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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!)
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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!
When I write about restaurants on Instagram, they’re usually brief takes accompanied by a photo or two. 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 five posts, published in 2018 on October 27, 28, and 30 and on November 4 and 8.
Nouveau Sichuan, if you’ll permit my neologism, seems to be the craze among Chinese restaurants these days. Classic Sichuan dishes appear beef cheek by pork jowl with fanciful presentations of innovative altered-state creations on menus that would make a coffee-table book pale into insignificance. Daxi Sichuan, 136-20 Roosevelt Ave on the second floor of Flushing’s New World Mall, is one such exponent of the trend. Daxi wants to be known for its “modern interpretation of classic dishes” and our experience was certainly characterized by their attention to panache.
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On a recent visit, we ordered the much touted Tibetan-Style Pork Ribs; they arrived in a bamboo birdcage festooned with plastic flowers. I’m not entirely certain that I get the connection (maybe it’s a pun on rib cage?), but there they were on a plate at the bottom of the cage (uh, where again?), pork squeezed into a sausage casing, sheathing a rib bone, and looking for all the world like a trompe-l’oeil hot dog but tasting like a proper pork rib albeit a little on the dry side.
I’m assuming the birdcage is unavailable for take-out or delivery.
In contrast, here is our order of adeptly prepared Stir Fried Eggplant and String Beans; definitely delicious and free from artifice.
From the unique and novel side of the kitchen, this is Crispy Mandarin Fish. I’m told that its addictive crunchy pillow is made from deep fried ground dried corn. The sweet fish with cashews (and, um, strawberries?) was delicious, the crumbly cushion a perfect foil for the tender meat. My only wish would be for there to have been a higher fish to crunch ratio.
And from the classic side, Sautéed Kidney with Green Pepper (and red peppers too!) just the way it should be: tender and flavorful with a little kick.
Dinner and a show at Daxi Sichuan. Exhorted by our server to hurry up and finish taking our pictures lest the crispy rice get soggy, we dutifully complied. She then proceeded to smash the parabolic rice cake with uninhibited abandon using the back of her ladle as a bludgeon until it was well incorporated into the Seafood Crispy Rice Soup:
The crunchy bits were certainly tasty, as was the soup, but we were hard pressed to find any seafood in it. So again, although the dishes were certainly good, they were less captivating than the presentation.
House Special Rice & Cured Meat Country Style. The outsized, lavish menu enticed us with a larger than life depiction of this charming presentation of rice brimming with cured meat and other tempting tids and bits. Although the cast iron pot arrived as pictured, the rice was less lavishly embellished than we had anticipated. Still, the dish was certainly good if a bit overhyped. If it had arrived on a standard serving plate, I would have been just as happy.
Sautéed Pork Chengdu Style. Chinese bacon with spicy green pepper and garlic; simply produced and tasty. They do well when they’re not trying too hard to impress with stylishness.
Tibet Style Lamb with Brown Sugar Rice Cake. First question: I count eight chops in compass point configuration but only two rice cakes. Those rice cakes were tasty – but were they intended as merely a flavorsome garnish? (Upon review, the menu depicted more.) The lamb was good as well, but the undergirding of spicy potatoes, peppers and onions was excellent.
And finally, Stir Fried Cabbage and Bean Vermicelli. Gimmick-free, sans over-the-top-staging; simple, homespun and delicious. And maybe that’s the method in their madness at Daxi Sichuan; they aim to cover both sides of the culinary divide with some dishes that focus on eye-catching presentation and others that sustain us with mouth-watering comfort food. After all, they did just net a 2019 Michelin Bib Gourmand award.
Daxi Sichuan is located in Flushing at 136-20 Roosevelt Ave on the second floor of the New World Mall.
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Dear Friends,
I can no longer keep this to myself. I am an addict, hooked on mithai. What’s that? You don’t know about mithai? Mithai are Indian sweets and since Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, is upon us, I can think of no better time than now to tell you my tale. So gather round your diyas and check out my post “Indian Sweets 101: Meeting Mithai” right here on ethnojunkie.com!
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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.
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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.
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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….
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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.
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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….