« December 2017 | Main | February 2018 »
Podi idli — chunks of steamed rice-batter cakes lightly fried with curry leaves, mustard seeds, cumin, and chiles — from a casual Kumbakonam lunch, featuring the South Indian flavors of Tamil Nadu. For more photos (note the near-uniform warmth of the colors), see the EIT page on Facebook.
Amma's Kitchen
1710 Oak Tree Road (at Sugar Rd., inside The Mall at Oak Tree Road), Edison, New Jersey
(one of several locations)
971-506-1575
www.AmmasKitchenUS.com
Green is the most familiar color for a Turkish sarma. Savory versions of these "wrapped things" or "rolled things" are commonly filled with minced meat extended with rice, then sheathed in richly hued grape leaves or, perhaps, paler cabbage leaves. For a fistik sarma, however, the wrapper is fashioned from sheerest filo, and the green of crushed pistachio, bound by syrup, glows from within.
Safir Bakery
2724 Ave. U (at East 28th St.), Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn
718-934-3888
www.SafirBakeryNY.com
Take care of your teeth today or regret it tomorrow: current, weathered sign for a [d]entist atop surviving sign for custom-made chocolates, Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn
Unlikely part of a healthy breakfast: While lightening the load on my creaking bookshelves, as I try to do every year, I pulled out an old Cardinal paperback (cover price, 35 cents) of Arthur C. Clarke's The Exploration of Space. In it was this trading card (c. 1959) depicting the GAR (guided aircraft rocket) Falcon, number 24 in the "Defenders of America" series.
Originally included as a giveaway in someone's box of breakfast cereal, this card was later tucked away as a bookmark and, eventually, forgotten. It's unlikely, then, that the original owner was sufficiently motivated to "get the entire set," as the card encouraged, "by eating Nabisco Shredded Wheat regularly and trading with your friends."
Noted in passing: A flyer advertising Junzi Kitchen's late-night weekend menu. A series of signs like this is posted not only at the Morningside Heights restaurant but also in the Columbia neighborhood at large, much in the manner of flyers that once promoted local college bands.
Junzi Kitchen
2896 Broadway (112th-113th Sts.), Manhattan
917-261-2497
Also at 21 Broadway (Elm St.-Tower Pkwy.), New Haven, Connecticut
475-441-7836
www.Junzi.Kitchen
After-hours menu served in both locations on Friday and Saturday nights, 10:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m.
(This venue is closed.) "Palace" is not a palace, or even a restaurant: It's only a stall in a tiny food court (shown, in the final photo, to the right of Red Mango). And "almond tea" (above), though served piping hot, is certainly not tea: It's a glutinous dessert flavored sparingly, if at all, by almonds. (My dining buddy and I, who labored to spoon our way to the bottom of the bowl, couldn't be sure.) The name of the dessert might come instead from the palest of the crunchy toppings, which also included black sesame seeds, crushed peanuts, and the kernels of sunflower seeds. In the center were blanched and sliced kernels of certain apricots, a variety grown for their seeds rather than their fruit. Colloquially, the apricot kernels are known as Chinese almonds — but, to be sure, they're not almonds.
Previously: My qiegao (Chee-ay Gow) didn't resemble the confection hawked in Beijing by cycle-mounted Xinjiang vendors. That northwestern Chinese qiegao, also called matang, is very dense with nuts; it suggests a compacted trail mix. Heavier reliance on glutinous rice seems typical of a style native to Beijing itself. This rose qiegao (below) incorporated golden raisins, black sesame seeds, and a hidden seam of red bean paste; at the time of purchase, rose syrup was spooned on top. Yes, it was messy, too messy for the trail, but I found room to sit in the pedestrian walkway just around the bend.
