Category Archives: Restaurants & Food Courts

Mekelburg’s

Posted on by

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.

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

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

Posted on by

Instagram Post 9/30/2019

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

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

Posted on by

Instagram Post 9/29/2019

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

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

Posted on by

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:

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

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

Posted on by

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!)

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

Great Taste Dumpling

Posted on by

Instagram Post 9/14/2019

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

The sign read “Streaky Pork Old Bamboo Shoots Steamed Bun”. Kinda makes ya just wanna drop everything and rush out there and grab some, don’t it? Not me. Kinda made me just wanna drop everything and translate the Chinese characters.

See for yourself:

Here’s what I got:

手工切 = hand cut
五花肉 = pork belly
與筍 = with bamboo shoots
小籠包 = xiao long bao

Well, not quite the xiao long bao soup dumplings most of us associate with those characters, these are steamed buns filled with the aforementioned ingredients and Great Taste Dumpling at 4317 8th Ave in Sunset Park, Brooklyn’s got ’em. $2.75 for 6. And please, don’t ever change that glorious sign!

A quick snack for someone who was just passing through in search of Mid-Autumn Festival Mooncakes. (You did read my detailed “Chinese Mooncakes Demystified” post about that, didn’tcha?)
 
 

Qin Jin Taste

Posted on by

Instagram Post 8/28/2019

Qin Jin Taste (秦晋味道) is the latest addition to the New York Food Court, 133-35 Roosevelt Ave, Flushing, ensconced in stall #26. I went shortly after they opened so they didn’t have many of the dishes I was eager to try (“Next week!”), but they were able to provide their signature item, the Crispy Burger; I opted for the cumin lamb, one of six choices.

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

It struck me a little as fusion cuisine: the deftly seasoned lamb and the perfectly crispy roll clearly declared Shaanxi but the lettuce, tomato and type of mayonnaise delivered a distinctly American accent. Truth be told, it could have use more sauce of any stripe since it was rather dry (I requested an additional dollop); still tasted good though.


Crispy and flaky. A fine example of this style of roll; tasted freshly made.


Cute and authentic. My research indicates that there’s at least one more of these restaurants in China, at Nanshi Jie Station in Suzhou.


I’ll definitely return to explore the extensive menu, but…“next week!”
 
 

Istanbul Bay

Posted on by

Instagram Post 8/25/2019

As I was eating my way through Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge in search of candidates for my Little Levant ethnojunket, I stopped by Istanbul Bay, the Turkish café and restaurant at 8002 5th Avenue.

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

Here’s their version of Karisik Pide; the Turkish word karışık (note the undotted letter I, a giveaway that you’re reading Turkish) means “mixed” and this pide is topped with a mix of Turkish sausage (sucuk, aka sujuk), savory seasoned air-dried cured beef (pastırma, root word bastırmak meaning “press”) and their spin on mozzarella cheese. A generous measure of meat and a nifty boat within a boat presentation too.


The obligatory cheese pull.
 
 

Lan Zhou Ramen

Posted on by

Instagram Post 8/24/2019

Quick note regarding three items from last month’s Elmhurst foray with friends to begin exploring Lan Zhou Ramen’s extensive menu – stall #23 in HK Food Court, 82-02 45th Ave in Queens.

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

In addition to noodz, they do an admirable execution of BBQ skewers: this plate was for the veggie lovers, beautifully blistered green beans and eggplant with a touch of char – not too shabby.


Of course, we followed the mellow slick road to Cumin Lamb Stir Fried Rice Noodle. Something for everyone: noodles and veggies and lamb, oh my.
 
 

BKU Food Hall

Posted on by

Instagram Post 8/23/2019

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

Foodies sometimes argue about how many Chinatowns New York City actually has; some reports make a case for as many as nine. One sure sign that a burgeoning Chinese community has established itself in the neighborhood is the presence of a food court hosting purveyors of a variety of regional Chinese cuisines.

Two such developments under a single ownership have been in the works for months in Brooklyn, one in Bensonhurst (BK Food Court, 2227 86th St) and the other in Homecrest (BKU Food Hall, 1809 Avenue U) where I was reconnoitering the organization’s progress yesterday.


Needless to say, I was delighted to see that headway has been made since my original photo was taken last spring.


A peek inside reveals palpable evolution. I’ll continue to check in; my experience with similar venues is that once the ball gets rolling, things happen fast. Stay tuned: many reports to come!
 

Update 9/26/2019: Still no signs of life. Waiting patiently….
Update 10/27/2019: No progress yet….