Even if he is sent to the bullpen, things could be a lot worse for Yankee pitcher, Phil Hughes.
Time for relief.
After all, how many relievers have their own neighborhood watering hole named after them?
The door is always open at Phil Hughes for Phil Hughes.
This was the first very brief Adventures in Chow City post to appear on Fried Neck Bones…and Some Home Fries almost a year ago. Today we get the bad news that La Fonda Boricua in East Harlem has closed. A sad day for Friedneckbones. Here is the original post.
La Fonda Boricua
169 E. 106th Street
East Harlem
My wife commented, not too favorably, on the special “tostones” sauce at La Fonda Boricua. Of course she tasted it second hand. And with a flu-stuffed nose. To me that meant the sauce was a true success…as was the rest of the collective meal.
Kudos must go to Rick for experimenting with the chivo (goat) and Gerry, a brave man to eat those chicken gizzards. He deserved that six-pack of Corona Light. I guess the liquor license did not apply to wine. But who’s complaining? At least they finally took our order. Charlie met the match and delivered with an authentic global eatery for under $20. . .including flan…vanilla only.
The Ayala brothers, owners of La Fonda Boricua, are now interested in adding to the art on their wall. I hear they would like to contact the Puerto Rican artist who has scribbled the tiny portraits forming the thumbprint. What they are looking for now is a new theme; a portrait of Zio, in the shape of a big toe, which, coincidentally, resembles his physique, and a mountain of mofongo, slathered with brown gravy, in front of him.
Taste Good
82-18 45th Avenue
Elmhurst, NY
Taste Good was chosen by Gerry who usually sends us to the far corners of the tri-state region for better (Indian dosas in Jersey City, authentic Korean barbecue in Ft. Lee) or for worse (tacky Mexican in Yonkers and mediocre barbecue in Valhalla). This time he stuck closer to what Zio refers to as the “epicenter” of our food universe; the corridor around the number 7 train of Woodside, Jackson Heights, and Elmhurst, where Taste Good was located. But even this time, Gerry’s curse was not totally diminished when the roads close to the restaurant were closed due to a subway shooting. Still, no one was complaining and a few of us, Zio, Rick and myself even had a few extra minutes to browse the next door Hong Kong supermarket where baby bok choy was on sale along with a special on live frogs.
Frogs for sale.
All of us were in attendance including Eugene who displayed no side effects after the defeat of his Red Sox. In fact, he was suspiciously silent on the subject. To prod him, we made sure he was aware of the availability of sting ray on the menu and even our collective eagerness to order it in some preparation would not illicit any type of self-pitying response. Thus is the demeanor of the now jaded Red Sox fan.
The menu was large and our waitress intent on speeding up our ordering. Though her English was shaky, she was not shy about making suggestions, especially in the quantity of our orders. When we suggested an appetizer of nasi lemak, a rice platter served with curried chicken, salty spiced pungent anchovies, and hard-boiled eggs, she wanted to know how many orders. When we asked if one was enough, coupled with two orders of roti canai, an Indian-style pancake served with a chicken curry gravy, and tahu goreng, deep fried bean curd stuffed with bean sprouts and sprinkled with a peanut sauce, she shook her head adamantly and said, “No. Two!”
Golden aromatic clams
When I, on name alone, wanted to order the “drunken clams” she shook her head. “This is no good,” she said. “Have this instead,” she said pointing to the clams in “aromatic flavor.” I wasn’t sure, but pretty confident that debating the choices was not an option. With the clams, the aforementioned sizzling aromatic sting ray, hokkien udang mee, a shrimp broth soup with noodles, fish cake, eggs, and greens, and one of our Malaysian favorites, beef rendang, here subtitled cleverly on the menu as “Love Me Tender,” which, of course, when it comes to beef rendang, is the only way to appreciate it, we thought we had enough, even for our crew.
“Not enough,” our waitress barked. Scrambling through the dense menu, the waitress and I collaborated on the choice of char kway teow, rice noodles with shrimp, fish cake, and egg. “Two orders,” she said. At this point she had taken over and all we could do was nod compliantly.
