Category Archives: Instagram

Bhanchha Ghar

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Instagram Post 11/7/2017

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If you’re going to enjoy a Nepali 🇳🇵 feast, Jhol Momo would certainly be the ultimate comfort food; as a matter of fact, we were even mo’motivated to do it because of the encroaching cold weather. At Nepali Bhanchha Ghar, 74-06 37th Rd, Jackson Heights, Queens, winner of this year’s #momocrawl 🥟, we tasted a bit of many dishes, specifically:

• Chicken Choila, grilled chicken marinated in a blend of spices.
• Buffalo Sukuti, dry meat, like jerky.
• Achar, a pickled dish, here half fish and half mula (radish).
• Bhuttun, organ meats; tasty indeed.
• Sel Roti, a ring of fried rice flour, traditional in Nepali cuisine; get at least one!
• and last, but certainly never least, Jhol Momo, chicken and pork, each with its own characteristic shape. The steamed dumplings swim in a pool that lies somewhere along the sauce-soup continuum, and the two complement each other perfectly. The word jhol means soup and here it was delicious in its own right.

Tip: When you enter, you’ll see two tiny tables. Don’t be discouraged: go downstairs and you’ll discover a much more capacious dining room. Warmer too! 😉
 
 

Poke Bowl Station

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Instagram Post 11/7/2017

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A great big aloha 🤙 to the new kid on the block, Poké Bowl Station at 237 Flatbush Ave, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn near Barclays Center. Sure, we have plenty of great sushi 🍣 restaurants in Park Slope and Prospect Heights, but poké is its own thing: think of it as Hawaii’s cross between chirashi sushi and ceviche. In addition to almost a dozen signature dishes, they offer infinitely customizable options: choose your base (three kinds of rice or salad or zucchini noodle), proteins (a dozen choices ranging from tuna, salmon, and yellowtail to baby octopus, shrimp and even chicken), plus mix-ins, sauces, toppings and crunch and you’re sure to be thrilled with the results. In addition to the variety, I was impressed with the freshness and quality of the ingredients – everything I tasted was truly delicious.
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They also offer a wide variety of drinks including bubble tea, fruit tea, and yakult (yogurt drink). Tip: they offer all their sauces opposite the main counter in squeeze bottles, so if you’re not sure how you want to roll when you order, you could skip the sauce on your bowl and go rogue instead – try a couple that look interesting and add them yourself. It’s not quite the same of course (the sauce should go directly on the fish), but it’s great if you’re in the mood to experiment.
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Shown here is The Triforce with tuna, salmon and yellowtail plus lots of other goodies. Since I love eel, I asked if they would customize their signature bowl and they happily complied. Mahalo 🙏 for bringing your ’ono grinds to the neighborhood, Poké Bowl Station – I’ll be back soon!
 
 

Japanese Potato Salad

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Instagram Post 11/3/2017

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More of my home cooking from Japan 🇯🇵 by way of Brooklyn 🇺🇸!

Here’s my rendition of Japanese potato salad. (Yes, it’s a thing.) Its name, ポテトサラダ, is pronounced approximately “potato salada”; needless to say, there’s a word for potato in Japanese, じゃがいも, “jagaimo”, but since the dish is rather American, the English name is used more commonly. The texture is key to this dish: the potatoes are partially mashed but there are still abundant chunks. It works because the mashed potatoes meld with and become an integral part of the dressing; the chunks remain to provide occasional bites of straight ahead potato.

My ingredient list cleaves pretty closely to the canonical Japanese version: potato 🥔, carrot 🥕, cucumber 🥒, hardboiled egg 🥚, sweet onion, ham; and the dressing is fairly authentic: mayo (only Kewpie of course!), rice wine vinegar, and neri wakarashi (Japanese mustard paste) but I’ve added a little sweet miso paste as well as a few shakes of ichimi togarashi (dried Japanese red pepper) and sansho (dried Japanese green pepper peel) to kick it up a little, and a sprinkling of shichimi (a seasoning mix of Japanese red pepper, sesame seed, orange peel, yuzu, etc.) and black sesame seeds on top. Simple, but most satisfying.