Palace Restaurant
136-55 Roosevelt Ave. (Main-Union Sts., inside a mini food court), Flushing, Queens
646-681-1159
(This venue is closed.) Nine years ago I had what seemed a bright idea at the time, if a quaint thought today: Download a photo from a food blog, upload it to my mobile phone, and circumvent a language barrier to order an off-menu item. (My inspiration, three summers earlier in Xiamen, China, involved my camera's display screen and a cup of peanut soup.) For a recent group lunch at the Cantonese restaurant Imperial Palace, I was late to the table, but my dining mates made out just fine, even though snow pea leaves with crab meat sauce (shown here) still hasn't been codified on the printed menu. To the waitstaff, this must be a familiar request — no picture menu needed.
For more photos — dig the deep-fried chicken with minced shrimp — see the EIT page on Facebook.
Imperial Palace
136-13 37th Ave. (Main-Union Sts.), Flushing, Queens
718-939-3501
"Muffuletta" describes both a round, sesame-seeded Italian bread and, made from it, a New Orleans sandwich that sports various cold cuts, cheese, and a marinated olive salad. Twin Suns adds sopressata, mortadella, and provolone to a loaf whose crumb is much airier than that of the benchmark, at Central Grocery, but no one can say that it skimps on the seeds. My so-called "big muffuletta" was actually a quarter-muffuletta further divided in two; a full sandwich would have been about the size of a hubcap.
Some call it sacrilege to heat a muffuletta, but by many accounts the practice is not uncommon even in New Orleans. Up north in New York, at Dive Bar, this seems good sense when the customers as well as the sandwiches are dressed in layers. At the counterwoman's suggestion, my Twin Suns muffuletta was toasted, too.
Twin Suns Deli
244 Himrod St. (Kinickerbocker-Irving Aves.), Bushwick, Brooklyn
718-484-9291
www.TwinSunsDeli.com
(This venue is closed.) Liuzhou rice noodles are native to a city of that name in the Guangxi region of southern China. The're also widely known as luosifen, literally "snail rice noodles." In China the snails — some sort of river-going mollusks — generally figure only in flavoring the broth, except, reportedly, at higher-end restaurants. In Vietnam, which borders Guangxi, a related dish called bun oc commonly includes the snail meat, too.
At this food-court stall, the base was a "seafood soup" (according to the wall menu; language barriers clouded full investigation). My bowl, however, had little marine or riverine character, only a piercing yet fast-fading spiciness, as well as lingering sourness from vinegar and pickled bamboo. This was the stall's "classic" version (read: less replete with peanuts, assorted greens, fried tofu skin, and other add-ins, and therefore suitable for a second lunch in quick succession). For a few dollars more, a "super" version would also include wood ear mushrooms, a quail egg or two, and a choice of sliced meats — beef, ham, pork, or pork knuckle, but not snail.
Luo Zhuang Yuan
New York Food Court, stall 26
133-35 Roosevelt Ave. (Prince St.-College Point Blvd.), Flushing, Queens
www.BeyondMenu.com/47109/flushing/luo-zhuang-yuan-flushing-11354.aspx
(This venue is closed.) Galicia takes its name and inspiration from a province on the northwest coast of Spain, the owner's home until he emigrated to the United States in the 1980s. His "comidas Españas & Latinas" also speak to Upper Manhattan's large Dominican community. While many of the items on the bill of fare above the counter, painstakingly hand-lettered many years ago, are still in play, an addendum (in the first photo below, it hangs at bottom right) also offers a roster of sandwiches, including two adopted stalwarts of Dominican restaurants throughout the city: the Cubano and the medianoche.
The most enticing dishes, however, offer flavors that seem more Old World than New. Shown below: lunch specials of carne a la Madrileña, featuring beef, and pollo a la Extrameña, whose chicken is accompanied by a little sliced sausage.
Like all too many small businesses in New York, this 30-year-old Washington Heights restaurant in danger of vanishing. Learn more.
Galicia
4083 Broadway (172nd-173rd Sts.), Manhattan
(the only location, despite the awning)
212-568-0168
www.GaliciaRestaurantNYC.com
Thank you!