Char kway teow: Two orders please
As it turned out, we ordered so much that by the time the last dish, a huge platter that held the sizzling sting ray, arrived Zio was beginning to groan. Mike from Yonkers, who was seated next to me, however, was unfazed by the assembly of dishes. His secret to enduring the onslaught of food could have been his propensity to rise to a semi-standing position while piling portions from each dish onto his already congested plate; the physical act quite possibly serving to allow his stomach to stretch, creating almost unlimited consumption capacity.
Though he made a few disparaging remarks about the rapidity of the service as if he would be happy with more deliberate service, Eugene held no grudges to the sting ray, which was smothered in a spicy, muddy brown sauce, and dug in dutifully.
The clams were seemingly roasted in, as the menu suggested, a golden aromatic paste, and drunken or not, an excellent recommendation. There was so much that when a big bowl of soup arrived, we wondered if we actually ordered it believing that our waitress might have just “thrown it in” thinking we wouldn’t know any better. But in fact, it was the fiery hokkien udang mee and we indeed included it.
Hokkien udong mee
Quantity certainly did not detract from the Taste Good’s quality and the restaurant certainly lived up to its confident moniker.
And when all, with the exception of the bottom half of the sting ray had been devoured, Eugene looked at his watch, which he had been doing throughout our meal and then nodded. “All that food eaten in about a hour,” he said. An impressive feat, but from the look on Eugene’s face, we could do better.
Buddha BBEEQ
1750 Second Ave
New York, NY
Zio was grumpy. He had a six am wake up call courtesy of the newest tenant in his Connecticut refuge, his three-year old grandson. And a morning watching Noggin with little Sammy just added a layer of lethargy to his already foul demeanor. But despite the indignities he endures on a daily basis, his dedication to the cause was too great to let his hardships stop him from the job at hand. Ever since the Uncle George’s debacle many years ago, Zio, when his turn arose, openly sought assistance in picking an appropriately grimy, but authentic eating establishment for our group. Feeling confident, maybe even a little cocky, he tackled his most recent assignment pretty much on his own.
After doing his research, he settled on an Asian-themed barbecue place in the unlikely, for our group, neighborhood of the Upper East Side. According to all internet accounts, Buddha Bbeeq was “good for groups,” but upon entering, the only groups the tiny place could be good for were groups of no more than two. Still, luck was on our side and a couple agreed to move to another table so we could squeeze together a table for four with a smaller table fitting the six of us into the too cozy confines.
Good for groups?
Though for Gerry, cozy was a codeword for torturous. In an effort to combat an impending midlife crisis, Gerry solicited the aide of his football-playing son’s personal trainer to reclaim a body ravaged by a variety of vices including cheap beer, vodka, and deep fried chitterlings. To his credit, for a man past his prime, the trainer was working miracles on him. But it seems that on the day we were to meet, he and Mike from Yonkers, who inserted himself as Gerry’s workout partner, were egged on by said sadistic trainer to don boxing gloves and put on a poor man’s “Fight Club” exhibition. The result was an obviously lucky punch by Mike from Yonkers that landed just inside the chest protection gear and finding one of Gerry’s ribs. The doctor’s diagnosis was vague, but Gerry swallowed some codeine-laced Tylenol and showing his grit, joined us never complaining about the tight seating. And what made it worse for Gerry, I’m sure, was seeing Mike from Yonkers bounding in, unscathed from their battle and with barely a nod of remorse for the damage he inflicted.
In the takeout and quick-turnover haven of the Upper East Side, the servers at Buddha Bbeeq were not used to the dallying of our group and their consternation was obvious. In an effort to ease their anxieties, Zio ordered us a few of the restaurant’s smaller dishes including as the menu proclaimed “tasty twists on the ever popular favorite” Japanese sushi rolls. Instead of traditional Japanese sushi, the rolls were prepared “Korean-style” stuffed with barbecued beef, ham and egg, and shrimp salad. They were substantial, but lacking in distinction and the scallion pancakes and dumplings we sampled, including one with beef and kimchee, suffered from the same dilemma.
The view from Buddha Bbeeq.*
The bbeq plates offered a variety of globe-trotting Asian styles including the restaurant’s obvious slant, Korean, along with a Thai red curry, teriyaki, Vietnamese lemongrass, and a Hawaiian version “sweetened with pineapple juice” which no one dared order. Rick and Mike from Yonkers, knowing that it’s always best to stick to the closest possible ethnic origins of the restaurant, ordered the “K” bbeeq, Korean barbecue beef over rice while Zio and Eugene were a bit more adventurous trying the peanut lime version, beef for Zio, chicken for Eugene, that came with a thickened unsightly sauce that drenched their respective meats.
