definitely check out a few landmarks and squeeze in a little history for good measure. And yes, the Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory is on the itinerary. But at its heart, this food tour is a unique adventure!

Some photos from past visits:
(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Details:
The cost of any tour 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!

Tours usually begin at 1pm and typically run about 3 to 4 hours (depending upon the neighborhood).

Sign up!
Simply send me a note below 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! I’ll email you with details.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.
Name

Please note: While I generally have a pretty good idea of what ingredients go into whatever we’re consuming, I can’t vouch for salt or sugar or gluten or so many other clandestine buzz killers. If you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies, please be mindful of that and take responsibility for them just as you would if you were dining under any other circumstances. (I’m a foodie, not a doctor!) By the same token, if something troublesome happens to you along the way, I can’t take the liability for that any more than if you were just walking along the street or in a shop by yourself. (I’m a writer, not a lawyer!) In other words, when you join one of my ethnojunkets, you are taking complete responsibility for your own welfare and safety.

What I can do is bring you a few hours of entertaining, educational, and delicious fun!

Questions? Feel free to write to me directly at rich[at]ethnojunkie[dot]com.

Ethnojunket: The Flavors of Little Levant in Bay Ridge

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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 (hence, “ethno-”) that you’ve never tasted but soon will never be able to live without (hence, “-junkie”).

The Flavors of Little Levant 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 Greece, Mexico, Poland and more – and our mission is to sample the flavors of all of them! It will be an afternoon of treats and sweets as we make our way through Little Levant: Lebanese manakish, Middle Eastern shawarma and toum, cheesy pide and chocolate baklava from Turkey, spanakopita from Greece, sweets and unique mastic ice cream plus lots more.

Some photos from past visits:
(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Details:
The cost of any tour 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!

Tours usually begin at 1pm and typically run about 3 to 4 hours (depending upon the neighborhood).

Sign up!
Simply send me a note below 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! I’ll email you with details.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.
Name

Please note: While I generally have a pretty good idea of what ingredients go into whatever we’re consuming, I can’t vouch for salt or sugar or gluten or so many other clandestine buzz killers. If you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies, please be mindful of that and take responsibility for them just as you would if you were dining under any other circumstances. (I’m a foodie, not a doctor!) By the same token, if something troublesome happens to you along the way, I can’t take the liability for that any more than if you were just walking along the street or in a shop by yourself. (I’m a writer, not a lawyer!) In other words, when you join one of my ethnojunkets, you are taking complete responsibility for your own welfare and safety.

What I can do is bring you a few hours of entertaining, educational, and delicious fun!

Questions? Feel free to write to me directly at rich[at]ethnojunkie[dot]com.

Ethnojunket: Snacking in Flushing – The Best of the Best

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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 (hence, “ethno-”) that you’ve never tasted but soon will never be able to live without (hence, “-junkie”).

Snacking in Flushing – The Best of the Best
With a focus on Flushing’s thriving food court scene, we’ll choose from a seemingly endless collection of authentic regional delights from all over China: Heilongjiang, Shandong, Henan, Shanghai, Shaanxi, Guangzhou, Hubei, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and Japan and Taiwan as well. We’ll enjoy Chinese crêpes, juicy dumplings, tasty noodle dishes, yummy dim sum, and distinctive snacks from the savory to the sweet. And as if that weren’t enough, we’ll finish with some amazingly rich Chinese influenced American ice cream! If you’re into cooking, we can also check out JMart, a sprawling Asian supermarket. All this within four blocks!

Some photos from past visits:
(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Details:
The cost of any tour 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!

Tours usually begin at 1pm and typically run about 3 to 4 hours (depending upon the neighborhood).

