Egg Yolk Custard Bun

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Instagram Post 6/13/2019

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Pata Market at 81-16 Broadway in Elmhurst, Queens just keeps getting better and better; the prepared food section (which is truly the focus of the place) has some of the best Thai food you’d ever want, and want it I do. On a recent visit there as I was scoping out my new Elmhurst food tour, I noticed a steamer box filled primarily with fluffy white baos, but it was the sign beside it depicting egg yolk custard buns that caught my eye: sweet, golden, runny, drippy, x-rated attention grabbers.

I only bought one. Whatever was I thinking? 😐
 
 

Chinese-Korean Dumplings & Noodle

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Instagram Post 6/10/2019

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An irresistible presentation of lacy pan-fried dumplings from Chinese-Korean Dumplings & Noodle (aka Joong Han Boon Sik), stall number 30 in the New World Mall Food Court, 136-20 Roosevelt Ave, one of the stops on my Flushing food court ethnojunket. Choose from among thirteen varieties including pork & fennel as well as pork, shrimp, sea cucumber, cabbage & crabmeat (which I need to return for). These were lamb and luscious; even the side of cabbage was tasty. Too pretty to eat – but somehow that didn’t stop me! 😉

Want a taste? Check out my ethnic neighborhood food tours! Click here to learn more.
 
 

Doshirak Box

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Instagram Post 6/9/2019

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Dosirak (도시락), in Korea, denotes a lunchbox kind of meal, packed up and ready to travel, their often compartmentalized grab-n-go version of Japanese bento boxes. Doshirak Box, in Flushing, is the name of a shiny new Korean place at 136-31 Roosevelt Ave suitable for a quick snack or takeout. (The syllable “si 시” is pronounced “shi” in Korean.) I landed there on the first day of their soft opening – that’s code for they didn’t yet have everything on their incredibly extensive menu of about 75 items. After striking out a couple of times, I went for the kimbap (김밥), Korea’s version of Japanese maki; kim (you might see gim) refers to the nori wrapper and bap means cooked rice.

I’ve always been a fan of kimbap – to my mind there’s something picnicky and informal about it. I chose the Spicy Tuna with Perilla Leaves: pickled daikon, carrots, perilla leaves (akin to shiso leaves popular in Japanese cuisine), and spicy tuna salad. In my experience, tuna kimbap is always made with canned tuna, not the raw, chopped, kicked-up tuna you may know from similar Japanese rolls, and this one is true to form. Maybe that’s why it seems picnicky and informal to me.
 
 

Nishallo

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Instagram Post 6/7/2019

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On a recent ethnojunket through Brooklyn’s Little Odessa, we visited one of my favorite venues, Tashkent Market at 713 Brighton Beach Ave. One of my goals on these food tours is to introduce guests to tasty food they’ve never sampled before, but this item was new to me as well and like everything else in their extensive array of prepared foods, it was home-made. Needless to say, I was compelled to buy it, take it home, and research the heck out of it.

Nishallo (aka nisholda) is an exceedingly sweet dessert that’s native to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and prepared exclusively during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Made primarily from sugar, whipped egg whites, and water, it’s a dead-on ringer for Marshmallow Fluff (as you’d expect from the ingredients) if perhaps a bit classier because of a touch of star anise and/or licorice root. It makes its appearance as part of iftar, the evening meal that breaks the daily fast. Frequently used as a dip for the flatbread naan, it’s particularly appropriate after 17 hours of abstention from eating because its high sugar content jumpstarts the metabolism.

Are you interested in tasting something new and delicious from another part of the world too? Check out my ethnic neighborhood food tours! Click here to learn more.
 
 

Brooklyn Suya

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Instagram Post 6/6/2019

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[1] Suya is a popular street food in Nigeria (and elsewhere in West Africa) and there’s little doubt as to why. Sliced beef and other meats are marinated, skewered, grilled, liberally peppered with a spicy, peanutty, powdery seasoning blend and generally accompanied by slices of raw onion. Brooklyn Suya maintains the tradition at 717 Franklin Ave in Crown Heights with its Suya Bowls: choose steak, chicken, or shrimp and two of kale, plantain, egg, or avocado, all over rice. Or, you can order suya solo, sans all those healthy accoutrements; that’s what you see here.

[2] Extreme close-up of chicken, steak, and shrimp – just to get the juices flowing. It’s a tiny space, with a few window perches and a counter, so you might consider take-out, but that didn’t deter us. Incidentally, they sell their custom blends of seasoning/marinade if you want to try your hand at making suya – but if you enjoy cooking, I suspect you’ll find dozens of other uses in the kitchen for their piquant spice blends.
 
 

More 2019 World’s Fare Vendors

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Instagram Post 6/3 and 6/5/2019

Four more vendors from the 2019 World’s Fare that took place recently at Citi Field in Flushing.

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Duck Season brought out their 10% duck fat burger, duck fat fries, and Brooklyn poutine with duck bacon, cheese sauce and gravy; shown here is their BBQ rub smoked duck sandwich on a brioche. Wabbit Season was nowhere to be found but you can find Duck Season’s whereabouts by following them @duckseasonnyc on Facebook or Instagram.


Brooklyn’s Korzo Restaurant (667 5th Ave in Park Slope) offered up their Slovak halušky. Residing somewhere along the gnocchi<–>dumpling continuum, these little hand-cut pillows are made from flour/potato dough and served with a tangy bryndza cheese sauce topped with bacon and chives. Central European comfort food.


Alexandra Dettori (AD) Catering and Events brought their 🇪🇷 Eritrean tacos to the party. If you’ve enjoyed dining at any Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurant, you’re familiar with injera, the spongy flatbread that serves as the foundation for dishes like wot, the region’s emblematic dense stew. AD’s fusion concept is the Eri-Taco – mini injera, in this case supporting a spicy diced beef wot. Follow them on Facebook or Instagram @adcateringandevents.


