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Conquering the Fear of Fusion in Flushing

27 Nov

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I admit I have a fear of food fusion. I see that word in a restaurant’s sub-name and I immediately throw up my own red flags; the food won’t be authentic; it will be a watered down version of what it should be, the restaurant wants to have it both ways, and on and on. There are exceptions however and when Zio chose Pho Mekong, a restaurant in Flushing that boasted both Thai and Vietnamese food, I really wasn’t concerned. The distinction between the food of Thailand and that of Vietnam to many westerners, myself included, is a small one; most don’t even know the difference.

The restaurant was located in the back of strip mall surrounded by a Korean market and a Korean family barbecue restaurant where you ordered your raw meat by the bulk to cook on the table top grills.

“Maybe we should just go here,” Zio said as he gazed at the Korean signage of the barbecue restaurant. “It’s much more exciting than Vietnamese or Thai.”

Zio was getting cold feet about his choice. Maybe he also had that inner fear of fusion. I told him that it’s always best to trust your initial instincts. He did and as we assembled after our Thai/Vietnamese dinner, again gazing at the Korean Family Barbecue restaurant, Zio’s instincts proved right. Despite the fusion of the two cuisines, the dinner was a success.

The soup of the house, of course, was Pho and we noticed many local diners in the restaurant were happily slurping from the gallon-sized bowls of soup layered with brisket or thin slices of round steak, cooked in the hot broth. None of us, however, chose to order what was the specialty, at least in the restaurant’s name, of the house.

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Fish ball soup

Gerry who was a little under the weather with a stomach ailment braved the trip to Flushing and, displaying even more bravado, ordered fish ball soup and an appetizer of oysters smothered in a rich, dark oyster sauce. Stomach ailment be damned.

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Oysters for whatever ails ya

Tom kha gai, the traditional Thai chicken soup Eugene ordered presented a dilemma. Eugene often crows about his affection for coconut, milk or anything else about it. And tom kha gai is made with a coconut milk base. But it also includes an abundance of mushrooms and there was the dilemma. Eugene, as far as I know has no fear of fusion, but he does have a mushroom phobia. And there they were littered within the silky coconut milk broth. Undeterred, he fished each mushroom out and then proceeded to slurp down what was left of the soup.

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Squid with Thai chilies

Zio’s dilemma was not quite as serious. He had stated from the get go that he was going to order the beef curry stew, but at the last minute, the waiter poised with pen in hand to take his order,  Zio switched to squid with Thai chili sauce. Why, we wondered?

“If I ordered the beef curry stew it would put us over our budget,” he said. “The squid is cheaper.”

No one was counting pennies and if we were that would have left Mike from Yonkers unfazed considering he ordered a whole salmon that, fried and covered in the same chili sauce that was on Zio’s squid, was enough to feed  his own enormous appetite and maybe also that of a very small child.

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Shrimp lemongrass soup with plenty of mushrooms

I also ordered soup; the shrimp lemongrass variety and happily ingested all the mushrooms I found within. To complement the soup, I had a vermicelli salad topped with grilled pork. I wasn’t sure if the salad was Vietnamese or Thai, or some fusion concoction of the two, and, frankly, I didn’t give a damn.

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Vermicelli salad with grilled pork

Pho Mekong

15632 Northern Boulevard

Flushing, Queens

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A Pilgrimage to Queens to Pay Homage to a Falafel King

14 Jun

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“There ought to be a rule that you can’t pick a place in your neighborhood,” Eugene proclaimed as we sat down inside King of Falafel and Shawarma on Broadway in Astoria. Eugene always wants to amend the bylaws of our food group. The problem is, we really don’t have any by laws.

Still, it was a little convenient or maybe lazy even, for Zio to choose a place just a few blocks from his love nest. And coming on the heels of another Middle Eastern restaurant we just visited a month earlier; the Egyptian Tut’s Hub, made it even more puzzling. But we don’t want to get into Zio’s creative yet sometimes garbled brain here. This is about the food and the self proclaimed King of Falafel—whose humble beginnings as a food cart operator sparked his road to royalty. His falafel became so popular he moved up from a cart to a food truck where the lines in Astoria to sample his falafel  circled the block. It’s always good to be the king and it was so good for the King of Falafel that in 2016 he moved into a full-fledged take out restaurant, where we were currently assembled.

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The King’s falafel with humus and baba “ganooj” in the background

Since the falafel is legend here, our group easily decided the best way to sample that and other of the King’s specialties was to order the Mazamez or the King appetizer, a family style sampling of hummus, baba “ganooj,” grape leaves, tabbouleh, spinach pie and, of course, falafel. Instead of the round golf ball-sized falafels I’m familiar with, the King makes his oblong, fried to a dark golden brown and devoid of any grease. I admit to not being a falafel snob, but in my amateurish opinion, the King’s version tasted damn good.

