Category Archives: Restaurants & Food Courts

Shaanxi Tasty Food

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Instagram Post 11/27/2018

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Finally getting around to posting about opening day (or so) at Super HK Food Court, 37-11 Main St, Flushing, in the basement of Super HK Supermarket, part of the Good Fortune Supermarket chain. So now the Big Three are the Big Four (at least until such time as things change again) and I’m eagerly anticipating eating my way through each stall in this brightly lit foodie fun house. My dining buddy and I hit Shaanxi Tasty Food, Stall 27, and got a pair of dishes which I referred to alternately as The Agony and the Ecstasy and the Zenith and the Nadir.

Starting with Oil Spill Noodle (B1), aka Oil Splashed Noodle: Incredible! If you crave ultra long, extra thick, super chewy, hand pulled noodles, this dish is for you (and me); a spicy, gingery sauce graced the noodz with a few gratuitous veggies like baby bok choy and beansprouts tossed in. Even though there’s so much to explore in the new digs, I’ll snag another one of these next time I go – it was that good.

And then there was the Spicy Potato Chip Burger (A4) that featured a few potato slices boiled al dente (as they should be), lettuce, a tiny bit of bean curd skin, lettuce, a presumably freshly made bun, and lots and lots of lettuce. Did I mention lettuce? It just didn’t hang together, either physically or culinarily; I don’t know what they were thinking.

So go for the Alpha, skip the Omega, and stay tuned for the next report.
 
 

Cafe At Your Mother-in-Law

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Instagram Post 11/12/2018

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It may come as a surprise to some that North Korea and Russia share a border: 11 land miles of “terrestrial border” and 12 nautical miles of “maritime border”, and during the Japanese occupation in the 1920s–30s, some Koreans escaped to Russia via this route. Subsequently, Stalin moved all Koreans in Russia to Central Asia, mostly Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan; they self-identified as Koryo-Saram and their fusion-by-necessity cuisine is the focus of this post. You may have tasted some version of the spicy shredded carrot salad (morkovcha) offered by most Uzbek restaurants but it’s khe that I’ve come to crow about and Café At Your Mother-in-Law, 3071 Brighton 4th St just off Brighton Beach Ave in Brooklyn, does a remarkable job with it. Meaty chunks of raw fish marinated in vinegar, onions and Korean red chili are the main ingredients (recipes vary) in this delectable dish; [2] a cooked beef version is also available with slightly different seasonings but equally delicious. [3] Pegodya, a steamed bun stuffed with cabbage and meat that comes with a special house sauce, makes a good accompaniment. Khe is the reason I take folks to this restaurant on my Little Odessa ethnojunkets and I’m pleased to report that it’s always a hit.

I’m also pleased to report, speaking of ethnojunkets, that now you can book a food tour with me at your convenience without waiting for the next one to be announced. During colder weather and the holiday season, I tend to do fewer scheduled ethnojunkets, but that doesn’t mean that I stop doing them! Simply click here to find out how!
 
 

Corner 28

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Instagram Post 11/11/2018

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Pretty good, pretty reliable, and pretty quick (if you get there at the right time) dim sum from Corner 28, 135-24 40th Rd, Flushing because I was hungry, harried, and in a hurry. These Pan Fried Pork Buns, Jiao Zi, Fish Balls, and Bean Curd Skin Rolls stuffed with shrimp, pork, bamboo shoots, and water chestnuts hit the spot. (Love the way the meat juices permeate the bun!)
 
 

Luo Zhuang Yuan

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Instagram Post 11/9/2018

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As a habitual denizen of the Flushing food court scene, I am forever bringing hungry folks along on ethnojunkets to my favorite stalls. The only downside of this practice is that I invariably order the same reliable dishes so that they can sample the best of the best, but I never urge them to try something I’ve never experienced. I found myself flying solo the other day so I took advantage of the situation. Luo Zhuang Yuan is pretty much the first stall on the left (#26) as you enter the New York Food Court at 133-35 Roosevelt Ave and one of their specialties is Snail Rice Noodle. Of the eight variations they offered, I selected pork, very spicy.

The thin noodles were accompanied by roast pig, green bok choy, peanuts and tofu skin, all very familiar of course, in a broth for which I was completely unprepared. I like snails and I anticipated this tasting like, well, snails. Luosifen (螺蛳粉), a specialty of Liuzhou in Southern China, is all about the soup made from river snails and aromatics and it’s one of those love it or hate it foul-smelling flavors that affect people the same way that durian, stinky tofu, limburger, and couldn’t-these-have-been-cleaned-a-little-better intestines have a reputation for. Now I enjoy many, shall we say, “aromatic” foods and perhaps the fact that I wasn’t expecting quite this level of malodorousness brought me up short. Strangely, the questionable charm of the broth seemed only to intensify as I worked my way through the bowl.

Needless to say, I went home and hit the interwebs in search of more info. I learned that luosifen almost never contains snail meat, but that’s beside the point. On a more curious note, many of the articles and reviews that I found didn’t even mention its pungent nature. A few, however, confirmed that my initial confrontation was not atypical.

So, my friends, I do hope you’ll join me on a food tour soon and I guarantee, as always, that anything we taste will have been thoroughly vetted – and now you know why!
 
 

Karam – Chicken Shawarma

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Instagram Post 11/6/2018

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The Arabic word shawarma has its roots in the Turkish word çevirme, turning, which describes the pirouetting conically-stacked slabs of marinated chicken as they inch past the searing glow of the vertical rotisserie. Karam, at 8519 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, offers two variations on the popular street food: beef & lamb and chicken, and prepares one of the very best in this Middle Eastern neighborhood (which probably should have earned the moniker Little Levant, but didn’t).

