Tag Archives: New York City

Winter Warmth Found at Two Steam Tables

25 Jan

 

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Dera, on Lexington Avenue in the neighborhood with the fragrant acronym, Curry Hill claimed the gamut of South Asian cuisines including Bengali, Indian, Pakistani, and Nepali . Was the goat combo different in Nepal than Pakistan? As long is it comes with nan bread, basmati rice, and of course a Coke, that’s a combo that would be hard to beat in any country.

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Beans Punjab-style

For those, and I’m really just talking about Eugene here, who are squeamish about goat or lamb after hearing Agent Starling’s heartfelt confession to Hannibal Lecter, and those slaughtered lambs in Silence of the Lambs, there were plenty of chicken curry options.

Lector

Kidney and fava beans yes: Goat no.

 

Gerry, on the other hand, welcomed the idea of goat. And the gamier the better.

DSC00822Zio would eat goat, kidney, fava beans and duck’s feet if he could. But at Dera he even stooped low enough to try what looked like a cross between Gefilte fish and a very pale matzoh ball. This particular sweet was soaked in milk and from what I could tell tastes best when served with a plastic spoon.

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Our next steam table was on Roosevelt Avenue under the number 7 train in the familiar terrain of Jackson Heights. This one offered meats and more; a modified and more than moderately priced churrascaria. Chosen by Gerry, I quipped to him after he emailed our destination as Aroma Brazil that I could smell the barbecued meats all the way in Harlem. No one even chuckled and how could I blame them.

DSC00827It was too cold to smell anything when we convened inside the small restaurant under the tracks. We warmed up quickly by piling meats, hanger steak, short ribs, roast beef, and sirloin onto our plates. I was careful and actually took two plates, one for the salad bar that included varieties of rice, greens, eggplant, plantains, beans and more and had them weighed separately. At Aroma Brazil you pay by the pound. I was carrying a heavy load and I paid for it in more ways than one.

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Brazilian steam table offerings

Gerry as he usually does, despite whatever ails him, eats more than all of us. After plowing through his sizable mound of meats and vegetables, he pondered out loud that he might get more. I offered him a portion of my dinosaur-sized short rib. He took it without hesitation.

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Rice made with shrimp heads

After Gerry made quick work of the rib and all our plates, with the exception of, who else but Mike from Yonkers, who was slowly gnawing meat off his own short rib, were cleaned, we pondered dessert. Gerry didn’t have to ponder for long; he settled on a tres leche cake while Zio ordered a slice of cassava cake that was as memorable as the shrimp head rice.  Though we offered him tastes, Eugene just watched us fill up on sweets. He had his annual Punta Cana retreat upcoming and couldn’t risk adding any flab to his normally concave belly.

It wasn’t as cold when we exited Aroma Brazil as when we entered. But it was cold enough to want to return to that warm Brazilian steam table well before we would be complaining about the heat.

Dera 

103 Lexington Avenue

Curry Hill (Manhattan)

 

Aroma Brazil

75-13 Roosevelt Ave

Jackson Heights

 

 

 

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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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The Great Chinatown Conflict 2017: Resolved with Rye and Lo Mein

24 Oct

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Gerry was concerned. We had scheduled our monthly food group well in advance. But now there was a sudden conflict. The Yankee fans among us, Zio, Gerry, and me were in a quandary. The fifth game of the knotted American League Championship Series was to be played at 5. We were to meet in Chinatown at a place chosen by me called Noodle Village at 7:30.

“Time to reschedule,” Gerry wrote in an urgent email once the Yankee schedule was confirmed. “We got an important game tomorrow.” He pleaded to reschedule either the next day when there was no game or the following week, but with each suggestion, someone had to drop out.

“Why don’t we meet at a bar in Chinatown, watch the game, see where we are by 7:30 and if the game is still in doubt, stay at the bar and go eat after the game,” I suggested.

Gerry, Mike from Yonkers and Zio liked the idea. Eugene, however, possibly still stewing from the early exit his Red Sox made was not happy. “I will not be going,” he wrote the next day. “I do not want to deal with the nyc traffic and Yankee traffic…”

All of us tried to convince him he could make it to the restaurant in plenty of time or meet us at the bar whether he drove or took the train, but once Eugene makes up his mind about something, there’s not much even the prospect of  a village of Chinese noodles can do to change it.