Using the provided pita bread, we easily devoured the platter but then Gerry, whose appetite knows no limit, ordered another starter called Foul, pronounced, I believe as Fool. The Foul was a well spiced stew of fava beans in a hearty sauce that, combined with the other appetizers we just downed, was more than sufficient to appease our enormous appetites. But why stop at the appetizers when there was the shawarma to sample?

A sample of shawarma is one thing, but the weighty mound of chicken and shawarma coated in a very spicy chili tomato sauce layered on top of a king-sized bed of basmati rice, known as the “Omar,” that I ordered was a sample fit for a very large king, falafel, shawarma or whatever. This was a food challenge I knew I would not win.

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The “Omar” comin’

Gerry, however, was up for any challenge and, unfazed by the starters, ordered the most expensive and largest item on the menu: the “Teaser.” This teaser was a gargantuan platter of meats; chicken, shawarma, and kebabs over basmati rice, complimented by two more of the King’s famous falafels. Gerry worked through the meats meticulously and before Mike from Yonkers could even get halfway through his falafel platter, Gerry was done.

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The “Teaser”

Keeping his mouth shut from the spanking his Red Sox were getting from the Yankees, Eugene sullenly feasted on what was called the “Big Dady,” described as a “delightful mix of chicken and beef kabob over rice.” Whatever it was, Eugene showed no delight in his meal—but with Eugene that did not mean that he didn’t thoroughly enjoy it. You just had to ask him.

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The Big “Dady” for the Big Papi fan.

After the long two block journey from his love to the King of Falafel, Zio’s appetite was not as it could be. Still, he had no difficulties finishing his beef kebab platter. And we expected no less.

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Beef kebabs on Basmati rice

Trying to hide my embarrassment, I signaled for a takeout container; a first for me in the 15 years our group had been stuffing their faces at various restaurants in New York’s boroughs and suburbs. Piling the Omar into the container and securing the lid tightly, I departed the King of Falafel and Shawarma with enough in my bag for a happy Middle Eastern reprise. But only after I digested the one I just finished, which most likely meant in maybe 48 hours.

King of Falafel & Shawarma

3015 Broadway

Astoria

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The Fateer Feast on Steinway Street

17 May

 

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“Is pigeon on the menu,” I asked Gerry after he announced his choice; an Egyptian restaurant on Steinway Street in Astoria named Tut’s Hub.

“No pigeon,” he answered and all of us in our quirky food group breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Pigeon was on the menu of our last foray, several years ago, to Steinway Street and another Egyptian restaurant (A Night on Steinway Street) . That one didn’t end well and maybe it was because of that greasy pigeon that we never returned to Steinway Street, but by now our informal statute of limitations had long expired and Gerry felt it was time we gave Steinway street another chance.

There was a sheet of water rushing down the glass façade of Tut’s Hub. The waterfall was part of the theme-park like restaurant where the five of us dined surrounded by statues of Egyptian gods and goddesses as if entombed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s, Temple of Dender. I was hoping for Im Ho Tep to show us to our table but instead we were greeted by a boisterous woman in jeans and a baseball cap. You can’t have everything.

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No mummies at Tut’s Hub

While archaeologists were busy in the back restoring the hieroglyphics on the inner walls of the restaurant, we sat close to the waterfall and perused the menu. Despite the kitschy surroundings, the food offerings looked authentically Egyptian. I didn’t bother to make a suggestion instead leaving the ordering to Gerry, with Mike from Yonkers in consultation.

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The Gold Chair was off limits.

We started off with Kushari, a mix of elbow macaroni, lentils, fried onions, and a tomato-vinegar sauce that prompted Zio to mutter: “What is this? noodle roni?”And as it turned out, the Kushari, though it arrived first, was least of all the dishes we were to sample in Tut’s temple that night.

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Kushari a.k.a. “noodle roni.”

Next came baba ghanoush with a basket of warm pita which we made quick work of along with two bowls of mulukyiah, a pureed soup of greens in a salty chicken broth that also went well with the pita bread. Soon, though, Eugene and I gave up on the pita and used our spoons to slurp the soup.

“And now we get deep dish pizza,” Zio remarked when the pastrami fateer, a pie stuffed with Tut’s Hub’s homemade Egyptian pastrami and veggies arrived on our table.  Zio wasn’t the only pizza snob at the table; none of us had any use for what might be found in a Pizza Hut in Indianapolis, but the Pastrami fateer was unlike any deep dish pizza we had ever had. It was so good Zio could be heard making strange noises of satisfaction as he feasted on the pie.

