Category Archives: Instagram

King Dumplings

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Instagram Post 10/12/2019

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Quick post about newish King Dumplings at 74 Hester St in Manhattan’s Chinatown; quick, because all we had time for was a plate of agreeable fried chive & pork dumplings (featuring one attempting an escape) – 4 for $1.50. According to reports, all dumplings are handmade by the chef of Prosperity Dumpling. The menu includes additional items like fried buns, sesame pancake sandwiches, and soups; frozen dumplings in quantities of 50 are available as well.


Innermost recesses – to give you an idea of the thickness of the skin and quantity of the filling.
 
 

Deepavali Festival

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Instagram Post 10/7/2019

Part of the mission of the Association of Indians in America is to promote the image of India in the US and this past weekend, their 32nd Deepavali Festival in South Street Seaport achieved that goal with traditional entertainment, crafts and, of course, delicious food.

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There were two items that were particularly tempting and I wasn’t disappointed by either. This is dhokla, the delicious snack that hails from Gujarat, India. Soft, delicately spongy, and impossible to stop eating, it’s made from a fermented batter of rice and chana dal (split chickpeas) the proportions of which vary depending upon the type of dhokla. It’s topped with mustard seeds and green chilies and served here with spicy mango shreds and a yellow curry sauce on the side for dipping. Tiptop.


I confess that kulfi may be my favorite ethnic ice cream – sweet, creamy, intensely flavored, slightly chewy. It starts with milk that’s been cooked down for an eon or two, flavors are added, and it’s poured into molds and frozen directly, not churned. This process contributes to kulfi’s dense texture because no air has been blended in. Shown here is malai (cream) flavor but it’s not merely cream; classic malai kulfi is aromatic with cardamom and nuts, sometimes saffron, sometimes rosewater. This one, purchased from a modest orange truck, was small batch crafted employing a proper kulfi mold and one of the best I’ve ever tasted.
 
 

Tarim Uyghur Food

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Instagram Post 10/2/2019

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Breaking News! New Vendor Alert: Stall number 5 at the New World Mall Food Court, 136-20 Roosevelt Ave, Flushing is now home to Tarim Uyghur Food. They appeared about 10 days ago filling the void left by Pho Sushi (I suspect it was that, but I never tried it) which in turn occupied the former digs of Erqal and its distinctive Uyghur ice cream among other authentic dishes.

I’ve written extensively about Uyghur cuisine and I’ll do a comparison with my feast at Nurlan Uyghur Restaurant, also in Flushing (soon, I promise!) but for now, here’s a look at two dishes from Tarim.


Lagman (Handmade Noodles), item 2 on the menu, was a stir-fry (see first photo) of freshly sliced lamb (I witnessed him carving the meat from a huge chunk), sweet red bell pepper, spicy long green pepper, celery and onions.

Lagman (cognate to lo mein) presents as a single interminably long hand-pulled noodle…

…stored in a coil, ready for action. Perfectly textured, dense noodles, the tasty dish had a spicy kick albeit no other side notes.


Diced Fried Noodles, item 8 on the menu. Called Ding-Ding Lagman at Nurlan (ding refers to dicing food into small cubes), the dish is as much about texture as it is about flavor at Tarim. Tiny cubes of lagman were stir-fried with lamb and the same vegetables as above, all cut into matching-sized bits; certainly comfort food (you want to eat it with a big ol’ spoon), but I wish it had a little more oomph in the flavor department.


Some decorative Uyghur bread. I’ll return soon to sample other items on the menu (since I’ve already tried everything at Nurlan! 😉)
 
 

Mekelburg’s

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Instagram Post 10/1/2019

I enjoyed a busman’s holiday recently at Mekelburg’s, the eatery/craft beer/specialty food shop at 293 Grand Ave in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill. Two dear friends chose the restaurant and deliberated over the menu selections; my job was to enjoy the delightful company and conversation.

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Sambal Butter Roasted Oysters was probably the best item we tasted and it was seriously delicious. But what’s a holiday without a you-had-to-be-there story? So….

The only hitch was that somewhere along the route from kitchen to table, a considerable quantity of that tasty butter spilled, engulfing the mountain of rock salt upon which the oysters had been perched, effectively camouflaging it. Of course, I had no idea what lay at the bottom of the pool until I tasted an unfortunate mouthful of what I thought was provided as an accompanying condiment. Shoulda known better. And a regrettable waste of delectable sambal butter to boot. Fortunately, there was still plenty remaining on top of the oysters, all covered with sauce.