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The bar, Whiskey Tavern, was a few blocks from Noodle Village, which, on Mott Street, was a few doors from the Chinatown legend of our collective youths: Wo Hop (Obsession Confession).  While Gerry and Mike from Yonkers sipped Redemption Rye, I settled on cold beer as my viewing beverage of choice. The Yankees’ play made it a happy time at the happiest of hours and by 7:30 we were confident enough with the Yankee’s comfortably leading to exit the bar and head to Noodle Village.

Judge

Happiness is fleeting

Passing a line of hungry people waiting up the steps of Wo Hop, we arrived at the equally crowded, Noodle Village. There were no free tables for our group of four and for the first time in our 16 years, we had to wait to eat. But the wait was a short one and it gave us time to follow the remainder of the Yankee game on our cell phones. By the time Mike from Yonkers was served his chicken congee, the Yankees had won, 5-0.

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Chicken congee

I cannot lie that the flavor of the steamed crab meat soup dumplings and fried pork and chive dumplings were possibly enhanced by our baseball joy; they were as good as I have ever eaten. But it wasn’t just me, Gerry was raving over  the squid and pig skin with curry sauce lo mein.

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Squid and pig skin lo mein with curry sauce

Zio had to repeat his order of pork liver and kidney lo mein to the waitress who had a difficult time comprehending that someone of his chalky hue would actually order such a dish. After a few bites from his chopsticks, a strange sound came from his mouth. “Hmmm it has an earthy flavor,” he said. Whether he was referring to the kidney or the pork liver, we did not know.

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Kidney and pork liver lo mein

I kept it simple with a bowl of shrimp wonton soup and a communal plate of Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce and, like everything else at Noodle Village, enjoyed every slurping spoonful.

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Chinese broccoli

Outside, on Mott Street among the familiar black garbage cans that litter the crowded curbside, Zio gave Noodle Village the ultimate compliment. “I’m coming back here,” he said. “And I think I’ll bring the Colonel.” If Zio contemplates bringing his wife, also known as the Colonel, to one of our eclectic destinations, it can’t get much better than that.

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Crab meat soup dumplings

Noodle Village

13 Mott Street

Chinatown

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In the Heights (Hamilton’s) Eating Ecuadorian Food

19 Jul

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“This is the second Ecuadorian restaurant we’ve been to,” Eugene announced to all of us as we sat together in Ecuatoriana, the restaurant chosen by Eugene for our most recent eating adventure.

“What was the first,” I said, testing him.

“Braulio’s and Family,” Eugene responded correctly. I had to give Eugene credit; he did his research (Extending Familia).

Ecuatoriana was on Amsterdam Avenue located a block from a Jamaican restaurant we dined at back in the early days of our food group, meaning the first years of the new century (Cool Jerk).  Back then we were in Harlem but now we were in the “The Heights;” Hamilton Heights to be exact, named as such because of its proximity to the former home of founding father Alexander Hamilton. To be fair, the neighborhood’s moniker was created before Alexander Hamilton achieved excessive notoriety from the monster success of the Broadway show, Hamilton.  To make things even more confusing, the creator of Hamilton, Lin Manuel Miranda, also had a Broadway hit called In the Heights, about a neighborhood a little further north named after another founding father, George Washington. None of this has anything to do with Ecuadorian food so ignore it if you wish.

We were all examining the menus; reacquainting ourselves with the staples of Ecuadorian food; ceviche, steaks, pork chops, hominy, rice, and plantains when Zio boasted to all that he finally got hearing aids. The problem was, none of us could hear his proclamation because Eugene was bellowing about Houston Rocket, James Harden’s new contract.

“$572 thousand per game,” Eugene wailed. “Can you believe that? I’d have to work four years to make that much.”

I looked at Eugene. “Hey, you ain’t doing so bad,” I said, hoping to encourage him to glance at the menu instead of continuing to torment us by whining about James Harden’s riches.

Harden

The presence of a waitress helped spur our ordering and Gerry wasted no time in choosing a mixed seafood ceviche for the group; this one including the exotic “black clams.”

“They’re not clams,” Gerry said, as if he were an expert on Ecuadorian shellfish. “They are really mussels.”

“Why call them clams then?”

Gerry had no answer and I wasn’t sure he was right. But we did both agree on the same dish for our entree; the chaulafan, a fried rice-type of entrée with a mix of meats; sausage and beef, potatoes, plantains, and a scrambled egg all part of the dish. Thankfully the heaviness of the chaulafan was offset by the delicate ceviche, which indeed contained clams, not mussels, in a dark, cool broth. The ceviche was so inviting, Mike from Yonkers was hovering above Gerry hoping to get his spoon in the bowl before those black clams disappeared.