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Pastrami fateer

Tut’s mixed grill, chicken, lamb, sausage, and beef kabobs served on rice pilaf, and another fateer, this called Hawawshi containing spiced beef and pickled turnips that gave it an unusual and somewhat bitter taste, rounded out our “family-style” entrees.  Spoiled by the magnificent pastrami fateer, the Hawawshi, with the inclusion of those slightly bitter turnips, was an acquired taste—one that we soon acquired with Mike from Yonkers making sure to snag the last slice.

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Hawawshi fateer

Though by now, more than well fed, we decided to let the fateer feast continue ordering a “mixed nuts” variety for dessert. With Mike from Yonkers and his enormous appetite gone, there was more of the sweet pie, dusted with confectioner’s sugar and sprinkled with pistachios, raisins and coconut flakes, for the rest of us—as if we needed it. And, after consuming every last bit of crust and pistachios, apparently we did.

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And more fateer…the mixed nut variety

Tut’s Hub

30-91 Steinway St.

Astoria

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A Taste of Heaven (and a little bit of hell) on Northern Boulevard

20 Feb

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After last month’s “disaster” in Port Chester and as the designated Grand Poobah of our now 15-year-old food group,  I quickly signed into order a temporary ban on Mexican restaurants for our group. No more tacos. No more enchiladas. No more grand volcanoes until further notice. Despite a mini-protest by the sudden activist, Eugene, no one dared question my motives or intentions. Eugene soon fell into line and Mike from Yonkers, whose turn it was to choose our next destination stuck to the ban and chose a Korean restaurant in Flushing’s Koreatown called Joah. While we have had enough of guacamole for awhile, we were starved for bulgogi and bibimbap.

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The Grand Poobah

I arrived early and had time for a beer, so I stumbled into a non-descript bar across the street from Joah. When I entered, the few heads in the bar turned to stare at me as if I were some sort of immigrant life form they had never seen before. There was a Korean couple at one end of the bar snuggled close to each other sharing cherry tomatoes and a bottle of Grey Goose and a lone older Korean man with three empty Coors’ Light bottles in front of him, two of the Korean female bartenders huddled around him lovingly. One of the bartenders reluctantly broke away to see what I wanted. I mentioned beer and she looked at me quizzically as if she didn’t understand what I said. And then she mimicked my words; her English almost non-existent. I dared not ask what type of beers were available and just went ahead and ordered a Heineken. She nodded and returned with a glass, a bottle of Heineken and a small dish of roasted peanuts. As I started in on the beer and the peanuts a loud wail ensued seemingly out of nowhere. I turned to see the man with the cherry tomatoes and Grey Goose bottle gripping a microphone. He was soulfully crooning into the microphone, the vodka fueling his passion as he sang along with the Korean pop tune. I made sure to applaud his performance politely when he finished and then, trying not to look too stressed, downed the beer as fast as I could and got out of there before I had to hear more karaoke, Korean or otherwise.

The quiet when I arrived at the sparsely populated Joah was appreciated. Zio waddled in a few minutes later and we sat and took a look at the menu which was a colorful notebook loaded with non-traditional Korean dishes. Where was the bulgogi? Where was the bibimbap? Instead there was page devoted to “hamburger steak,” including Turkish hamburger steak and hamburger steak and sausage. There was also a lengthy section of the menu on risottos and pastas; just what was expected in a Korean joint.

“You gonna get pasta, Eugene?” I asked him.

“No, I’m gonna get risotto,” he replied, surprising me as he ordered the “Gondre” seafood risotto in a tomato sauce.

“That’s what I was gonna order,” Mike from Yonkers whined.

“No one’s stopping you,” Eugene answered. And no one did. Both ordered the same risotto in a Korean restaurant.

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Korean risotto

I quickly decided that the Korean version of Italian food might be problematic to an Italian food snob like me, so instead focused on something I had never seen before called “Eggs in Heaven OR Eggs in Hell.” The difference between heaven and hell in this case meant that the eggs were either prepared in a cheese cream sauce (heaven) or in a tomato broth (hell). Though the idea of hell always sounds edgier, more exciting, I opted for more mundane heaven; eggs in a Korean made tomato sauce just did not appeal to my half Italian sensibilities.

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Eggs in heaven

Gerry wasted no time ordering the army stew, a soup of bacon, fish cake, sausage and noodles in the same, dark red tomato broth that coated Eugene and Mike from Yonkers’ risotto. “It’s a little sweet,” all of them, including Zio, whose spicy pork plate over rice was also red in color, intoned and I agreed after taking a bite of Mike from Yonkers’ risotto.