Of course, the ingredients’ proportions are what distinguish one recipe from another, so I haven’t really revealed any secrets here!

Those are Thai spicy pickled mangoes on the side for flavor and color contrast.
 
 

Dim Sum VIP

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Instagram Post 11/2/2017

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I stumbled upon Dim Sum VIP at 68 Mott St, Manhattan, shortly after their opening and it’s been on my to-eat list ever since. It was fortuitous that I was in the neighborhood recently because almost everything I tasted was worth doing again (something I seldom do because I’m always on the lookout for something new). It’s the kind of format that we New Yorkers may be less accustomed to although it’s commonplace elsewhere: you’re furnished with a list of dim sum and you check off whatever is your heart’s delight at the moment.

A large poster on their window touts Abalone Siu Mai; since I love abalone and since siu mai are often a litmus test of the chef’s skills, I reasoned that the choice would yield a double return on my investment. I was not disappointed. The siu mai were unusually dense and delicious (reminiscent of Joe Ng’s work) and the abalone topping was, if you’ll forgive my mixed metaphor, the icing on the cake.

The synergistic Crispy Shrimp Rice Roll exceeded my expectations as well. Envision shrimp in a crisp fried spring roll wrapper swaddled in a steamed rice roll; the roll was greater than the (dim) sum of its parts.

The Red Oil Wontons were accompanied by steamed greens as a foil (a nice touch) and were excellent, presenting just the right amount of heat; the Chaozhou Fen Guo dumpling was tasty as well.

Note that the prices are a few dollars more than the neighboring dim sum parlors, but definitely worth it.
 
 

New York Mart/Fresh Market

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Instagram Post 10/31/2017

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Never smile at a _____________ ….

CROCODILE! Right! At first glance, I thought perhaps it had something to do with Halloween – you know, like chicken feet in a costume or something? But those would have to be some big honkin’ chickens!
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The sign in New York Mart/Fresh Market at 128 Mott St in Manhattan’s Chinatown says crocodile foot (鳄鱼脚). I have to trust that $6.99 a pound is a good price – I mean, there’s no place to comparison shop, is there?
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And no, I didn’t buy any. I’ve eaten alligator (and no, it does not taste like chicken) but never crocodile (and no, I am not chicken to taste it).
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#alligatorpear #crocagatorpear #thatswhytheyssomean
 
 

Home Cooking – Makizushi

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Instagram Post 10/30/2017

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More of my home cooking, this time from Japan 🇯🇵 by way of Brooklyn 🇺🇸!

An exercise in 🍣 makizushi – sushi rolls. The first photo is a tuna roll with two kinds of tobiko (the green one is enhanced with wasabi) and two kinds of sesame seeds. The rose is crafted from gari (pickled ginger) with cut and shaped shiso leaves on either side.

The second photo shows what happens when I’m left to my own devices: regular and inside-out rolls. Ingredients varied a bit from one roll to the next (because that’s my idea of fun!), but my mise en place (in addition to sushi rice and nori) included cucumber, pickled daikon, avocado, radish sprouts, tamago (sweet omelet), kampyo (dried gourd), denbu (sweet, pink, fluffy fish flakes – so good!), tobiko (flying fish roe), kani (crab stick), eel, tuna, salmon, and yellowtail along with sesame seeds and furikake (the magical Japanese seasoning that when sprinkled on top of anything makes it wonderful).

A visit to Mitsuwa Marketplace, just across the Hudson at 595 River Rd, Edgewater, NJ made shopping a piece of ケーキ!
 