Beef rice bowl
I bypassed the barbecue and like Rick and Mike went on the Korean theme with the Korean rice bowl, also known in Korean restaurants as “bim bam bap,” but instead of beef opted for chicken, while Gerry, for possibly the first time ever, admitted that he “wasn’t really very hungry,” and deferred his ordering to me. Thinking a spicy dish would distract him from his throbbing ribs, I ordered him the chili peanut noodles with shrimp.
When the food arrived, no one complained. The portions were large and the meals somewhat flavorful, but, judging from Eugene’s uncharacteristic silence after sampling his dish, we knew our high standards had not been met. In my experience, any efforts at melding various ethnic styles usually results in a watered down version of the original. And that was the case at Buddha BBeeq; the Korean dishes were good, but not as good as you would find in a decent Korean restaurant while the Thai and Vietnamese, again, passable but not nearly at the quality those particular ethnic restaurants usually offer. The best you could say about Buddha BBeeq was that it offered solid Upper East Side takeout. And despite the disappointment, Zio was almost cheerful knowing that, spending a solitary night in his Astoria love nest, he would not have to endure an early morning marathon of “Go Gabba Gabba” and “Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!”.
Zio’s nightmare
*Buddha Bbeeq survives despite the continuous presence of the Second Avenue subway construction project just outside their restaurant.
World of Taste Seafood and Deli
R.I.P
World of Taste Seafood Deli: Circa 2008
After several years now of conducting these eating excursions, most of us in our group understand that it is imperative to always double check on the status of the establishment chosen. And the more obscure it might be, the more diligence required. An African restaurant ballyhooed by the Village Voice in, say February, might no longer exist by July. This time it was my turn to choose our destination and always looking out for the oft-neglected food borough, the Bronx; I did my research and came up with the name of a Vietnamese restaurant situated in an unlikely location on a stretch of Jerome Avenue which runs just below the tracks of the elevated number 4 subway line.
The restaurant was named Phung Hung and, a few days before we were to meet, I called and spoke to someone who seemed to confirm I had found the right place. On the date of our scheduled dinner, I remembered at the last minute to call once more—just to be absolutely sure of its authenticity. This time there was confusion. Was this not, Phung Hung? Had I dialed a wrong number? Whoever answered lost patience with me and hung up. I quickly went onto the computer and typed in the address and found another option; a restaurant called World of Taste Seafood Deli. I called again and was told that the same restaurant was formerly called Phung Hung but its name had been changed. The man I spoke to also told me that he would hold a table for six for “Mr. Brian.”
Seeing the restaurant on the corner of Jerome and 193rd St, I realized why the name was changed. There were photos of fried fish, chicken wings, fries and other fast food Chinese items displayed in the window. It was an appeal to the demographics of the neighborhood to offer what was familiar and safe, but, thankfully, the Vietnamese menu was also available. Gerry and Mike from Yonkers had already arrived and seated at a small round table in the stifling, Vietnam-like climate of the restaurant where a ceiling fan and an enormous window air conditioner cooled only those in their immediate vicinity.
Jerome Avenue
Gerry had a six-pack of beer in a brown paper bag and, at first, was brusquely told he couldn’t bring it into the restaurant. A moment later one of the proprietors, a woman of color who seemed out of place working in an Asian restaurant, asked Gerry if he “talked to David earlier.” Gerry, understanding that it was I who must have spoken to David, who, we learned, was the person I contacted on the phone making the reservation for “Mr. Brian” nodded and, immediately, was granted permission to bring and drink the beer, as long as it was in a paper cup. Apparently “Mr. Brian” carries some serious influence.
Eugene was a late scratch and Zio and Rick were on their way. While we waited, I noticed that most of the cooking in the open kitchen was done by two tiny elderly Vietnamese women. The possibilities of what was to be created in the kitchen by their experienced and no doubt skilled and comforting hands immediately excited me. The anticipation along with the heat combined to form a growing sheen of perspiration around my face and neck. The proprietor, who mentioned she was David’s partner, must have noticed and offered us a table directly in front of the huge, loud air conditioner.
