Pelaccio and I enjoy a ‘Lady and The Tramp’ moment.

Last summer I had the pleasure of showing my pal Zak Pelaccio progenitor of the Fatty Crab Empire around some of the Southeast Asian and Chinese spots in what I like to call SEA Elmhurst. One of our stops was the venerable Uncle Zhou Restaurant, a Henanese hand-pulled noodle specialist. As you can see his cold “dial oil noodles ,” are worth fighting over. The thin noodles are splashed with hot oil and dressed in a vinegary, garlicky sauce.

These days Zak has left the Fatty Crew and is hard at work on a new restaurant in Hudson, N.Y. I wish he would come to Queens to hang out again some time. It was he who taught me to roll sticky rice into a ball and use it to mop up the funky fermented fish liquor from som tum at Zabb Elee.To this day whenever I do that in a Thai restaurant the waitress will sometimes ask, “Have you been to Thailand?” To which I respond, “No, just Queens.”

Many thanks to ace shutterbug Zandy Mangold for furnishing the above shot.