 

Cachapas y Mas

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Instagram Post 10/29/2017

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Smile when you say that! Just as Mexico has its lineup of stuffed snacks like tacos, burritos, quesadillas and so many more, so Venezuela 🇻🇪 lays claim to its own collection of lavishly loaded sandwiches, often based on corn or plantain. Cachapas y Mas at 678 Seneca Ave, Ridgewood, Queens (also at 107 Dyckman St in Manhattan) runs the gamut of styles and fillings, to wit: cachapas, sweet corn pancakes, typically topped with cheese and folded over quesadilla style; arepas, a little smaller, less sweet, made from corn flour and used for a classic Venezuelan sandwich; and tacuchos, Venezuela’s answer to burritos. In the plantain-as-bun department, they offer patacones, pressed green plantain sandwiches; and yoyos, sweet plantain sandwiches. They also offer pepitos (more familiar looking, like a hero/sub/grinder/hoagie depending upon your personal provenance) and other options. Mix and match your fillings, including three kinds of cheese, ham, chicken, sausage, pork, and beef, each in a number of styles and all delicious.

This is a patacon (rhymes with “not alone”: I must be thinking comfort food) with three meats (pernil, chorizo, and carne mechada) plus cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a couple of kinds of sauce. Everything is good, but if this is your first time, I suggest a cachapa or a yoyo with your choice of filling.

In addition to their brick-and-mortar venues, they have a Cachapas on Wheels truck.
 
 

Haat Bazaar

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Instagram Post 10/28/2017

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The medium is the message. I thought it looked rather like an artist’s palette, loaded with an assortment of rich colors poised to caress a canvas. Rather, it was an assortment of rich flavors in the form of bhortas (aka bhartas) poised to impress our palates. Start here to learn about Bangladeshi food because these spicy mustard oil and onion infused mashes are a staple of the cuisine, and are considered by some to be comfort food. They begin with virtually any vegetable (and sometimes dried fish) and are certainly a complement to rice but are comfortable with any dish. Obviously, the flavors vary depending upon the main ingredient – a fish bhorta will taste quite different from one made from dal – but I was intrigued by the subtle variations from one alu (potato) bhorta to the next. Once you know what you’re looking for, it’s not too difficult to identify potato, tomato, dal, eggplant, fish, etc. but the helpful folks behind the steam table at Haat Bazaar, 37-11 73rd St, Jackson Heights, Queens patiently identified all of the dishes they had to offer (see photo 2 for a helicopter view of our feast) – which was necessary for us since there are no menus. Definitely worth another visit.
 
 

Fu Xiang Ju – Conch with Noodle Salad

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Instagram Post 10/27/2017

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The menu at Fu Xiang Ju, 136-80 41st Ave, Flushing, Queens, lists this delicious cold dish as Conch with Noodle Salad, a very popular course at our last group dinner. I get the distinct impression that there’s gochujang, the Korean sweet and spicy red chili paste, at work here. Dongbei’s proximity to Korea and the fact that the menu is in Chinese and Korean (in addition to English) lead me to believe that I might be on the right track.
 
 

Moon Man

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Instagram Post 10/26/2017

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Check out who’s landed at the Queens International Night Market! It’s Moon Man, and they’re absolutely one of the best vendors there. They do amazing sweet Indonesian street snacks in three varieties that can be crowned with over seven different toppings including coconut, chocolate, sesame, peanut, and Java palm sugar. If you’re a mathlete, you can calculate the permutations and combinations on those numbers. If not, then do what I did: get their tasting menu and you can try all three delicious cakes – a combo of Indonesian kue pancong (coconut pancake) with Java palm sugar, kue putu (pandan steamed cake) with black sesame, and steamed cassava cake with sweet coconut paste.

They pop up here and there but this Saturday, October 28, you’ll find them at QINM for this season’s closing night. They’re hoping to situate themselves in a more permanent space, so keep an eye out for them because QINM is only one small step for Moon Man…I’m looking forward to a giant leap into a new uncharted space!

Follow them at hellomoonman.com | facebook.com/HelloMoonMan | instagram.com/HelloMoonMan