Zio, a dreamy, whimsical smile on his face, walked in just as we moved. Before even sitting down, he announced that he grew up in the surrounding Kingsbridge neighborhood. Glancing around the restaurant but not really looking at anything, he began: “My grandfather had a fruit stand a few blocks up. . .there was a diner right over there on the corner. . .my father used to send money to relatives in Italy. . .” and on and on the reminiscing went. It took a jolt from the Vietnamese iced coffee he ordered, sweetened liberally with condensed milk, to revive him from his stupor and begin concentrating on the present business of stuffing his face.
As we expected, Rick was lagging behind; this time caught in Yankee Stadium traffic. We knew the scenario and began ordering with the assurance that Rick would be grateful with the scraps from our first course. We started with three “banh mi,” Vietnamese sandwiches served in a fresh loaf of French bread. The sandwiches were individual-sized but big enough to share knowing that there would be more. . .much more to come. The three sandwiches arrived looking like they belonged on the cover of Saveur, a glossy food magazine I used to scribble for. The three were banh mi xi mai, a Vietnamese meatball hero smothered in a bright red chili sauce, mi thit heo nuong, stuffed with grilled pork, pate, with sprigs of cilantro and cucumber peeking out, and the phung hung, looking like a traditional hero with cold cuts of ham, ground pork, and pate, but with the added zest of cilantro, chilies and soy sauce. The only complaint about the banh mi came from Zio who lamely claimed he could not negotiate breaking the phung hung version into sharable pieces without obliterating the beautifully prepared sandwich. But it was accomplished and though difficult, we were able to save a few samples for Rick who had just arrived.
Beautiful Banh Mi
Though not much deters us from over indulging on our food adventures, that there was nothing over six dollars on the menu made it practically impossible for us to resist what was to be a very public display of gluttony. We circled numbers that corresponded to the items on the menu and I brought it up to the proprietor who made it clear that she wanted me to read off the items by the number not by the Vietnamese name. There was number 25, country style beef cubes sautéed with scallion and onions, number 16, spring rolls with grilled pork and vegetables piled on rice vermicelli, number 30, shrimp with string beans, scallions and onion in a satea sauce, number 10, seafood with rice noodles soup, 35, beef noodle soup Hue style, and number 33, sautéed mixed vegetables. Once she wrote all the numbers down, needing two pages of her small pad to do so, she began barking out the numbers to the two Vietnamese women who immediately got to work.
Seafood noodle soup
“You know, they filmed Marty around here with Ernest Borgnine,” Zio blurted over the noise of the air conditioner.
Rick looked at him and as if on cue, shouted back, “You’re just a fat, little man. A fat, ugly man.”
Zio concurred: “I’m ugly! I’m ugly! I’m ugly!”
What do you wanna do tonight? I dunno. What do you wanna do?
The screen test ended when the parade of platters began arriving and even with two round tables pushed together, there was barely enough room to hold them all. So impressive was the display that it drew a comment from two diners who had come in after playing basketball at nearby St. James Park, the man shaking his head in awe while his female companion gazed incredulously. “With all that food, I was saying you all must be food critics,” the male basketball player said.
I waved his assertion off. “No, being critical about food just gets in the way of our eating,” I replied.
And there wasn’t much to be critical about at World of Taste Seafood Deli. If you wanted to be picky, the sautéed dishes; the vegetables and shrimp were nothing out of the ordinary, but maybe that was because we had become jaded after the remarkable banh mi, the spicy, beef noodle soup, and the seafood with rice noodles. Closing time was 8:30 and the staff was cleaning up while we were still picking through the remains of our feast. As they were leaving with their take out order, the basketball players glanced one last time at the devastation we created on our combined two tables and shook their heads in awe.
It hadn’t gotten any cooler once we vacated the World of Taste Seafood. Zio got that gaze on his face again and pointed to the train tracks above us. “Martin Sheen and Tony Musante—you know the movie. . .**“ But before Zio could finish telling us about the movie, the uptown number 4 train rumbling above us cut him off.
Sheen and Musante frolicking on the subway in the Bronx.