Nansense featured their Mantu, first-rate dumplings from Afghanistan packed with savory beef and onion, slathered with garlicky yogurt and tomatoey split peas, and hit with dried mint and cilantro. Often a fixture at Smorgasburg, follow them @nansensenyc on Instagram or Facebook to be certain of their whereabouts. Comfort food that’s delicious 🇦🇫 (or as the emoji appears on some platforms, AF). 😉

 
 

Tania’s Kitchen

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Instagram Post 6/2/2019

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If you’ve never tried Haitian food, whatever are you waiting for? Some of the best I’ve tasted comes from Tania’s Kitchen, a family owned catering and pop-up business that operated a booth at the 2019 World’s Fare a couple of weeks ago in Flushing and they were one of my favorite vendors.

You’re looking at Diri Djon Djon (black rice that gets its color from dried black mushrooms, a Haitian specialty), Banan Peze (fried plantains), Pikliz (pronounced Pick-leez, spicy pickled cabbage), and up top, delicious Griot (incredible deep fried pork) and Kodenn Fri (equally incredible deep fried turkey). It isn’t easy to make meat so tender and so crispy at the same time, so mèsi anpil to the talented chef!

What’s that? You missed the World’s Fare? No problem because you can find them at the Queen’s Night Market this summer. Check out taniaskitchen.nyc for their schedule, then head to the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Saturdays from 5pm to midnight. Bon manje!
 
 

Black Label Donuts

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Instagram Post 6/1/2019

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Winner Winner, Donut Dinner! Okay, maybe not dinner, but deliciously filling and definitely a winner. More specifically, the winner of the “Best in Show: Sweet” category at the recent World’s Fare 2019.
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There are two elements that make Black Label Donuts so special. The champions (IMHO) start with a 24 hour cold fermented brioche dough (Richard Eng, the culinary master behind these creations, knows his carbs) and the ever-changing gourmet flavors that are uniquely creative like matcha crème brûlée, rosemary lemon/olive oil curd, lavender blueberry, azuki ichigo (red bean/strawberry) and sake kasu cherry. Shown here are the Japanese Elvis – banana brioche, torched bananas, and smoked bacon with a peanut butter-miso glaze – and the Kalamansi Buttermilk Lime. Both were outstanding.
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Currently, they’re only available in pop-up format, so follow them on Instagram @blacklabeldonuts and on facebook.com/BlackLabelDonuts. And wherever they are, get there early, because they sell out fast!
 
 

Kashkar Cafe

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Instagram Post 5/29/2019

While fine tuning my ethnojunket through Little Odessa, I visited Kashkar Café, 1141 Brighton Beach Avenue in Brooklyn. Kashkar serves the food of the Uyghur people, a primarily Muslim ethnic group who live in the Xinjiang region of northwest China near Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan; as you’d expect, the fare is a comingling of Chinese and Central Asian cuisines and definitely worth getting to know.

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Ashlangfu (ашлангфу) salad, aka lang-foo noodles. If you’ve enjoyed Chinese mung bean jelly noodle, you’ll recognize these slippery slices as their cognate, liangfen. The dish included bits of lamb and chopped vegetables in a light, tangy sauce, but lurking unexpectedly beneath the pile was lagman, Uyghur’s claim to noodle fame (Chinese cognate: lo mein).

Kazi (you might see qazı) was described as “pickled sausage from the beef meat in home styles”; in Central Asia, kazi is made from horsemeat, so the annotation was reassuring. This isn’t a ground meat type of sausage, rather it’s dry cured rib meat in a natural casing, served cold. Not particularly pickled in flavor, it was dense and earthy and the vegetables plus a squeeze of lemon were a welcome accompaniment. A little goes a long way with these slices, but it’s worth doing once.

This was a winner. Tsomyan (цомян), cognate with chow mein, was described as sliced fried dough and lamb meat with vegetables. When you see “dough” on the menu, it refers to a thick doughy noodle that’s a little reminiscent of Xi’an hand pulled noodles if a bit drier; the term distinguishes it from lagman noodles. Splendid char on those chewy noodles; really excellent.

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AND speaking of Little Odessa, there are some slots open for Tuesday, June 4th’s ethnojunket along Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach Avenue! Simply click here to find out how to join in the fun!
📣 📣 📣 📣 📣 📣 📣 📣
 
 

Janie’s Pie Crust Cookies

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Instagram Post 5/31/2019

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Every now and then, some genius comes up with a brilliant idea for combining two beloved baked goods into a single treat, a portmanteau of pastry if you will. The cronut comes to mind. That marriage often begets lesser, more commercialized offspring which will remain nameless here. But sometimes a star is born unto this hallowed union and it is this miracle of which I bring good tidings.
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Okay, so I got a little carried away. But that’s what happened at the press event for 2019’s Queens Night Market when I tasted Janie’s Pie Crust Cookies. Resting on a foundation of flaky pie crust, topped with buttery, crumbly, caramelized streusel and filled with just the right amount of gooey pecan magic to balance it off (cherry and chocolate pecan are available too), Janie’s cookies comprise the best parts of the pie and they’re heavenly. (Oops, there I go again.)
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Janie’s personal story is the stuff of which legends are made; visit her website janiebakes.com to learn more or follow her on Instagram @janiedbakes, but even better – taste for yourself. You can find her and her life-changing cookies (there’s a poignant reason they’re called that) at the Queens Night Market: head to the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Saturdays from 5pm to midnight until August 17 and again from September 28 to October 26.
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Say Hallelujah! 😇