“Reels” (videos) are de rigueur these days on Social Media giants like Facebook and Instagram, so when in Rome, etc.
Here’s my entry into the competition for eyeballs, focused around my Manhattan Chinatown Ethnojunket:
Of course, since you’re reading this, you’re already on ethnojunkie.com, so please check out my food tours: visit my Ethnojunkets page to learn more and sign up to join in the fun!
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I’m forever scoping out restaurants, food courts, and food stands for my ethnojunkets, and this time Elmhurst was in my sights. Here’s the Number 1 Classic bánh mì from JoJu at 83-25 Broadway; it features slices of Vietnamese ham and headcheese with pâté and pork house sauce along with cucumber, cilantro and traditional pickled carrot and daikon.
The marketing describes their wares as “Modern Vietnamese Sandwiches” and indeed, the menu is infused with Korean, Thai, and Japanese influences. They’re more than just a sandwich shop though: this venue (one of three) offers spring rolls, chicken wings, rice bowls, and more to round out the menu.
So…will we indulge in this bánh mì bonhomie on my Ethnic Eats in Elmhurst food tour? Only one way to find out: check out my Ethnojunkets page and sign up to join in the fun!
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On my Bay Ridge food tour, The Flavors of Little Levant and Little Yemen, we visit a few of its opulent sweet shops, some of which feature mastic ice cream. Booza hails from the Levant and Egypt and is known for two qualities, its stretchy consistency and its ability to resist melting; Turkish dondurma and Greece’s kaimaki are its somewhat less sticky, somewhat more melty close cousins.
This is dondurma from Antepli Baklava, 7216 5th Ave, and they offer it in two forms: a squeeze up pouch…
…and roughly pint-sized containers in çilek (strawberry), kakao (cocoa), fıstık (pistachio), and sade (plain) flavors. Needless to say, I’ve tried them all – in a quest to ferret out the best of the best, of course. 😉
So is this the magic mastic ice cream we’ll enjoy on our Bay Ridge ethnojunket? Only one way to find out: check out my Ethnojunkets page and sign up to join in the fun!
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Sin Kee, located in the Queens Crossing Food Court, 136-20 38th Avenue, Unit #4, markets itself as serving up 21st Century Hawker Cuisine in NYC. I had read about their Taiwanese Braised Pork Belly Rice Platter so I had to investigate to see if it would make a good candidate for my Snacking in Flushing – the Best of the Best Ethnojunket.
The dish, Lu Rou Fan, is served over jasmine rice with a side of braised egg and sautéed preserved mustard greens, and it’s chef Richard Chan’s special sauce that makes it one of their signature dishes.
And while I was there, I tried their version of Taiwanese Gua Bao – slow-cooked pork belly with peanuts, cilantro, and more mustard greens plus special sauce in case a snack-sized goodie would work better for us.
They both look good, right? But will they be on my food tour? Only one way to find out: check out my Ethnojunkets page and sign up to join in the fun!
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Night Market Crispy Chicken from Taiwan Bear House, 11 Pell St in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Larger than average chunks o’ chix, crispy and juicy street food – a satisfying snack.
The inner workings:
And as I’ve mentioned, this is all part of the process of picking primo possibilities for my ethnojunkets, so not all of the dishes I post show up on the tours, of course.
Curious about which ones we’ll actually sample? Take a tour and find out!
To learn more about my food tours, please check out my Ethnojunkets page and sign up to join in the fun!
(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)
The last time I visited Stall Number 27 (a couple of months ago) there was nary a word of English extant: not on the menu, not even the name of the vendor, and certainly not uttered by the folks behind the counter. I had been making the rounds within the New World Mall Food Court, 136-20 Roosevelt Ave, to ferret out some good candidates for my Flushing food tour and I might have passed by, but I was riveted by the maneuvers of the chef. He massaged a clump of dough on his work surface, piled a mammoth heap of meat onto it, folded it into a seriously massive cannonball, and proceeded to drop it onto his work surface repeatedly until it was ready to be rolled out and pressed into shape. I guessed he was constructing one of the examples depicted on a sign gracing the front of the booth.