*World of Taste Seafood Deli sadly closed in 2009. Soon after, Pho Mien Tay, another Vietnamese restaurant opened in the same spot, but was short-lived followed by Pho Saigon #1, which also did not last. Across the street is another Vietnamese restaurant, called Com Tam Ninh Kieu that has survived the turmoil at 2614 Jerome Avenue that specializes in Pho but without its quirky charms or the magnificent banh mi. Now, at 2614 Jerome there is a nail supply store with signs in Vietnamese.
**The title of the movie Zio was reminiscing about can be found in the title of this post.
World of Taste Seafood Deli: Circa 2011
Treichville
R.I.P
The path to Treichville was a circuitous one. Originally Rick’s pick and scheduled a month earlier, Rick chose the much anticipated Rudar Social Club in Astoria, but the date coincided with the closing of his newly acquired money pit in Atlantic Highlands. At first Rick did not think this would be a conflict; that the closing would be over before our dinner and it was, but seriously challenging his loyalty to his brothers in gluttony, he decided instead to take his lawyer out for a drink. That, coupled with Zio being stricken with a stomach virus so potent that just the thought of Croatian cuisine made him retch, led to us cancelling at the last minute. It took a month to reschedule and again, the Rudar Social Club was Rick’s choice, but this time thoughtfully, giving us a week’s notice, cancelled.
A restaurant posing as a car service
This time, instead of rescheduling, we shifted the choice to Mike from Yonkers, who was next in line. The short notice sent him into a minor panic and he quickly decided on African place in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. The problem, Eugene immediately pointed out via email, was that the place had closed several months earlier. After a few days, a replacement was chosen, a soul food joint in the heart of the trendy East Village, but after deliberating with an anonymous member of our group, Mike from Yonkers determined that the soul joint didn’t fit our criteria. For some reason, and after several years with our group, Mike was still struggling to comprehend our guidelines, loose as they are. But with a little counseling, again from the same anonymous source, he finally came up with another Treichville. The Treichville we were visiting was not the one in the heart of Cote d’Ivoire, but in East Harlem, just a few steps from legendary Patsy’s Pizzeria.
Temptation around the corner.
From the outside on a block on east 118th Street, Treichville looked more like a car service operation than a restaurant. The only hint was the subtle sign above the door with the restaurant’s name and the proclamation of African cuisine. The windows were barred and a neon sign behind them flashed “Open 24 Hours.” I arrived early and hungry and Patsy’s was a serious temptation, but I thought it best to display some willpower. Soon the others arrived and we piled into the tight, low-ceilinged quarters where we were the only diners. The specialty here was West African, specifically the Ivory Coast, and the menu printed in both English and French. Drinks were the usual, ginger beer or sorrel, both homemade and satisfying. But it was the soups on the menu that interested us the most, particularly the pepe (pepper) soup; a combination of crab, cow feet, lamb, and tripe. The host/waiter announced that the pepe was not quite ready yet, but after nudging him wavered and said he would bring out soups for all. While he was at it, we asked for a sampling of Treichville’s specialties—kind of the poor man’s version of a “chef’s tasting menu.” He gladly obliged.
The five of us were first served huge bowls of soup with Eugene, Mike from Yonkers, and Gerry getting the pepe while Zio and I were given chicken soup. Noticing immediately that Zio and I were slighted, our host brought out two more bowls of the pepe. I took a few spoonfuls of the chicken soup, which was more like a stew, enough to gush appreciatively over it and then offered it to the others for tastings while I sampled the pepe, which was not quite what was described in the menu—there was no meat, just fish, crab, mussels, and shrimp—more like a bouillabaisse with the sub-tropical addition of a whole, scotch bonnet chili pepper which Eugene ate inducing a bout of spasmodic hiccupping. Following Eugene’s lead and not knowing the pepper was a spicy garnish and not for eating, Mike from Yonker’s ate his and soon a fine sheen of sweat had formed on his forehead.
Meanwhile, despite my warnings to Zio to just taste both of the soups and not try to finish them all, I noticed the bones of the chicken from his soup picked clean and lined up neatly against the side of his now empty bowl and that he was busy extracting a piece of meat from a slender crab claw that was in his fish soup. When I warned him again, he threw up his hands defiantly. “What do you want me to do? I can’t just leave it!” he said.