Sign up!
Simply send me a note below 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! I’ll email you with details.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.
Name

Please note: While I generally have a pretty good idea of what ingredients go into whatever we’re consuming, I can’t vouch for salt or sugar or gluten or so many other clandestine buzz killers. If you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies, please be mindful of that and take responsibility for them just as you would if you were dining under any other circumstances. (I’m a foodie, not a doctor!) By the same token, if something troublesome happens to you along the way, I can’t take the liability for that any more than if you were just walking along the street or in a shop by yourself. (I’m a writer, not a lawyer!) In other words, when you join one of my ethnojunkets, you are taking complete responsibility for your own welfare and safety.

What I can do is bring you a few hours of entertaining, educational, and delicious fun!

Questions? Feel free to write to me directly at rich[at]ethnojunkie[dot]com.

Ethnojunket: Exploring Eastern European Food in Little Odessa

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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 (hence, “ethno-”) that you’ve never tasted but soon will never be able to live without (hence, “-junkie”).

Exploring Eastern European Food in Little Odessa
On this ethnojunket, we’ll sample the delights of Eastern European, Central Asian, and Russian cuisine along Brighton Beach Avenue in Brooklyn. We’ll share Georgian cheese bread as well as Turkish and Russian sweets and treats along with amazing dumplings, savory meat pies, authentic ethnic dishes, and so much more.

Some photos from past visits:
(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Details:
The cost of any tour 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!

Tours usually begin at 1pm and typically run about 3 to 4 hours (depending upon the neighborhood).

Sign up!
Simply send me a note below 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! I’ll email you with details.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.
Name

Please note: While I generally have a pretty good idea of what ingredients go into whatever we’re consuming, I can’t vouch for salt or sugar or gluten or so many other clandestine buzz killers. If you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies, please be mindful of that and take responsibility for them just as you would if you were dining under any other circumstances. (I’m a foodie, not a doctor!) By the same token, if something troublesome happens to you along the way, I can’t take the liability for that any more than if you were just walking along the street or in a shop by yourself. (I’m a writer, not a lawyer!) In other words, when you join one of my ethnojunkets, you are taking complete responsibility for your own welfare and safety.

What I can do is bring you a few hours of entertaining, educational, and delicious fun!

Questions? Feel free to write to me directly at rich[at]ethnojunkie[dot]com.

Ethnojunket: Ethnic Eats in Elmhurst

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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 (hence, “ethno-”) that you’ve never tasted but soon will never be able to live without (hence, “-junkie”).

Ethnic Eats in Elmhurst
It is said that Queens is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world. Its Elmhurst neighborhood reflects that characteristic in its own microcosm of Latinx and Asian populations, and on this tour, we’ll zoom in still further for a look at the sheer diversity of its Asian community and their culinary treasures.

On this ethnojunket, we’ll savor goodies from Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Tibet, Nepal, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia and parts of China – surprising snacks that are practically addictive, unique Himalayan dumplings, exotic noodle dishes, sweet yogurt comfort food from South Asia, Taiwanese street food, and lots more! And if you’re into cooking, we can explore a large Pan-Asian supermarket along the way.

Some photos from past visits:

Details:
The cost of any tour 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!

Tours usually begin at 1pm and typically run about 3 to 4 hours (depending upon the neighborhood).

Sign up!
Simply send me a note below 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! I’ll email you with details.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.
Name

Please note: While I generally have a pretty good idea of what ingredients go into whatever we’re consuming, I can’t vouch for salt or sugar or gluten or so many other clandestine buzz killers. If you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies, please be mindful of that and take responsibility for them just as you would if you were dining under any other circumstances. (I’m a foodie, not a doctor!) By the same token, if something troublesome happens to you along the way, I can’t take the liability for that any more than if you were just walking along the street or in a shop by yourself. (I’m a writer, not a lawyer!) In other words, when you join one of my ethnojunkets, you are taking complete responsibility for your own welfare and safety.

What I can do is bring you a few hours of entertaining, educational, and delicious fun!

Questions? Feel free to write to me directly at rich[at]ethnojunkie[dot]com.