There was nothing sweet, however, about my eggs in heaven. “Make sure you mix it all up,” the waiter told me as he planted the very hot bowl in front of me. I did what he said, the eggs cooking in the hot cheese and cream sauce, all of it easy to scoop up with the saltine crackers and pieces of Italian bread that decorated the bowl. The bits of bacon in the eggs added much needed salt to the otherwise bland, yet somewhat comforting dish.

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Though we came expecting Korean food normalcy, we experienced something much different. The results may not have been what we wanted, but the adventure most definitely was. In that regard, Mike from Yonkers’ pick of Joah was a big time winner.

Joah

161-16 Northern Blvd

Flushing, Queens

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Dining on Diversity Plaza on the Dawn of a Dark Age

22 Nov

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“Did you know this was once a porno palace,” Zio told us, gesturing to a marquee that now headlined Ittadi Garden and Grill, the Bangladeshi restaurant he chose for us on this occasion. We were assembled around a small picnic table on 37th Road, a block closed to traffic between 74th and 73rd Streets in Jackson Heights that is now a place where tables and chairs are set up and locals can sit and chat in a car-free zone.  How Zio knew of such things we didn’t ask.

“I miss those porno palaces,” I said.

“I don’t.” Gerry shook his head. “It’s much better now. You can get your porno right at home.”

“But what about the people who used to work at those places?” Eugene questioned. “The ticket takers, the people who cleaned up, the projectionist. Now they don’t have jobs.”

“Yeah, someone should do something about that,” I said. “We need to make porno great again.”

While we were discussing the golden years of pornography, a man in a red jumpsuit (courtesy of the Jackson Heights/Corona Business Improvement District) came and folded up our table—37th Road was apparently closing for the evening, at least in terms of the outdoor café it had been. Still, men in traditional, Indian and Pakistani clothing along with many wearing jackets and ties, lingered, smoking cigarettes and sipping tea, standing now instead of sitting. Bengali, Arabic, and Hindi blared from the nearby stores. No wonder the block was also referred to as “Diversity Plaza.”

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Diversity Plaza

The removal of our table was a signal that we should stop lingering and start eating, so we made our way into Ittadi Garden, down a narrow aisle and past a long counter of prepared foods behind glass and kept warm on steam tables. A man with a very wide smile and wearing a hair net guided us to a table. “What do we do here,” Eugene asked Zio. He wanted to know if we ordered from a menu or chose from the offerings under glass on the steam tables.

Zio, assuming the heavy burden that comes with making a pick for our group, got up to inquire about the ordering procedures. He returned a few minutes later with our host with the hair net. We were to follow him and point to what we wanted under glass and then our food would be brought to us. The offerings were staggering and we had no idea what most of what was in those steam trays. I had my eye a mound of rice with pieces of goat meat and whole hard boiled eggs labeled goat biryani, but then, like Zio and Eugene, pointed to the restaurant’s combo of rohu, a carp, that was sliced and cooked with squash and spices. With the combo we chose a vegetable—spinach, mixed vegetables and sauteed papaya. We also added two orders of garlic nan. Gerry was the only one among us who deviated from the fish, instead ordering what looked like mash of shrimp in their shells in a peppery stew of unidentifiable greens.

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A few of the unidentifiable foods under glass

We returned to our seats and almost immediately our food, delivered on paper plates and with plastic utensils, began to arrive at our table. With our orders there were two mountains of white rice and a bowl of lentil soup we were supposed to share among the four of us. Our table was so crowded we had to put one of the platters of rice and the bread on the bench next to where I was sitting.

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Rohu fish and plastic utensils

Our host with the hair net returned, smiling broadly and inquiring if everything was all right. “Do you want more bread? More rice? Soup?”

We decided on another bowl of soup and with it he brought a salad of iceberg lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, and topped with tiny green chili peppers. Using the plastic fork to put some of the salad on my plate, I made the mistake of also letting one of those peppers camouflage itself within the greens and eventually into my mouth. The burn was intense and water wasn’t helping to put out the fire. I began to shove rice into my mouth and then another piece of bread before the paid subsided.

“Pass me a slice of that pizza before you eat it all,” Zio grumbled.

“It’s nan,” Gerry corrected him.

“Indian pizza. Give it here.” Zio’s small hands reached for it greedily.

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Bangladeshi papaya

Once our table became strewed with the remnants of our meal; pieces of rice, salad, yellow papaya, and spinach, we followed the host with the hair net to the dessert section of the restaurant and picked out a few “sweets” including two pieces of syrup soaked gulab jamun; the others were tasty but unidentifiable to our not so diverse minds.

When we emerged from the former porno palace, Diversity Plaza was quieter. Despite the holiday lights, the Plaza seemed dark. There was a super moon up there somewhere. We just didn’t see it.