Once the soup was cleared, we were all given salads with homemade vinaigrette which helped take down the heat from the soups. Following the salad, two platters of whole fish appeared; one, according to our host was grilled, the other fried, though I could tell no difference. Both were doused in a room temperature onion/mustard sauce and served with a mashed-like condiment of cassava and plantain called foutou. The procession continued with a platter of lamb shank, beef, and grilled chicken, all covered with the same onion/mustard concoction. With the addition of platters each of couscous, cassava, and white rice, our combined tables were overflowing.
The fish, whether grilled or fried, was perfectly moist and tender while the lamb shank, more than enough even for our colossal appetites. The beef and chicken were both fine, but really just pure excess at this point and after a few bites of the fish, I heard Zio groan repeatedly. “I can’t,” he stammered, “No more.” And so, for the first time in our long history of dinners together, Zio was done. He was not alone. We were all pretty much done—the Treichville “chef’s tasting menu” just too much for us. So finally, with Treichville, despite the roundabout way he got to it, Mike from Yonkers nailed the concept of our group and deserved the accolades we heaped upon him at dinner’s end.
*Hoping to return to Treichville a few months ago, I came across thie signs, in duplicate, plastered underneath Treichville’s security gate and on its door.
I would have settled for a “C” grade, but this…
Grand opening of Jireh Meal: Home of the $3 meal on Adam Clayton Powell Blvd., between 123rd and 122nd Streets. Sponsored by the Jireh Meal Ministry: http://www.thejirehmeal.org.
And today’s Double Dip Special is:
Minni’s Shabu Shabu
131-17 38 Avenue
Flushing
It had been almost three months since we last convened and in the midst of deadlines, I never reported on the dinner. The place was called Minni’s Shabu Shabu (www.minisshabushabu.com) in Flushing, Queens and though my memory of that night has blurred somewhat over the past few months, I do remember that it was very cold and the steaming hot pots offered at Minni’s were a relief. Eugene, going on the advice of a friend, had chosen the brightly lit restaurant where each table had a built-in hot pot filled with broth. There were on/off switches with a temperature control and each of us was given a platter of raw vegetables, two uncooked eggs, some starchy provisions we could not immediately identify, and rice noodles. Apparently, it was up to us to cook the food, but the combination of technical savvy and culinary knowledge of what goes into a shabu shabu (the meal created with the hot pots) was complicated and looking to Eugene, who supposedly researched the place, for any advice was futile.
The waiter who was busy buzzing between tables in the crowded restaurant quickly helped us get started; we had to order a meat or fish to be cooked in the broth along with the accompanying vegetables and noodles. The offerings were plentiful—lamb, pork, beef, clams, lobster, squid, tripe; all of it making it even more confusing. I kept it simple by ordering beef, but the waiter mistakenly thought I wanted the tripe and beef so along with thinly sliced raw round steak, I had a honeycomb of tripe as well which I quickly donated to Zio’s already enormous platter of uncooked shellfish and vegetables.
Ingredients for the hot pot
After dousing the beef into the boiling broth, the red meat immediately turned a sallow gray and tasted as lifeless as it looked. Maybe adding a few of the vegetables would help? I threw some cabbage and the eggs in the broth and then wandered to a buffet where a variety of sauces were available; hot chili sauce, soy, sweet barbecue, a green, coriander sauce, red tofu and countless others. Without any guidance, I began adding a little of all of them. The result was more flavor, but minus any distinction.
The color of…
All of us were pretty much clueless on the art of making shabu shabu with the notable exception of Mike from Yonkers who was deliberately adding ingredients; slowly layering his soup with flavors. Whether it was an act or something he was a natural at, we will never know, but he certainly looked good doing it. So, though most of my broth had evaporated and the ingredients already devoured, I mimicked Mike from Yonkers’ technique, and, surprisingly, the last remnants of the soup was now a hearty, flavorful meal. Next time I visit a shabu shabu place, I’ll be better prepared though, in all honesty, that next time won’t be soon.
We last visited Minni’s in Flushing in 2008. It still goes strong and now, I believe, deserves a return trip.
How much is the tax for a .99 cent slice of pizza? Not that I care. I’m willing to do my part.
Fried Neck Bones...and some home fries 