Pyzy

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Posted for the sake of completeness, here are two final photos from my Greenpoint Polish explorations back when I was deciding about introducing a Little Poland ethnojunket.

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

These are Pyzy. In Polish, the letter Y sounds like a short I, so the singular, pyza, rhymes with “is a” – which explains why, although tempting, the title of this post isn’t Easy Pyzy.

Now that that’s out of the way, pyzy are boiled Polish dumplings made from a combination of raw and boiled potatoes held together with flour and eggs and commonly stuffed with cheese, mushrooms, or meat (like these). Homespun and heavy, they’re served as a filling main course often with fried onions on the side.


The cake rolls are Rolada (like French roulade) – custardy raspberry above and hazelnut below.

So maybe we didn’t start with easy peasy, but we ended with a piece of cake! 😜
 
 

Lazanki

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(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Almost sounds like “lasagna” but with a cute Polish spin on it – and there may be a connection. From Wikipedia:

“Łazanki arrived in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the mid-16th century when Bona Sforza, Italian wife of King Sigismund I the Old, brought high Italian cuisine to the country. Accordingly, the name łazanki is reminiscent of the Italian lasagna, the name for a type of pasta in the shape of large, flat rectangles. Since łazanki resemble mini versions of lasagna, their Polish name is correspondingly diminutive in form: little lasagna.”

Or so goes the legend. In any event, boiled łazanki noodles are cooked with either fresh cabbage or sauerkraut, mushrooms, onions, pork fat, optionally kielbasa, and topped with sour cream (of course).

Tastes as comforting as it looks. More Polish leftover photos to come. Stay tuned.
 
 

Krokiety

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(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Thought I’d share a few leftovers with you. Not leftover food, but leftover photos – from the time not long ago when I was prowling the streets of Greenpoint, Brooklyn deciding whether I should put together a Little Poland ethnojunket.

First up, here is a peek inside a Krokiet, a Polish croquette. Krokiety are crêpes that are filled, rolled up, breaded and fried. They’re served as a snack or as part of a more expansive meal and can be stuffed with meat (like this one), cabbage, mushrooms, sauerkraut or a combination thereof. If it looks like a breaded blintz, you’re not far off – it’s the breading that distinguishes it from its cousins.

More leftovers to come. Stay tuned.
 
 

Kielbasi!

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We’ve arrived at the final post in the “Should-I-offer-an-ethnojunket-in-Little-Poland” series and I’ve saved the best for last.

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Fortunately, the champion kielbasi purveyors are still going strong, their kielbasi are still the best I’ve ever tasted, and they still have the most bewildering assortment I’ve ever encountered.

Being an OCD type compelled me to do one of my “one of each please” shopping trips in every one of the best stocked venues. What I did not expect was that each shop had a considerable assortment on display that was almost entirely different from that of their nearby competitors!

Among these culinary masterworks, some distinctions are fairly easy to quantify along a sensory continuum: fatty<–>lean, barely smoky<–>double smoked, chunky<–>finely ground, dry<–>moist, and the like. But then you get into specific flavor profiles: wiejska is garlicky with coriander seed, mustard seed, and thyme, kabanosy is flavored with caraway, wiśniowa is smoked over cherry wood so there’s a subtle sweetness to it, myśliwska (hunter’s sausage) is flavored with juniper and slightly spicy (“spicy” is a relative term and these are very tame), bukowiańska is flavored with marjoram and bay leaf…I could go on.

They’re all pre-cooked, ready to eat, and conveniently consumed in chunks (the best way to eat them IMHO) rather than in slices from a 3-inch diameter log. And I’m not even covering varieties like biała (white) which are fresh and require cooking.

So now it’s your turn!

If this series has piqued your interest, let me know if you’re interested in joining me on a Little Poland ethnojunket to taste some of the goodies from this post and those before it: please email me directly at rich[at]ethnojunkie[dot]com.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you!