Ittadi Garden and Grill

737 37th Road

Jackson Heights

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The Wurst of Oktoberfest

25 Oct

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When Gerry announced that we were going to a German place in Astoria called Max’s Bratwurst und Bier, I commented that it was apt for an October destination. “It will be like our own little Oktoberfest,” I told him. Not that I knew really what an Oktoberfest was beyond a celebration of German heritage with beer, schnitzel and sausages, and oom-pah music. “And it will please Eugene,” I added, knowing Eugene’s affinity for food festivals.

“Zactly,” Gerry replied.

The small corner bier hall on 30th avenue featured picnic tables in an enclosed porch as well as an interior, dining room. They even provided blankets if the October weather got too chilly while drinking and eating at the picnic tables. To make sure who the blankets were for, there was a sign in the basket that read: “Not for dogs—for humans.”

We were a couple of blocks from two other restaurants our group previously visited, chosen by Zio who lived nearby, including De Mole (The Mole-A in Astoria) and Ukus (A Bosnian Taste in Astoria). Gerry’s choice also was made in deference to Zio who had been under the weather lately. But despite Gerry’s concern, Zio was still too wobbly to make it over to our version of the Oktoberfest from his nearby love nest.

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What’s an Oktoberfest without beer?

The menu at Max’s featured an array of German sausages and a few exotic ones made with alligator and rattlesnake. Keeping in the German spirit, we avoided the exotic and stuck with the traditional. The schnitzel’s offered were a temptation, but since bratwurst was their signature dish, I decided on the “wurst plate,” which offered a choice of two sausages and two side dishes. Mike from Yonkers and Eugene also chose the wurst plate while Gerry veered slightly with the curry wurst, a plate of sliced sausage covered in what was said to be a hot curry sauce. What constitutes hot for Germans, however, is not on the same level as, say, Thai or Indian, so the heat in the curry wurst barely caused Gerry to blink.

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Curry Wurst

Of the many sausages, the two I chose were rindwurst, smoked beef bratwurst, and the grobe baeurnbratwurst, a mild farmer’s sausage. Each of us ordered different varieties but sharing was problematic. Even in the spirit of Oktoberfest, who really wants to share someone else’s sausage?

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The Wurst Plate

What we did share, however, were two orders of the Max’s light, fluffy potato pancakes served with chunky apple sauce and sour cream. And though I do not consider myself a potato pancake aficionado, Max’s were better than any I’ve had during Hanukkah or any other Jewish holiday.

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Potato pancake

As we enjoyed the moist, tender wursts, accompanied by German, vinegar-based potato salad, red cabbage and cold German draft beers like Radeberger Pilsner, Spaten Oktoberfest, and HB original lager, we glanced at the Cubs/Dodgers playoffs on the restaurant’s televisions. At this self made Oktoberfest, there was no oom-pah music or beer maidens in Bavarian garb and for that we were grateful. We did, however, need to finish up in a timely matter, meaning we had to prod Mike from Yonkers to stop with the deliberate little bites. It wasn’t so much that we needed to get home to catch the finale of the baseball game, instead all of us were anxious to witness the third part in that very popular reality show: the presidential debates.

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And as a testament to Max’s wursts, even the unappetizing  reality show  that was our post dinner entertainment, could not erase the good taste of all those sausages.

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4702 30th Avenue
Astoria

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A Few Specialties of a Taiwanese House…Without the Rice

20 Sep

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What do you do when you are on a month-long detox “diet” that pretty much wipes out all of your favorite food groups? No, you can’t have bread or pasta. Sugar, forget about it. Grains of any kind won’t do either. That means no rice—even if it’s healthy and brown. A piece of cheese? Some milk with your coffee? Not a chance. Okay, I’ll eat lots of beans. No you won’t. Not even that trusty legume the peanut. To compensate for all this loss, consuming quantities of organic vodka might get me through the month—that is if alcohol of any kind were allowed.

So that was my predicament when choosing our group’s next eating adventure. Should I just forgo the diet for one day or try to find a cuisine compatible to my food restrictions? Or should I just go with my instincts and pick the best possible place and hope I could make it work for me? Of course that best possible place couldn’t be Mexican or any Latin restaurants. Italian would not work either. Indian, with those delicious breads and rice would be too much of temptation. So I looked to other Asian possibilities and finally settled on a Taiwanese restaurant called, either Taiwanese Gourmet, as it is referred to on Yelp and other internet sites, Taiwanese Cuisine, Inc, as it says on the restaurant’s awning in Elmhurst, Queens, or Taiwanese Specialties, as it reads on the restaurant’s take-out menu. For one day I would not worry what was in the sauces used to prepare the restaurant’s dishes but would stay away from rice, noodles, and anything deep fried with a heavy batter.