Wild Dandelion Greens Salad with white anchovies and parmigiana cheese bathed in a lemony dressing.


Ducka Ducka Banh Mi – a successful cross-cultural combo: Peking duck and duck rillettes, carrots and cucumber with sambal hoisin mayo.


Roasted Bone Marrow with rosemary grapefruit marmalade and crispy toasted slices of French baguette.


Salt Baked Potato with smoked black cod, crème fraîche, and caviar.

Sounds like holiday food to me!
 
 

Old Luo Yang

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Instagram Post 9/30/2019

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Many years ago, when I was investigating every single vendor (🐷🤷‍♂️) in the New World Mall Food Court, 136-20 Roosevelt Ave, Flushing, for my food tours, I was intrigued by the options at stall number 4, Old Luo Yang (Luòyáng is a city in Henan province). The phrase “Processed Noodle” grabbed my attention; seems like it was intended to describe Liang Pi (Cold Skin) Noodles which do indeed involve an elaborate process in their preparation: make a flour and water dough, irrigate it with more water, rinse it, discard the dough reserving the liquid, let it rest overnight to form a precipitate, dispose of the topmost liquid, pour remaining paste onto a tray, steam over boiling water, and slice into noodles. And that, dear reader, is a gross oversimplification.

For all that effort, the resulting noodles don’t have much flavor of their own; it’s more about what you do with them and every vendor/restaurant has a different strategy. Their flagship dish, Old Luo Yang Processed Noodle, arrives on a flat plate with so much (absolutely delicious) sauce, that it invariably spills onto the tray, and spills significantly. Mess notwithstanding, however, I strongly suggest that if it’s your first time here, that’s the one to order.

They have another area of distinction: they add vegetable juice to the recipe, infusing the noodles with color (but not really much additional flavor); adding carrot juice produces an orange noodle, then there’s spinach green, black rice, and purple sweet potato, shown here. The order comes with bean sprouts, slivers of cucumber, and gluten (looks like cubes of bread that soak up sauce like nothing else on the plate) plus (this is the altered part) three containers of sauce. The first time I ordered this, I wasn’t certain about how much of each sauce to use: I tried a bit of each individually, then in combination, and wasn’t really satisfied until I realized that the best approach was to use every drop of all three.

Maybe the inevitable overflow was the reason behind the division, maybe it was to account for varying tastes, but I found that for best results, combine everything together – including every dram of all three sauces – mix well, make a mess, and enjoy.
 
 

The Point

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Instagram Post 9/29/2019

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I have been remiss of late in posting about West African cuisine, so here’s one that’s been waiting patiently for a few months. My dining buddy turned me on to this humble venue, The Point, in the Bronx; we only had time for a quick bite, food crawls being what they are, but the bite was a good one.

Ampesi, a Ghanaian specialty, typically consists of some form of boiled starchy vegetable like yam, plantain, cassava, or cocoyam alongside a rich stew/sauce. My best guess as to the starch we received was boiled yam although the photo on the wall showed others (should we have inquired?); the sauce, I suspect, was based on kontomire, cocoyam leaves, the traditional partner, but IIRC, she said spinach. We requested goat and mackerel as sauce enrichments – tasty stuff.

The Point is located at 2037 Webster Ave in the Bronx.
 
 

Iraqi House Restaurant

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Instagram Post 9/28/2019

Iraqi House Restaurant is, to my knowledge, the only Iraqi restaurant in NYC. Its signage was in place long before it opened and since it’s located at 7215 3rd Ave in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge, a neighborhood where I do food tours, I’d visit the site frequently in eager anticipation of signs of life. We ventured in shortly after its debut so not everything that appeared on the menu was also in the kitchen, but what we did try was tasty. In no special order:

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Qoozi Lamb (also available with chicken). One of Iraq’s national dishes, it consists of extremely slow cooked (even the bones were tender!) expertly seasoned lamb (primarily succulent rib meat) with raisins, peas, and almonds (in theory at least: no almonds that day, but again, we were among the first to enlist) over savory basmati rice and browned vermicelli noodles. The totality was infused with a rich, fatty mouthfeel that was sublime.


Makhlama, usually found on a breakfast menu, is a mélange of seasoned ground lamb, scrambled eggs, and sautéed onions; in Iraq, the dish is sometimes found deconstructed, with soft-baked eggs riding on top rather than incorporated into the mix – either way, it’s served over rice. Note that the flavor profile of this dish and the qoozi are different so ordering both isn’t as redundant as you might suspect.


