Category Archives: Restaurants & Food Courts

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.
 
 

Blue Mountain Cuisine

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Instagram Post 7/26/2018

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Don’t you love it when you head into a modest, unprepossessing place and get gobsmacked by great food? That’s what went down at Blue Mountain Cuisine, a Jamaican restaurant at 3701 Eastchester Road in the Bronx.

This virtuoso hearty breakfast was definitely something to sing about. It starred delicious stew kidney accompanied by bammy (cassava cakes) and plantain; the role of the bread in this performance was festival, sweet Jamaican fried dough that usually comes in a form less extended than what you see here. And the cornmeal porridge was more flavorful than any I’ve had in recent memory – so tasty that I chugged, rather than spooned, the last of it down: good to the last drop!
 
 

Mama G African Kitchen

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Bronx food needs more love, so here’s a nod in that direction! Recently, a group of us who were craving Ghanaian food went to Mama G African Kitchen at 3650A White Plains Road for lunch and I’m so happy we did; the lighting didn’t do the chef’s skilled cooking justice, but fortunately my eyes were bigger than my camera so I enjoyed our meal immensely.

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Waakye – you may see variant spellings but the pronunciation is wah-chay (rhymes with watch-way) and it’s Ghana’s culinary claim to fame. Similar to West Indian rice and peas, it’s made with rice and black eyed peas or cowpeas; the characteristic reddish-purplish-brown color can come from dried red sorghum leaves, millet leaves, or even baking soda. It was paired with croaker plus spaghetti and gari (ground cassava). Shito, the sauce made from hot peppers, tomato, garlic, and fish, is on the side.


Pinch off a bit of starchy eba (which is made from gari) with your fingers and gather up some stew – here either the accompanying spinach or egusi (ground melon seeds) – the best way to enjoy West African cuisine!


Part of our first course: Grilled Red Snapper and Spicy Kebab.


Peanut Butter Soup (you might see it as Groundnut Soup/Stew). This bowl was home to both meat and fish but I didn’t catch the types. The starch that accompanied it was emotuo, a pressed ground rice ball (some would call it a dumpling) that was perfect with the soup; I’ve seen emotuo only in connection with Ghanaian cuisine.


Okra Stew with Banku. Banku is another West African staple starch. It’s most closely associated with Ghana and is distinguished by the fact that it’s one of the fermented varieties, in this case a blend of cassava and corn. It works like all West African doughy starches: pinch off a bit, dip it into the stew or soup and enjoy – really hands-on cuisine! Okra stew can vary from somewhat mucilaginous to extremely mucilaginous, but either way it’s relentless in that regard. It may be an acquired taste, or more accurately, an acquired texture, but give it a chance before you pass judgment; you might be surprised!
 
 
Note that there’s another location of Mama G African Kitchen at 1322A Gun Hill Road, also in the Bronx.
 
 

Sing Kee – Beef Short Ribs in a Pumpkin

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Instagram Post 7/19/2018

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It’s described as a “Top Pick” on the menu at Sing Kee, 42 Bowery in Manhattan’s Chinatown, so we obligingly picked it as one of our Cantonese banquet choices. Beef Short Ribs in a Pumpkin was a study in tenderness, both the meat and the squash, lounging in a mild curry gravy. The presentation was appealing as well: sliced into wedges, it fell open, looking like chunky flower petals encircling a beefy nucleus.

(🤔 “Short Ribs in a Pumpkin.” You could Sing it in the Key of “Three Coins in the Fountain.” 😉)
 
 

Seamore’s

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Instagram Post 7/18/2018

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A birthday celebration with friends found us at Seamore’s in Manhattan where it’s all about seafood from fish tacos and sandwiches to “The Reel Deal”, the popular option we all went for. Here’s how it works: Select your fish from the rotating list of “Daily Landings” – whatever is fresh from a field of over two dozen; decide on your sauce (with choices like charred scallion, lemongrass ají, and miso brown butter); and choose three sides. Here’s tilefish with red curry sauce accompanied by mac & cheese, creamy farro, and the unusual and tasty yellow beets with ricotta salata: they pay as much attention to their side dishes as they do to their fish. (And yes, you can get a burger there, but really…why?)

