At first glance it looks like a chicken burger on steroids.
As the self-proclaimed culinary king of Queens I’ve made something of a cottage industry of hating on Brooklyn, particularly the legions of kombucha-swilling beard-sporting gastrohipsters. The notable exceptions to my Kings County antipathy are old-school spots like Bamonte’s and its slightly more new-fangled neighbor, The Meat Hook. It’s taken me a good six months to visit the butcher shop’s nearby sandwich satellite. Yesterday Chef Dave and I stopped by after braving what seemed like hours of traffic. (more…)
Eim Khao Mun Kai is the latest addition to Elmhurst’s Thai scene.
The first thing I noticed about Eim Khao Mun Kai was the chorus line of bald chickens hanging from what looked to be a street food set-up. The second thing was the aroma. The perfume of gingery rice and chicken stock was incredibly comforting. Eim serves one thing and one thing only: Thai style chicken and rice or khao mun kai, known elsewhere in Southeast Asia as Hainanese chicken and rice. In fact it’s listed on Eim’s menu as Hainanese chicken and rice. After walking by the month-old shop twice while on the way to a bowl of cold busting soup at Pata Paplean, I finally gave Eim a try. (more…)
Peruvian hot sauce and Taiwanese chicken, together at last.
For years Queens,which is renowned for offering food from all over the world, was sorely lacking in one area; the bánh mì,or Vietnamese sandwich. All that changed when JoJu Modern Vietnamese Sandwiches opened a few years ago. The Elmhurst shop offers a whopping 17 varieties of bánh mì. The 17th sandwich on that lineup, which includes everything from pork belly to green eggs and ham, is perhaps tastiest of all. It’s certainly the most modern and the most Queens of them all. The Lin-Sanity ($5.99) is a tribute to one-time Knicks superstar Jeremy Lin. It marries his Taiwanese heritage with one of the tastiest cuisines Queens has to offer, Peruvian. (more…)
Gong Xi Fa Cai! The year of the Wood Horse is upon us. To aid in your celebration of the 15-day Chinese New Year, here’s a short list of some of my favorite dishes in what I humbly consider to be the tastiest Chinatown in America.
Fu Run’s festive looking golden corn pancake.
1. Golden Corn Pancake, Fu Run The granddaddy of Dongbei cookery in Flushing is best known for the Muslim lanb chop, but it’s specials, like the festive lookinghuang jin yu mi lao,or golden corn pancake($15.95)that keep me coming back. Despite the name it’s not stack of hoe cakes, but rather some lovely fried corn croquettes. The loosely bound kernels are interspersed with carrots and peas and laid out in a star pattern. Other standout specials include the spicy fried crabs. Fu Run, 40-09 Prince St, Flushing, 718-321-1363 (more…)
Marani’s chicken tabaka, crunchy and garlicky as all getout.
The running joke about the Uzbek kebab places in Rego Park is that they’re all pretty much the same restaurant. Sure some might have slightly surlier service than others or make a specialty of chebureks, , but they’re all basically about grilled meat—beefchicken, and lamb–on flat swordlike skewers. So I was intrigued when I heard about Marani, a relatively new Georgian joint.
Ever since I read about the decadent adajaruli khachapuri being served at Brooklyn Bread House in Sheepshead Bay and at Oda House in the East Village, Georgian food has been a feverish blip on my radar. So I was especially excited to learn of a restaurant right in my neighborhood that served the mythical cheese and egg bread. (more…)
A potage of poultry and potatoes sits atop a bed of hand-pulled noodles.
Dà pán jī—or “big tray of chicken” is a Henanese dish I’ve been meaning to try for some time. I’d forgotten all about dà pán jī until I started seeing it at the New World Mall Food Court, notably at the purple curvilinear stand Stew where it goes by the rather ungainly yet specific English name “chicken potato noodle.” For an additional four bucks one can procure beef, lamb, or fish potato noodle. As I snapped a photo of the Chinese language sign for the dish, which shows Stew’s chef giving a thumbs up and some characters that likely translate to “Best big tray of chicken in the free world,” my friend from the neighboring Stall No. 28 waved me over. (more…)
Roast pork buns—either pillowy white and starchy or burnished and brown—are commonplace in all of New York City’s Chinatowns. Chicken buns, not so much. So the chicken bun at Morning Glory Bakery in Rego Park is especially unique. I like to think of it as a breakfast sandwich, but only because they usually run out it before noon. “Special!! Mustard Stem Chili Chicken Bun,” a hand-written multicolored sign at the counter above a sheet pan of the sandwiches reads. (more…)
Ray’s Famous BBQ made itself known to me by the aroma. Actually that’s not quite true. When I first spotted the cart across from Elmhurst Hospital I thought it was a Colombian outfit. As I approached it the unmistakable scent of grilling Filipino pork BBQ filled the air. As far as I know Ray’s is the only Filipino street food vendor in all of New York City. (more…)
This chicken with chili is a specialty of North Sulawesi.
Southeast Asian food bazaars pop up like multihued summer orchids throughout Queens. The bustling events offer a window into such cuisines as Burmese that are rarely seen in restaurants, even in this most delicious and diverse of boroughs. And even when the cuisines are represented in the borough’s eateries, there are many home-cooked dishes, seldom seen on menus. Take ayam rica rica, a fiery Indonesian chicken dish, that I tried for the first time at the Pasar Kuliner Nusantara, or Archipelago Culinary Market, held at Flushing Town Hall on June 29. (more…)
A Jerusalem street food classic by way of Rego Park.
PLEASE NOTE THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED
Sandwiches can be roughly divided into two categories: neat and dainty or messy and manly. The true test of how messy a sandwich is not whether its ingredients overflow from the bun. It’s whether I remove my watch to eat it. The Jerusalem Mix ($14) at Grill House is such a sandwich. It sounds like a world music collection, but Jerusalem Mix, or Meurav Yerushalmi in Hebrew, is a popular Israeli street food.
Grill House’s version consists of a trifecta of meats—chicken, lamb, and beef—sautéed with a heady mix of spices and onions. Rama Hababa, Grill House’s matriarch, knows her way around the spice cabinet too. She used to run Pereg, the wonderful spice shop in the Israeli section of Main Street in Flushing. The shop is now closed, but Hababa still uses the Israeli company’s spices. She seasons the meats with Pereg’s shawarma seasoning, which if I had to guess includes such aromatic spices as cumin, coriander, cinnamon, and cardamom along with garlic and other goodies. Hababa wouldn’t tell me what’s in the shawarma seasoning, but did reveal another surprising ingredient in her Jerusalem Mix, mango powder.
The end result served on a hero with a shmear of hummus is a true hungry man sandwich, packed with sweet and spicy morsels of meat. It is even better with some fiery schug and creamy tahini. At first I tried to pick up this dreadnought of a sandwich. Eventually I succumbed to using a knife and fork. As I put my put my watch back on, I had a brief moment of buyer’s remorse. Fourteen bucks is a lot for a sandwich, but it’s still way cheaper than airfare to Jerusalem.
Grill House, 63-55 Wetherole St., Rego Park, 718-897-1575