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There are black clams in there somewhere.

A whole red snapper was placed in front of Zio. It was a challenge, but at least he didn’t have to hear anyone or even talk to us as he went to work on it, slowly separating flesh from bone until all that was left was a cleanly picked carcass.

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A snapper for Zio

After the ceviche, Mike from Yonkers still had plenty of room for the fried pork ribs. The addition of white hominy along with mashed potatoes was just to ensure his starch intake was sufficient. Eugene’s pedestrian order of grilled shrimp arrived last, but amazingly he was the first to finish.

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Fried ribs with hominy

On this warm summer night, the streets of Hamilton Heights were brimming with activity and Eugene was impressed not only by his choice of restaurant, but also by the neighborhood. “We should come here more often,” Eugene said.

I wasn’t sure if that was invitation, a plea for more human companionship, or just Eugene making inane conversation. With Eugene, did it really matter?

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Chaulafan

Ecuatoriana

1685 Amsterdam Ave

Hamilton Heights (Harlem)

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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.

Im Ho Tep

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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Guyanese-Style Gizzards Found in the Bronx

12 Apr

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Like a laser directed drone strike, Gerry’s eyes found their target on the menu of the Coconut Palm Bar & Grill  under “chicken gizzards.” There was no talking him down. No dissuading him from taking the risk. It was gizzards he wanted. It was gizzards he was most definitely going to get.

“Jerk chicken wings?”  I offered.

“Sure,” Gerry said.

“What about the chicken dumplings?” I asked, hoping another appetizer would deter him from the gizzards. “She said they were one of the most popular items on the menu.” The she, being the illustrated woman of a waitress we had—her arms decorated in multi-colored tattoos.

“Sounds good,” Gerry said.

“So we’re set?”

“Mmmhmmm as long as we get the gizzards.”

So the gizzards were ordered…along with chicken dumplings and jerk chicken wings. And while Mike from Yonkers and Gerry sipped 12 year old, Macallan Scotch, certainly a first for our frugal food group,  and with soca coming from the sound system and a cricket match on the television, we scoured the menu for our entrees.

We were in the Bronx, under the 6 train tracks in the Castle Hill section of the borough at what was advertised as a Guyanese & West Indian restaurant. Near the bar, I noticed that the Coconut Palm offered “Pepper Pot,” a piquant Guyanese stew of meat parts cooked slowly in a syrup made from cassava called “cassareep.” I’ve had the Grenadian version in Grenada but never had a pepper pot in the Bronx. I was excited by the prospect.

“I’ll have to ask him when he gets back,” the waitress told me when I asked if there really was pepper pot available.

Who she had to ask was the owner of the Coconut Palm and I waited a long time for “him” to come back to learn that, no, there was no pepper pot. But there was “cook up rice,” a mix of rice, beans, chicken pieces; the Guyanese/Caribbean version of fried rice which I promptly ordered.

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Cook up rice

The gizzards arrived on our table, cooked crispy and coated in the light curry spice known as bunjal. Gerry wasted no time getting to them and Zio, also a renowned gizzard man, wasn’t far behind. The jerk chicken wings were tender and, as I expected, not quite as spicy as the authentic Jamaican jerk found on that island. Rounding out the trio of appetizers, the chicken dumplings were more reminiscent of fried wontons than anything Caribbean and were served with a sweet soy sauce.

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The gizzards

Displaying the East Indian influence on Guyanese food, the entrees of salt fish and stewed red snapper, ordered by Gerry and Eugene respectively, came with dhal, a soupy lentil condiment. Zio’s jerk chicken was the extended version of the chicken wings we already experienced, but his came with rice.

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Dhal

“Rice a Roni,” Zio muttered as the bright orange rice with peas was placed in front of him.

Mike from Yonkers was complaining as well. “There are too many bones,” he kept telling us as he gnawed through the “bunjal duck” he ordered, that was prepared in the same lighter version of a curry that the gizzards were.

I had no complaints about my cook up rice; it was what I expected and Mike from Yonkers’ loss was my gain as there were many tiny pieced of duck for me to pick through long after he had given up.

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Stewed snapper

Twelve year old Scotch aside, the Coconut Palm Bar and Grill easily fit into our meager budget and though there were gizzards, orange-colored rice, and numerous tiny duck bones to work around, the food just always seems better when eaten under the elevated subway tracks.

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Chicken dumplings

Coconut Palm Bar & Grll

2407 Westchester Ave

Bronx

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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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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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