I snapped a photo of it, caught the eye of the woman busy behind the counter, and pointed to the picture I had just taken. I nodded at her with questioning, raised eyebrows, she nodded back in the affirmative, and I waited, hoping for the best. The dish arrived in a tin, sliced into wedges and was surely more than I could consume in a single sitting. She held up a finger which I took to mean “wait”, went to the back, and returned with a plastic pint container filled with an unidentified liquid that she added to the bag.
After some gratifying research at home (admittedly, I have a strange idea of fun), I confirmed that I had just visited the Tianjin Baozi Shop and purchased an order of Beijing Xianghe Meatloaf, a meat pie that unexpectedly comes with complementary Tong Sui (sweet soup). The tong sui was beany, laden with rice, and barely sweet, a good foil for the slightly salty meat patty. I’ve pulled a couple of hunks of the filling out of their pancake cloak so you could see where a lot of repetitive pounding and rolling gets you. (Note that there’s a Tian Jin Dumpling House on Kissena Blvd with a very different menu.)
Oh, and as I’ve mentioned, this is all part of the process of selecting the best of the best for my ethnojunkets, so not all of the dishes I post show up on the tours, of course.
Curious about which ones we’ll actually sample? Take a tour and find out!
To learn more about my food tours, please check out my Ethnojunkets page and sign up to join in the fun!
(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)
I have a plethora of photos of goodies I’ve purchased in the service of putting together my ethnojunkets, so I’ve decided to share some with you here. It’s part of the process of selecting the best of the best, so not all of them show up on the tours, of course.
Curious about which ones we’ll actually sample? Take a tour and find out!
This is a Summer Roll (gỏi cuôn) from Bánh Mì Cô Út at 83 Elizabeth St in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Rice paper (bánh tráng) wrapped around lettuce, rice vermicelli (bún), split shrimp, and a scallion tail served with chili sauce and a sweet/savory/spicy dipping sauce.
To learn more about my food tours, please check out my Ethnojunkets page and sign up to join in the fun!
(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)
Picked up these pan-fried pork and crabmeat & pork buns (sheng jian bao, 生煎包) from Old Street Pan Fried Dumpling (the awning reads 老 街 生 煎), 135-45 Roosevelt Ave, Queens as I was exploring the neighborhood for my Flushing ethnojunket.
A perfect snack.
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You can call ’em pan-fried dumplings or you can call ’em potstickers or you can call ’em jiaozi or you can call ’em gyoza – just as long as you call for an order of #1 Signature Pork with Yellow Chive from Sanmiwago, the Taiwanese dumpling house ensconced in booth 3 at Mott Street Eatery, 96 Mott Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Eight to an order, they’re properly crispy on one side, tender and yielding on the other, thin-skinned and plentifully stuffed with a perfectly seasoned filling.
Obviously, I found them to be top notch and reason enough to return and work my way through the other five varieties; all six are available in either fried or boiled versions. My understanding is that the owner hails from Taiwan and has been serving these dumplings there since 1993 – and now we’re fortunate enough to get a taste of the real deal.
While I was there, I also picked up an order of Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken. Because popcorn chicken.
And yes, of course, these dumplings will be a feature on my Manhattan Chinatown ethnojunket resuming soon!
(You can read about my ethnojunkets and join in the fun here!)
The story began here:
Every August, as a routinely flushed, overheated child, I would join in chorus with my perspiring cohorts, boisterously importuning, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!” Little did I realize that rather than conjuring dessert, I was conjugating it and probably laying the groundwork for a lifetime of fascination with foreign languages and world food.
We lived in close proximity to one of the best dairies in town; it was known for its wide assortment of locally produced natural flavors, certainly sufficient in number and variety to satisfy any palate. Perhaps my obsession with offbeat ice cream flavors is rooted in my frustration with my father’s return home from work, invariably bearing the same kind of ice cream as the last time, Neapolitan. Neapolitan, again. My pleas to try a different flavor – just once? please? – consistently fell on deaf ears. “Neapolitan is chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. That’s three flavors right there. If you don’t want it, don’t eat it.” Some kids’ idea of rebellion involved smoking behind the garage; mine was to tuck into a bowl of Rum Raisin….
There’s lots more to the story, of course. Click here to get the full scoop! 🍨