I think these two appetizers shared the same mildly spicy ground meat filling but the similarity ended there. The torpedo shaped Kubba is deep fried with a rice dough crust, crispy (not crunchy) outside, soft inside. The word, like the more familiar word kibbeh (the Middle Eastern treat) and quipe (its Latin American counterpart), comes from the Arabic kubbah meaning ball (looks more like an American football to me); they all share that classic shape. Shown below is crunchy Burraq (think burek), the Iraqi answer to the spring roll.


The inside scoop.
 
 

Casa Nova Grill

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Instagram Post 9/27/2019

Part two of our visit to the Brazilian Day Festival in Newark, New Jersey’s Portuguese/Brazilian Ironbound district. If you’re looking for churrascaria (a restaurant that specializes in Brazilian style grilled/barbecued meat – a paleo dieter’s dream, BTW) that offers rodízio (where waiters bring an assortment of meats impaled on formidable skewers directly to your table), then the Ironbound is the place to go. I think. I hesitate because since the area is home to numerous instances of such eateries, all of which have received similar reviews, how does one choose from among the lot?

Ultimately, that day’s decision was informed by the location of Casa Nova Grill at 264 Ferry St, one of the sponsors of the event, situated directly across the street from the festival grounds. Not the best churrascaria I’ve ever experienced, but far from the worst. In addition to a reasonable assortment of meats, the obligatory “salad bar” included some Brazilian favorites like feijoada (a classic bean, pork, and beef stew) and pamonha (corn pudding), seafood, chicken, and fruit salads plus an array of vegetable sides. (You know the drill, right? Don’t fill up on these!)

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The emblematic photo of churrascaria in action is a skewer of picanha, aka sirloin cap, a premium cut and the essence of beefiness.

Meaty, savory pork ribs.


Tender beef short ribs.


A familiar ending to the experience: grilled pineapple, cinnamon encrusted,…


…carved, plated, rum soaked, and ignited for our viewing pleasure.

If anyone has a recommendation for rodízio in the Ironbound, please comment. I’m keen to return soon!
 
 

Brazilian Day Festival – 2019

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Instagram Post 9/22/2019

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Two posts covering the same busy day pigging out in Newark, New Jersey’s Portuguese/Brazilian Ironbound district. Today’s segment consists of scenes (food scenes, of course) from the Brazilian Day Festival that took place on September 7th and 8th near the area around Ferry and Niagara Streets, just a stone’s throw (a football’s kick?) from the flagship location of the legendary Seabra’s market (which deserves a post of its own).


Most of these eight images are easily identifiable but the seventh (above) is worth singling out because of the dulce de leche gracing the tops of a few of the pasteis de nata, Portuguese egg custard tarts that were calling my name. Unfortunately, I was schlepping countless pounds of Portuguese cheeses, linguiça, chouriço, and morcela that I picked up at Seabra’s (see, I told you it merits its own post) so I wasn’t able to go back for them. The very definition of regret.


The subject of the final photo might be unfamiliar to some of you. They’re coxinhas (pronounced ko-SHEEN-ya), deep fried chicken and cream cheese croquettes, a popular street food in Brazil (and happily in Brazilian neighborhoods around these parts), shaped a bit like a chicken drumstick; the literal meaning of coxinha is “little thigh”. If you see these delicious snacks anywhere that offers Brazilian food, get one. (Actually, better get a few.)

Stay tuned for part two!
 
 

Pata Market – Marinated Pork

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Instagram Post 9/21/2019

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Just wanted to make you aware of some amazing Marinated Pork sold by the equally amazing Pata Market, 81-16 Broadway, Elmhurst. I’ve written about Pata before; it’s a mini market featuring shelf stable, frozen, and refrigerated Thai snacks and ingredients, but it’s also a mini-café of sorts – very mini, actually, with a just few stools in front of a window-ledge table, a perfect photo-op stage for folks on my Elmhurst ethnojunket.

It’s the prepared food that blows me away every time though: authentic, incredibly delicious, and able to stand up to the cookery from the profusion of excellent Thai restaurants surrounding it. This marinated pork (sourced from UThai Cookhouse in Rego Park) is bursting with Thai flavor, soft and tender, and the perfect snack for meat lovers.

More to come from Pata Market. As always.