The second photo shows a platter of Curry Mussels in coconut milk with charred bread for essential dipping.

Seamore’s is located in Chelsea at 161 8th Ave and currently boasts five additional locations in the city.

(Not quite so “ethnic” this time, I know, but tasty nonetheless! 😉)
 
 

La Roja de Todos

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Instagram Post 7/15/2018

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Our light lunch in Corona, Queens at La Roja de Todos, 108-02 Northern Blvd, consisted of Ceviche de Pescado and a pair of empanadas.

[1] Chilean 🇨🇱 style empanadas are baked and, as you can gather from the photo, are made from a soft, doughy pouch that swaddles the fillings. Our Empanada de Pino, in traditional Chilean fashion, featured beef, onions, raisins and black olives, and was enhanced by pebre, their housemade hot sauce; the Empanada de Marisco (not shown) was its mixed seafood sibling, redolent of the sea.

[2] The fish 🐟 used in the ceviche de pescado came from the flounder/fluke school – I would have preferred one with a little more character: not bad, but it didn’t quite set the hook. 🎣
 
 

Sing Kee – House Special T-Bone Steak

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Instagram Post 7/12/2018

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Another scene from our Cantonese banquet at Sing Kee, 42 Bowery in Manhattan’s Chinatown. I had heard about their battered, fried, House Special T-Bone Steak from a reliable source so I was totally down with trying it. Insiders’ tip: In order to determine your preference for degree of doneness, they don’t use terms like rare, medium, or well done; rather it’s expressed in terms of percentage. I discovered this when our waiter asked how we wanted it done. As we looked at each other, stumped for a decision, he offered, “17%? 25%?” I think our final vote was, “Um, yeah.”
 
 

Claro

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Instagram Post 7/7/2018

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The Spanish word claro carries many meanings from “clear” to “sure!” and among those definitions is “distinct”. Perhaps that one best describes Claro, 284 Third Ave in Gowanus, in that it’s not your typical Brooklyn Mexican restaurant. Attention to its Oaxacan roots is evident not only in their distinctive spin on the cuisine but also from the clay dinnerware to the décor. Claro’s reputation is as much about its aura as it is about the food, and although we weren’t blown away by any flavor bombs, the freshness and quality of the ingredients were evident as we enjoyed the boon of ideal weather in the charming backyard.

[1] Yellowfin Tostada – tuna marinated in a pasilla oaxaqueña sauce with avocado, orange, and chicharrónes

[2] Barbacoa Tacos – beef cheeks and garlic scapes

[3] Pork Memela – made with heritage pork ribs in a sauce of chile de arbol, topped with fresh crumbled farmer cheese

[4] Mole Negro – meltingly tender short ribs with grilled Mexican green onions and potatoes

Portions are a little on the short side; upscale to be sure, what you see here is exactly what we ordered plus a single drink for each of us – total for our party of four including tax and tip was about $190.
 
 

Fan Fried Rice Bar

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Instagram Post 7/6/2018

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A relative newcomer (about three months) to Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and certainly a welcome one is Fan Fried Rice Bar at 525 DeKalb Ave. A cozy, sunny spot with only a few tables, they offer a number of Taiwanese delicacies like Popcorn Chicken, Fried Bone-In Pork Chop, Taiwanese Sausage, and Mushroom Mapo Tofu, but the real focus is on their novel fried rice variations.

[1] Numb Numb Pastrami Fried Rice with chili paste, scallions, pastrami, onions and peanuts. I get a pronounced Szechuan málà peppercorn hit delivered with a lot of char (as opposed to wok hei); the pastrami itself is salty, moist, and a little smoky, but unlike the deli style pastrami you might expect from the name. Definitely good eats.

[2] Breakfast Fried Rice is good any time of day with tasty thick cut bacon, eggs, peas and carrots, and everything-bagel seasoning. No numbing peppercorns in this one, but plenty of salt, intensified by the toss of potato chips atop.

And yes, I’m a fan of the Fan. 😉