Category Archives: Instagram

Little House Cafe – Nasi Lemak

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Instagram Post 8/7/2018

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Nasi Lemak: coconut rice with dried anchovies, peanuts, cucumber, onion, sambal and a hard boiled egg; they all manage to squeeze into this Little House snack.

It’s a Malaysian standard and Little House Café, 90-19 Corona Ave in Elmhurst, Queens does it well. Once again, this treat was available at the grab-n-go prepared food area near the register, but when you arrive, don’t hesitate to sit down, have a look at the menu and order something more substantial. If your experience is like mine, whatever you choose will be great.
 
 

Fusilli alla Canapa Bio

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Instagram Post 8/6/2018

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Dear friends returned from a trip to Italy bearing this gift: Fusilli alla Canapa Bio. Canapa? My Italian may be a little rusty but I was pretty sure canapa means cannabis. My thoughts immediately went to making a big pot of “pot pasta”, perhaps even developing a recipe called Pollo alla Canapa – you know, pot in every chicken – until I read the label a little more closely. This was organic hemp fusilli – 20% hemp seed flour, 80% organic durum wheat semolina. It tasted very much like whole wheat high fiber pasta – the only thing “high” about it. Not sure if the wheat was stone ground. And in case you’re curious, it did not cause the munchies.

Bummer.
 
 

Di Fara Pizza – Williamsburg

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Instagram Post 8/5/2018

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So you like Di Fara Pizza out in Midwood, Brooklyn, but you don’t want to stand on line waiting for your slice? Then head out to their satellite venue in North 3rd Street Market at 103 North 3rd St (obvs) between Berry St and Wythe Ave in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. No waiting the time that I was there. And if you don’t live in Williamsburg, go soon while there’s still an L train you can catch. 😒
 
 

Pata Market – Part 2

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Instagram Post 8/4/2018

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The departure of Sugar Club, the beloved Thai snack bar and prepared food market in Elmhurst, Queens left a void that is currently being half filled (because the space was subdivided – the other half is a tea shop) by Pata Market at 81-16 Broadway. I was pleased to find a considerable assortment of grab-n-go snacks, both sweet and savory. I’ve written about the sweets – now for some savory items.

Today’s post covers their Kanom Jeen Nam Ya Paa, noodles with spicy fish curry. Kanom Jeen are thin, fresh rice noodles, an integral part of Thai cuisine; Nam Ya Paa refers to the spicy jungle curry (heavy on the spice with no mitigating coconut milk) soup. The curry, replete with chunks of fish, tiny fish balls and chicken feet is thickened with pork blood and seasoned fearlessly; the noodles, cabbage, bean sprouts, pickled vegetables, and bitter melon are packaged separately for à la minute addition. Definitely good eats! More savories from Pata Market to come.

PS: Do you have any idea how much restraint it took to not plop a fish ball into the chicken’s foot for this photo? 😂
 
 

Barano

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Instagram Post 8/3/2018

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I believe we achieved our goal of crafting just the right celebratory meal as we cherry-picked our way through the maze of menu categories at Barano, 26 Broadway in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In addition to our whimsical sfizi, Arancini – crispy rice balls with peas, mushrooms, mozzarella and a lemon sauce; and our little plate piattini, Octopus with farro, mint, pesto, celery, pickled radish and pine nuts; we enjoyed…

[1] Stinging Nettle Tortelloni with rock shrimp and artichoke, grilled asparagus and burnt orange hazelnut butter on the side from the Primi category
[2] Risotto with morels, ramps and foie gras from the Speciale group
[3] Prime Rib Cap Braciole with raisins, pine nuts, polenta, broccoli rabe and parmigiana, also from the Speciale category
[4] Wild Ramp Pizza with mozzarella, ricotta, ramps and EVOO, from the Pizza category, natch
[5] Torta Caprese, a dark chocolate almond tart with Calabrian Anglaise for dessert

And a splendid time was had by all!
 
 

Awang Kitchen – Part 1

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Instagram Post 8/2/2018

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Indonesian cuisine is one of my favorites and among all the Indonesian restaurants clustered together in Elmhurst, Queens, I’ve found that Awang Kitchen never fails to delight. Owner/Chef Awang, a native of Jakarta, opened his restaurant at 84-05 Queens Boulevard a little over a year ago and continues to tinker with and improve upon his already wonderful menu; that menu is fine, but the ever-changing Specials Board is the way to go here. Dishes we enjoyed included…

[1] Cumi Goreng with sauce Telur Asin. Fried squid with salty egg sauce; a favorite among our group.

[2] Gudeg Komplit. Gudeg is unripe jackfruit stewed in coconut milk sweetened with palm sugar. Komplit very loosely translates as “with all the fixin’s”….

[3] The aforementioned fixin’s: Cow Skin and Tofu.

[4] Sate Kerang. Sate is seasoned (sometimes marinated) delicious bits, sometimes meat, sometimes not, skewered and grilled; in this case, it’s clam (kerang) with white cubes of lontong (pressed rice) on the side.