Shown here is chicken shawarma; packed with deftly-seasoned succulent meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and dressed with a yogurt based sauce, it was one of the finest delicacies we enjoyed that day.
 
 

Bombay To Goa

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Instagram Post 11/5/2018

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On a quest for Goan food, we made the trip to Jersey City (because mass transit doesn’t go to India) where we enjoyed a bite at Bombay To Goa, 785 Newark Ave.

A pair of entrees from the “Carnivore’s Delights” section of the menu:

[1] Mutton Sukkha. The word mutton generally implies goat in India and when you see sukka (or a similar spelling) on the menu, it refers to a dish that’s not swimming in gravy (the word सूखा means dry in Hindi): tender baby goat, in a thick, spicy, meaty reduction.

[2] Xaccuti de Galinha. Xacutti (or a similar spelling) is your cue that this is a coconut based curry. Galinha (chicken) harks back to the time that Goa was a Portuguese province. The coconut is roasted and enhanced with poppy seeds and dried red chilies. Piquant and flavorful, it was perfect with our order of [3] Goan Pulao.
 
 

Chutney’s – Part 2 (Guntur Idli)

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Instagram Post 11/4/2018

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Today’s Instagram post from ethnojunkie.com:

Another delight from Chutney’s, an exclusively vegetarian Indian restaurant at 827 Newark Avenue, Jersey City where everything we ordered was tiptop. These are Guntur Idli. Idli are steamed, puffy, lightly fermented rice flour (sometimes blended with ground ural dal) breads popular for breakfast in India; Guntur, a city in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, is the leading producer and exporter of Indian chilies. And indeed, lurking within these airy bites was a splotch of chili masala, not overwhelming but sufficient to elevate the idli from its customary supporting player status. On the side there’s sambar, a lentil soup usually incorporating tamarind, used for dipping, spooning, and general slathering.

More to come from Chutney’s….
 
 

Karam – Za’atar and Tomato Pie

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Instagram Post 11/3/2018

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There are numerous Middle Eastern restaurants in Bay Ridge but there is only one Karam. Many of these restaurants make flatbread pies that go by many names like manoush, manoushe, manousheh, mankousheh, manakish, manaqish, manaeesh or manakeesh, not to mention specialized versions like lahmacun or lahmajoun, and each of these many names goes by many spellings.

Karam calls them simply “pies”. And that’s all you need to remember because they are far and away the best in the neighborhood in my opinion. The bread is fresh and supple, the toppings bright and flavorful, the aroma intense and intoxicating.

Here’s our tomato and za’atar pie, one of their many varieties. Za’atar (which itself goes by many spellings and regional recipes) is a blend of thyme and sesame seeds (the mandatory pair) and other herbs and spices like sumac, hyssop, oregano, and savory. Za’atar can be overpowering if applied with a heavy hand, but the sweet tomatoes mitigated any attempt to commandeer our palates. Try this pie.

That’s not all we enjoyed that day, of course; I’ll post more from Karam, the wonderful Lebanese restaurant, soon. In the meantime, I recommend that you experience their delicious food for yourself at 8519 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
 
 

Chutney’s – Part 1

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Instagram Post 10/30/2018

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Is it that I have extremely good luck with restaurants in Jersey City’s Little India or are they all that good? I often say that if I had to go vegetarian for the rest of my life, I’d make a beeline for Indian food and never look back. Not that there’s anything wrong with straight ahead salads and bespoke medleys, but the sheer number of herbs and spices endemic to the cuisine in so many complex permutations and combinations coupled with its variety of cooking styles affirms that I’d never want for variety.

[1] Everything we ordered at Chutney’s, an exclusively vegetarian Indian restaurant at 827 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, was delicious. Crispy Fried Vegetables, lurking in the Appetizer section of the menu, not under Pakoras, were marinated with herbs and spices and deep fried; they proved to be an excellent starter.

[2] Mysore Bonda. Mysore is a city in South India; bonda is a South Indian snack made from flour and buttermilk, the flavor of which came through brightly in this light treat.

[3] Bisected mysore bonda. Do I need to tell you that they offer over 11 kinds of chutneys not to mention sambar, rasam, and other dipping soups and sauces?

More to come from Chutney’s….
 
 

Tian Jin Meat Pie

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Instagram Post 10/26/2018

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Upstairs at the downstairs Golden Mall.

Folks who are new to Flushing’s OG Golden Shopping Mall at 41-28 Main St often just head downstairs (the former digs of Xi’an Famous Foods) to prowl the labyrinthine basement and enjoy the wares of a handful of vendors including the everything-is-delicious-here Tian Jin Dumpling House. Sometimes, however, they neglect the street level merchants; here’s an example of what you’ll find there from Tian Jin Meat Pie, 天津餡餅.

Top right, a hefty bing (餅, Chinese wheat-flour pancake or pie) stuffed with delicious savory ground lamb; on the left, a chive, egg, and vermicelli somewhat thinner, floppier bing; and a folded scallion pancake for support. Unlike the fried scallion pancakes you typically find in a menu’s appetizer section, this doughy, steamed beauty is perfect for filling with whatever treats you find appropriate, perhaps from the bins there or elsewhere in Golden Mall. Or do as I do, buy some to warm up and experiment with at home.

[1] Chive, egg, and vermicelli bings at the ready.
[2] Lamb bings in front being upstaged by the yellow conical items on the left and to the rear: Chinese cornbread. Yes, it’s a thing.

[1] One of the aforementioned bins…
[2] …and another.
[3] Look for this sign just to the left of the Golden Shopping Mall entrance.