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Another purple treat from Purple Dough, 38-05 69th St in Woodside, Queens. This time, the new bakery presents ube leche flan – dense flan lounging atop ube (purple yam) cake. Surprisingly, this beautiful dessert isn’t overly sweet, so a dollop of whipped cream wouldn’t hurt if you want to dress it up a little – if you can wait to get it home!
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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….
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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.
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At first, basing my expectations solely on a text menu sans pix, I anticipated a plate of typical momos but with a filling of sukuti (Nepali dried meat) or perhaps some kind of chili instead of regulation beef, chicken, or veggie. A few minutes of explanation from Jyoti, the chef/owner, and a few photos later, I realized that these are not your mama’s momos. Momo Crave, 38-07 69th St in Woodside, Queens has come up with a set of fusion variations that are a must-try. The fillings are indeed the prevailing big three (all nicely seasoned, by the way) but the treatment is what sets them a world apart. The list includes unique varieties like chili, sandeko, tandoori, sukuti, chaat, and kothey (in which the bottoms are crispy fried) along with a respectable number of other items. You can order any of those adaptations in beef, chicken, or veggie although they’re happy to provide recommendations to assist with your mixing and matching fun.
Shown here are the sukuti with beef filling and the sandeko with chicken. The spicy sukuti (on the left) boasts chunks of the Nepali jerky as the accompaniment. The sandeko has a kicky mustard oil overlay reminiscent of Bangladeshi cuisine and is topped with a dry bean garnish. Both variants are fried and all are beyond clever. And yes, I intend to go back to try the rest.
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As long as I’m on a sweet roll, here’s one more from the monthly NY Indonesian Food Bazaar at St. James Episcopal Church, 84-07 Broadway in Elmhurst, Queens: a thick, creamy cloud of coconut pudding, not too sweet (why does everybody I know insist that’s somehow a good thing?) with a glutinous rice flour pandan-fortified spheroid floating atop.
The second photo shows the bisected ball revealing its grated coconut/palm sugar core. The orb was hard before I warmed it up after which it surrendered into a more palatable chewiness that worked nicely with the bed of coconut fluff.
It’s called Putri Mandi which means Bathing Princess.
I didn’t ask.
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So many kue, so little time, but I was determined to get to the bottom of the puzzle. On a recent visit to the monthly NY Indonesian Food Bazaar at St. James Episcopal Church, 84-07 Broadway in Elmhurst, Queens, I had purchased some kue (diminutive Indonesian sweets/snacks) from Pecel Ndeso’s booth, but I misidentified them in an earlier post. So I returned, and thanks to extensive discussion with the vendor and then another vendor who sold the same snack under a different name and my Indonesian friends @nigelsie (aka @hellomoonman), @fefeang (owner of the Taste of Surabaya booth at the bazaar), but especially to @erm718 for her detailed descriptions, I think I’ve got it now, to wit:
The first photo is serabi. @erm718 writes, “Serabi making is very similar to American pancake making, where the batter is spread onto a lightly oiled pan, but not flipped.” (See the browned bottom of the kue in the lower right of the photo.) “Traditionally clay pans are used for serabi, but now metal pans are also used.” Holes bubble up on top as the serabi cooks. Variations exist distinguished by the thickness of the kue and the toppings; the one in this photo, serabi basah (basah means wet), came accompanied by a bag of coconut milk sweetened with palm sugar. Thicker than a typical pancake and with a light, fluffy, almost fine-crumb cakey texture, the flavor was enhanced by the addition of a little pandan essence (that’s where the green tinge comes from). Warm, anointed by the sweet coconut milk, the taste intensified; definitely a treat.
The kue shaped like a flying saucer is cucur. @erm718 writes, “Cucur’s batter is poured into lots of hot oil and deep fried; cucur is eaten as is.” There’s a bit of a chewy quality to it, its puffy, airy interior adding to the sensory pleasure; it benefitted from a little warming as well.
Thanks for your help, Elika!
Lots more to come from the bazaar….
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Acar (pronounced achar, and you might see acar manis: manis = sweet), stumbled upon at the monthly NY Indonesian Food Bazaar at St. James Episcopal Church, 84-07 Broadway in Elmhurst, Queens, is a pickled condiment; this tangy version comes from Kantin Rica-Rica’s booth. It’s sweet and sour, spicy and bright, made from shredded cucumber, carrot, cabbage, shallot, mango, and chilies, laden with chopped peanuts, and so good you could just pour some over rice and make a meal of it. It’s found throughout Southeast Asia camouflaged in slightly differing spellings and recipes (swap in pineapple for the mango, for example). Lots of top notch good eats to be found at this warung (stall/stand); I’ll post more soon!
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Cardamom, the new Indian restaurant in Sunnyside, Queens at 43-45 43rd St, features the cuisine of Goa, the chef’s homeland, but not to the exclusion of other regions. Located on India’s west coast, Goa was formerly a province of Portugal, consequently the food is strongly influenced by their culture and imports; you’ll see chouriço keeping company with xacutti on a typical Goan menu.
[1] The most impressive dish we tasted at lunch that afternoon was Goan Tandoori Shrimp; it only took one bite to elicit a chorus of “oh yeahs” from our assemblage.
[2] Chicken Xacutti, a signature dish from the Indo-Portuguese section of the menu, boasts a complex blend of spices tempered with coconut. Delicious, but I would have welcomed more of a kick – again, possibly a communication misfiring since friends who visited here on another occasion were treated to a more robust level of heat.
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We had half an hour to spare and my friend @restaurantfairy exhorted @annegrrrll and me to meet her at Flushing’s Szechuan House, 133-47 Roosevelt Ave, for a bite before lunch (yes, we do that). She communicated her desire for the off-menu classic Sichuan dish, Fried Shredded Beef with Celery and Chilies; it was absolutely outstanding and we devoured our pre-game snack posthaste. I tracked down some recipes for Gàn Biān Niú Ròu Sī (干煸牛肉丝), literally dry fried beef threads, and I’m looking forward to doing a little home cookin’ when I get the chance, but in the meantime, I know where to get more!
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How can you tell the difference between Uzbek manti and Georgian khinkali? I mean, they’re both big, beautiful meat-filled dumplings, generally boiled or steamed, that hail from Former Soviet Union states. At first glance, they do seem similar but the shapes are the most evident giveaway: manti are pinched closed, sometimes completely sealed, sometimes with little gaps, and they look a bit like a flower or a pyramid or perhaps a child’s fist. Khinkali, on the other hand are always twisted closed in such a way that they resemble a Chinese soup dumpling on steroids, with a little topknot to be employed as a handle for refined eating. (There are those who eschew consuming the topknot, claiming that it’s just too doughy to be anything more than a mechanism for conveying dumpling to mouth; others happily chew it up because it’s part of the package, literally and figuratively.)
Manti fillings (photo 2) vary depending upon provenance, seasonality, and recipe (they’re actually Turkic/Central Asian) and are typically found bursting with juicy, deliciously seasoned lamb and onions diced into tiny chunks (when they’re hot, unlike these), although pumpkin varieties are not at all uncommon. Khinkali from Georgia, a Christian nation (Uzbekistan is predominantly Muslim) usually contain a mixture of ground pork and beef.
And how do they taste? I thought you’d never ask. That’s where personal experience comes into play. And if you join me on my Little Odessa ethnojunket this Saturday, October 20 (pretty sneaky, right?), we’re likely to procure one or the other or both as we eat our way along Brighton Beach Avenue in Brooklyn. If you’d like to join us for the adventure, please click here for more information and to sign up. Hope to see you then!