If you’re anything like me—and I suspect you are if you read my musings about food and culture in Queens—you might still be struggling about what to bring to Thanksgiving tomorrow. Rejoice procrastinators and noncooks! Japan has come to your rescue in the form of pumpkin creme brulee KitKats. Let me say that again “Pumpkin Crème Brûlée KitKats!”
Ban Ga Ne’s got your large format goat feast needs covered.
The real K-town in New York City is in Queens, stretching for about five miles from Northern Boulevard and Union Street in Flushing all the way out to Manhasset. This vast K-tropolis is lined with dozens of BBQ restaurants, kimbap joints, large Korean supermarkets, fried chicken spots, a store that sells Korean stone beds, and even a Korean-run Third Wave espresso bar. There are so many places it would take an entire lifetime to document them all. Today C+M’s K-tropolis takes a look at Ban Ga Ne, a black goat meat specialist.
In New York City goat is as rare on Korean menus in New York City, as kimchi is on Indian ones. And according to Joe McPherson of ZenKimchi, who has forgotten more about Korean cuisine than I shall ever hope to know, the ruminant’s flesh is pretty uncommon in Korea too. So when a Westchester-based dining group told me their next Queens meal would be a large-format Korean goat feast I immediately RSVP’d. After all, I am as much a fan of Korean cuisine as I am of goat. (more…)
Decoy’s duck comes with shots of duck consommé.
“What happened to the duck?” my mother would say when the platter with meat and skin—mostly skin—and the accompanying pancakes was brought out. “It must have flown by.”
Moments before the entire carcass had been wheeled through the dining room on a trolley with great ceremony. This included striking a gong. Sometimes I like to think that the gong was my father’s idea, but I know it was the restaurant’s way of saying that the dish, even with its apparent bait and switch, was something special to be served with fanfare.
At the suburban Chinese restaurant in Levittown we frequented during my boyhood the delicacy had to be ordered several days in advance. As an adult I’ve had few stellar experiences with Peking duck. Much as I love the $1 “Peking duck” bun window in Flushing, the fowl secret is that, tasty as it is, it’s not really Peking duck. I am happy to report though that the Peking duck dinner I had recently at Decoy, the newish offshoot of Eddie Schoenfeld and Joe Ng’s wildly popular Redfarm, was spectacular. (more…)
Photo: Ernesto Santos
If you’re anything at all like me you overindulged at yesterday’s Thanksgiving festivities and want nothing at all to do with turkey. Which brings me to the subject of this installment of Photo Friday: the stack of pork chops at M. Wells Steakhouse. It should be noted that even though this latest venture from M. Dufour is a grown-up spot where chef sports whites and a kerchief around his neck lending him the air of Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi, there are wacky touches like a bone-in burger and this stack of blade thin chops. Piled high and oozing anchovy butter it’s a carnivorous homage to that diner favorite, flapjacks. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m off to the gym work off yesterday’s turkey.
One man’s Thanksgiving leftovers are another woman’s Indian snacks in the making. Here’s how you can resurrect your Thanksgiving leftovers with some “East meets West” mash-up action. It’s easier than you may think to turn leftover mashed potato into spicy aloo tikki and pie crust trimmings into baked matti.
Matti, crisp rounds of fried dough seasoned with mild spices, are a favorite winter snack in North India. At Thanksgiving, we save the trimmings from our pie crust and use them to make a baked version of matti (shown at top). The butter-rich pie crust is fatty enough to give them a nice flakiness and rich flavor without deep frying. (more…)
Char aspic with pomelo and lemon.
PLEASE NOTE THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED
The tyranny of the tasting menu—that feeling of being held hostage by a chef’s creativity as course after course after course comes to the table—is a phenomenon with which I have scant experience. The only tasting menu of note I’ve had is Momofuko Ko’s and while not quite tyrannical, it was vast, running to more than a dozen courses, each quite good in its own way. Even so sensory overload sets in by course eight or nine. It’s not that I was full, but rather that I was punch drunk on the experience, much the way I feel after wandering around an art museum for too long. So when Chef Natasha Pogrebinsky of Bear invited me to try to her $85 seasonal tasting menu, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. (more…)
Lamb tartare is a Thanksgiving favorite for Wafa’s family.
PLEASE NOTE THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED
I suppose there are some people who are disgusted by the very idea of eating raw meat. I am not one of them. Beef tartare is of my favorite things to eat. Once I even had horse tartare, which was quite good. I am especially fond of other cultures raw meat dishes and relish Korean yuk hwe and Thai num tuk. So when I heard Wafa’s was making a Lebanese lamb tartare I knew I had to try it. (more…)