More to come….
 
 

Hong Kong Taste

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When I write about restaurants on Instagram, they’re usually brief takes accompanied by a photo or two. (You can see my feed right here on ethnojunkie.com, updated almost daily, by selecting the “Instagram” category from my home page – no signup required.) But because of Instagram’s character count limitations, it’s often necessary to break up a review into several parts. This one originally appeared as four posts, published in June, July, and August, 2018 and January 2020.

Hong Kong Taste, 47-21 90th Street at the corner of Corona Ave in Elmhurst, Queens, brings a bright, airy, youthful feel to cha chaan teng (tea restaurant) dining. There are three things I particularly love about this place. First, the vast and incredibly well organized menu of delicious, authentic Hong Kong specialties featuring everything from congee to dumplings to fried popcorn chicken along with an abundance of soups and rice and noodle dishes, not to mention milk teas and the like.

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Second, and perhaps their claim to fame, is their Cart Noodles 🍜. It’s a mix and match bonanza where you get to choose your noodle from among nine styles (thin, thick, wheat, rice, egg, etc.) and then top it off with your choice of 26 add-ons including curry fish ball, chicken wing, pork hock, fried wonton, radish, fried egg and lots more. Here’s a bowl loaded with Hong Kong style thick noodles plus beef tendon ball, beef brisket, radish, and beef omasum (aka book tripe).


Which brings me to my third favorite aspect of Hong Kong Taste. Every table is provided with a sea of condiments, of course, but two are not to be missed: their homemade curry sauce and garlic sauce. These were truly remarkable. And sure enough, when I looked closely at their menu later that day, I saw that they sell them by the quart to take home.


Pan Fried Dried Shrimp Cheong Fun – I decided to try three of their rice roll varieties. These made the cut.


Cheong Fun with Peanut and Sweet Sauce – Just what it says, peanutty and sweet, perhaps a little too sweet, but to each their own.


This is Dai Pai Dong Style Cheong Fun, my favorite of the three, impossibly thick, chewy rolled rice noodles – a plateful of comforting satisfaction. (The egg makes all the difference.)


Fried Squid – Whole baby squid, a tiny bit spicy. One of my favorites here.


Another Cart Noodle Soup: The obligatory noodle lift shot. There are scores of combinations of noodles and add-ons. (And no, I haven’t done the math – too busy slurping. 😉)


The equally obligatory helicopter shot featuring their Taiwanese Style Popcorn Chicken (the spicy seasoning is sprinkled on the top, so mix ’em up a little) and curry fish balls – more chewy goodness.


Closer view of the popcorn chicken.


Tomato Fried Eggs with Pork Chop was on the specials board on another occasion. The pork chop was good, the tomato/eggs (a classic Chinese dish) even better. I kicked up the rice with a little of their amazing housemade curry and garlic sauces and rounded out the meal with their delicious Hong Kong style milk tea.
 
 

Barbados Festival Day

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Instagram Post 7/31/2018

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Barbados Festival Day is an annual event that occurs in mid-July at Seaview Park in Canarsie, Brooklyn. Dozens of vendors, each with their own recipes for Bajan home cooking, lined the Canarsie Cricket Grounds leading to an almost overwhelming number of decisions – but “almost” is the operative word since our appetites prevailed and we sampled more than our fill. If you go next year (and you should), expect to find curry goat, curry chicken, roti, escovitch fish, souse (pickled pork), cassava pone, conkies (delicious snacks made from cornmeal and steamed in a banana leaf), conch fritters, island drinks like mauby and sorrel and so much more, plus specialties like…

[1] Cornmeal Cou Cou, arguably the national dish of Barbados and similar to polenta, topped here with dolphinfish (actually mahi-mahi and unrelated to dolphin).

[2] The breadfruit Cou Cou with saltfish (preserved cod) was even better.

[3] BBQ Pig Tail

[4] Sea Egg Rice (rice with sea urchin)
 
 

Little House Cafe – Savory Taro Cake

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Instagram Post 7/29/2018

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Unlike their sweet layered dessert taro cake that I’ve written about here, this kind of savory steamed taro cake is more akin to the variety you might request at Chinese dim sum. Grabbed from the grab-n-go prepared food area near the register at Little House Café, 90-19 Corona Ave in Elmhurst, Queens, having gone home, I fried it lightly to heat it through. So easy and so good. Little House Café is an Asian fusion counter service venue with a few tables and remarkably delicious food. I’ve said it before: these folks definitely have their own spin on Malaysian food (even if this one is relatively Chinese) – and I like it!
 
 

Fubuki Manju

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Instagram Post 7/28/2018

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Keeping it short and sweet for this post with a Japanese Fubuki Manju (wheat cake) from Simply Bakery at 70 Bayard St in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Fubuki means snowstorm in Japanese and indeed the thin cakey white coating does give the appearance of a snowball but it’s the chunky sweet red bean paste within that provides the dominant flavor of this confection; it’s unlike mochi where the outer coating is a lot thicker and made from glutinous rice.