“The busy season,” according to Mike from Yonkers kept him from the group on this night, but Zio, Eugene, and Gerry were in attendance and hungry. With Mike from Yonkers absent, Eugene made sure to continually question why Mike from Yonkers wasn’t penalized for ordering a $12 Manhattan at our last get together. “How do you get away ordering a $12 drink?” Eugene asked us incredulously. “And then we all have to pay for it? There’s got to be a rule against that in this group’s by laws.”

Finally, though, Eugene gave it up and concentrated on the multi-page menu even daring to ask the Chinese-speaking waitress, “what’s good here.” That got a roll of her eyes and he decided on the crispy fried chicken while Gerry and Zio were debating on what version of escargot to order. Zio was adamant in his choice of escargot, without the shell, with basil. Gerry was going to order the little snails in the shell with black bean sauce but instead opted for cuttlefish with celery. My choice was the shredded beef with yellow chives—beef and all meats, including pork and most importantly bacon being an integral part of my detoxification.

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Escargot in the middle, sauteed spinach in the back, and cuttlefish and celery on the right.

Since pork was allowed, we started with an appetizer of a pork roll. What wasn’t allowed in my diet was the breaded wrapping the pork roll was encased in. Do I sacrifice my journalistic integrity by not trying what was in front of me? Or do I bite the bullet and take a bite of what was against my diet’s “by laws.” I chose the latter and I am here writing this as healthy evidence that that bite did not throw my detoxification into a tailspin nor did it toss me off the 30-day wagon I was on.

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The forbidden pork roll

The shredded beef with yellow chives was “the best thing we ordered,” according to Eugene and I could not disagree. Though the escargot with basil had a very flavorful sauce, the little mollusks were not as tender as I would have liked causing Zio to question their authenticity. “Are these really escargot?” he wondered.

“Maybe the snails aren’t French?” I replied.

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Shredded beef with yellow chives

While we efficiently devoured our food, large groups of diners waiting to be seated eyed our half-filled round table enviously and before Zio even had a chance to shovel the last escargot into his hungry mouth, a check was placed on our table.

“It took me longer to get here than it did to eat,” Gerry observed after our rushed dinner.

Still nobody was complaining—Zio even hinting that he might return with the Colonel. I wouldn’t mind joining them, but only if by then I can have a little rice with my shredded beef.

Taiwanese Cuisine, Inc

84-02 Broadway

Elmhurst

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The Third Wonder of Woodside Avenue

24 May

 

DSC00548.JPGLittle did we know when we first visited Woodside Avenue in the fall of 2015 and the Filipino karaoke joint, Papa’s Kitchen (Papa’s Karaoke in the Kitchen Blues) that we would return again to this now fabled food boulevard two more times within the same year. We had no idea that there were three food wonders—all within a two and a half block radius—on Woodside Avenue in our food group’ mecca: Queens. I should have picked up on the hint in Zio’s email after I announced Renacer Bolivian (A Beef Rebirth at a Bolivian Restaurant in Queens) as our last destination: “That was gonna be my pick,” he wrote. “I saw it just before we were accosted by the karaoke queen. I guess I’ll go with the Bhutanese place.”

“Bhutanese?” I wasn’t paying attention until we filed out of Renacer and he pointed to the restaurant on the corner. “That place,” he said.

And a month later we were seated in Bhutanese Ema Datsi,  the restaurant on the corner a few doors down from Renacer Bolivian and across the street from Papa’s Kitchen. The restaurant was deserted and the limited decor featured panoramic posters of villages tucked into Himalayan mountain tops.  The menu was separated into three cuisines: Tibetan, Bhutanese, and Indian. Why go to a Bhutanese restaurant and order Indian food? None of us did. In fact, only Mike from Yonkers veered from the intriguing Bhutanese column on the menu when he ordered the Tibetan beef with oyster mushrooms.

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A Bhutanese retreat

We were without Eugene this evening meaning, because of his bizarre aversion to fungi, we were without guilt  in ordering dishes with a plethora of mushrooms.   Not that it would have stopped Mike from Yonkers—or Gerry for that matter—from indulging in the options on the Bhutanese menu. Gerry’s mushroom selection was the specialty of the restaurant, the ema datsi with mushrooms; a stew of vegetables along with the mushrooms and very hot green chilies combined in a mild gooey cheese sauce that was nothing like what you would get on a Philly cheese steak sandwich.

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“Dry” pepper chicken

Before ordering our entrees, however, we got started with two appetizers: the “pepper chicken dry,” a fiery plate of stir fried boneless chicken and peppers, and the sooji deep fried pomfret (fish).

“What’s a pomfret?” Zio inquired of our gracious, yet soft spoken to the extreme, waiter. Could it be that he was fresh off a vow of silence stint at a Buddhist monk training camp? No one knew for sure, but the words he mouthed after Zio’s question were inaudible to all of our aged ears. When the pomfret arrived looking like slightly upscale fish sticks we quickly sampled. One taste and all of us agreed that the pomfret  tasted suspiciously like tilapia—as if tilapia has any taste at all. Thankfully the fish was served with a house made chili sauce which gave it much needed flavor.

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Bhutanese fish sticks

 

Zio and I choose “dry” items on the menu. He went with the dry pork and I tried the dried beef curry “moapa” style. Zio’s appeared first; slices of dried fatty pork belly in a stew of thinly sliced potatoes. “No these aren’t potatoes,” Zio proclaimed after taking a bite. I sampled one. “It’s a radish, ” I told him

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Dried pork

The potato like chunks in my dried beef stew were indeed potatoes but the stew was devoid of the familiar flavor of curry. Not that it mattered; the dish was hearty and fiery enough to sustain a man on a frigid night in the Himalayas. I wondered why the waiter deposited toothpicks on our table along with our platters until I began picking pieces of the dried beef out of my teeth.

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Dry beef stew “moapa” style

Lastly, small bowls of from what I thought the waiter whispered was “seaweed soup” were given to all of us. I took a sip. I had heard correctly. Zio, however, heard nothing.

“I’m not sure if I’m supposed to clean my hands with what is in this bowl or eat it?”

Where do they get seaweed in Bhutan, I wondered aloud. No one answered. No one cared. Sometimes we need to put our heads down and just eat.

After cleaning our platters, our check arrived. We thought we might be helpless without Eugene present to tally up the damage. But there was no damage. We were well below our $20 per person allotment. And for all the very satisfying food we ate, that was a wonder in itself.

Bhutanese Ema Datsi

67-21 Woodside Ave

Queens

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A Beef Rebirth at a Bolivian Restaurant in Queens

20 Apr

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Ernesto put down the guitar he was strumming and wandered over to our table. Besides Ernesto and another man, our group of five were the only people dining at Renacer Bolivian. Seemingly one of the proprietors, Ernesto quickly made it known to us that he had no ownership stake in the restaurant. He was just a loyal Bolivian who came to sing (literally) Renacer’s praises.

“This is the only Bolivian Restaurant in New York,” Ernesto proclaimed. “And the best.”

We didn’t question his knowledge or opinion but welcomed his cheerful enthusiasm for his country and its cuisine. After 14 years of scouring the city and its environs for every ethnic possibility our group had yet to dine at a Bolivian restaurant. And I can’t deny that was the primary factor in making it my choice. My research on the restaurant also explained the restaurant’s name. In Spanish, renacer translates to mean “reborn.” Who or what was reborn was another question. Was it the restaurant? The Bolivian people? It was a question that I did not get an answer to, not that it really mattered.

Similar to other land-locked Andean countries, the cuisine was hearty and with an emphasis on beef and Renacer’s menu was proof of that. Not wasting anytime, Gerry zeroed in on the anticuchos, or sliced beef heart, grilled and served in a peanut sauce as an “aperitivo” while deciding that the best thing to accompany beef heart as his entrée would be the aji de lengua, or beef tongue stew.

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antichuchos

“You want some heart?” Gerry asked Eugene when the charred tender meat grilled on skewers came to the table.

Eugene declined politely, instead opting to sip on a bowl of blanched white peanut soup. “But it don’t taste like peanuts,” Eugene muttered after sipping it.

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Bolivian peanut soup

When his entrée arrived, Gerry prodded Eugene again. “What about some tongue?” he said waving a piece impaled on his fork, coated with tomato sauce and onions.

“No thank you, Gerry,” Eugene responded, trying to avoid looking at the severed beef tongue dangling in front of him and doing a very good job of not rising to Gerry’s bait. It helped that there was an enormous platter of majao camba, bits of dried beef jerky in yellow rice topped by an fried egg in front of him that he could quickly turn his attention to instead.

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Plato paceno

While Eugene was refusing Gerry’s offerings, Mike from Yonkers was slowly dissecting the plato paceno in front of him—thinly grilled steak, a section of white hominy corn on the cob, hearty fava beans and served with a chunk of fried cheese on top. My platter, called soltero, also featured thinly grilled steak, that same cob of white hominy corn and fava beans, but instead of fried cheese, the soltero included a piquant tomato, onion and cheese salad. Before I could dig into the soltero, however, I had to indulge in an apertivo. Despite the protestations of the waitress who was there to recommend some of the better Bolivian selections, I insisted our group share the salchipapas. What other cuisine could feature an appetizer of cut up hot dogs and French fries? Sadly, none of the others shared my enthusiasm for this particular Bolivian apertivo.

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Salchipapas

Zio, whether he wanted to be contrary or not, dared to veer from the beef that populated the menu by ordering the lechon (fried pork chunks).  Thankfully the waitress returned shortly to inform him that there was no lechon available and instead, still resisting the beef, ordered the thimpu, boiled lamb chops topped with an onion sauce and served with potatoes and rice.

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Soltero

As we were waiting, as usual, for Mike from Yonkers to finish, Ernesto began serenading again. He sang to a small table of friends; Bolivians, who, with electronic tablets out, made sure his music was recorded on YouTube. When the song concluded we applauded generously.

“Thank you for coming to this Bolivian restaurant,” Ernesto, the unofficial and unaffiliated host and troubadour said. “And thank you for trying our food. Please come again.”

No matter how we felt about the beef at Renacer Boliviano, Ernesto made us an offer that was just too gracious to refuse.

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Renacer Boliviano

67-03 Woodside Blve

Queens

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The Kare Kare from a Kitchenette in Queens

8 Mar

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When I think of a kitchenette, I think of a small, mini-kitchen equipped with just enough appliances to make a meal. So when Eugene chose Renee’s Kitchenette in Woodside, Queens I was concerned that what came out of that kitchenette couldn’t possibly satisfy our gluttonous crew. But then I thought that maybe the term kitchenette was just another way of calling a restaurant a luncheonette that was also open for dinner. Or was I just too caught up in semantics here?

After a week’s delay caused by a deluge which flooded roads and made transportation to the restaurant impossible, especially for those of our group who travel from Westchester, we finally got to Renee’s and when I saw the size of the restaurant and its kitchen, hardly a kitchenette, my fears were immediately allayed. Compared to another Filipino restaurant we recently visited which boasted a kitchen, not a kitchenette (see https://friedneckbonesandsomehomefries.com/2015/11/23/papas-karaoke-in-the-kitchen-blues/  Papa’s Karaoke in the Kitchen Blues), Renee’s kitchenette was plus-sized, as was the restaurant itself.

The restaurant was busy; filled mostly with Filipinos from the area. Our group of four fit snugly at a back table. After a number of experiences over the years with food from the Philippines, the menu offered regional favorites including the Philippine National Dish: Adobo, made with either pork or chicken. Eugene didn’t need any time to decide that he wanted to show his support to Philippine people by ordering the national dish with chicken. Zio seconded that endorsement by ordering the pork version of the dish.

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pork adobo

Oxtails in any meal are hard for me to resist and here they were included in the Filipino specialty kare kare. I felt guilty bypassing them, but Gerry made it easier on my conscience by ordering the dish and, knowing his generous nature, I was confident he would garnish my plate with at least one of those oxtails. What I traded the kare kare for was an order on the “veggie” side of the menu of ginataang pinakbet. Veggie, apparently at Renee’s meant shrimp and pork—along with a few vegetables. In this case the veggies were green beans and calabaze (pumpkin).

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BBQ combo

While we waited for our entrees we needed something to stuff our mouths with while drinking our Red Horse Filipino beer. We ordered the barbecue meat combo; a giant platter of grilled meats including beef on skewers, sausage, and a particularly moist and tender quarter chicken, that in itself, made Renee’s worth a return trip for.

The adobos, pretty much indistinguishable from one another visually, came to the table first. Both were in bowls swimming in a dark brown vinegar/soy sauce. Then the kare kare arrived, and, as I knew he would, Gerry shared on with me; the oxtail rimmed with fat keeping the meat tender, the broth a mix of peanut butter and soy. The ginataang pinakbet was overflowing with whole shrimp, eyes and head intact, pieces of pork, green beans and pumpkin swimming in a coconut milk and salty shrimp paste broth.

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ginataang pinakbet

It was the off season for sports: football was over, basketball in our town was not worthy of conversation, and baseball teams were just beginning to practice so talk was limited to Republicans and their slapstick debates. Soon, though, talk of presidential politics was enough to curtail our appetites so we ceased, instead concentrating totally on our food which we ultimately made quick work of.

After paying, we gathered on Roosevelt Avenue outside the restaurant. Zio, before he was drowned out by a 7 train rumbling above us, made a telling proclamation. “I would come back here,” he said and then thought for a moment. “I’d even bring the colonel with me.”

A restaurant couldn’t ask for more than that from Zio.

Renee’s Kitchenette

69-14 Roosevelt Ave

Woodside, Queens

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