The view from the benches that frame Federoff Triangle, the pocket park that buffers Asian Bowl from the drone of traffic along Queens Blvd., suggests a catch-all menu like many others. A tableful of fussy eaters who insisted on General Tso's chicken, pad Thai, and a sushi combo (with miso soup) could each have their way. Perhaps they'd even agree to split an order of crab Rangoon — a Chinese-American dish that's named, as it happens, for the home city of the husband-and-wife owners.
Today that city is called Yangon; it's the largest in Myanmar, also known as Burma. The newly revamped menu (the restaurant changed hands less than a month ago) includes not only the old pan-Asian standbys but also more than two dozen Burmese dishes: mohinga, or fish noodle soup; assorted salads, called thokes (with a silent "h"), the most famous of which (shown) features fermented tea leaves; and others not publicly for sale anywhere else in the city. The common-sounding "fried beef with spicy" is particularly good; white rice helps to temper the burn, and to mop up the leavings. See more photos on Facebook.
Asian Bowl is small, you should know, with few niceties. Water is served only by the plastic bottle; there's no place for customers to wash up; the rainbow-colored sweets on quivering display at New York's all-too-rare Burmese festivals are absent here. But the owners are unfailingly gracious as well as informative; perhaps they can be convinced, by and by, to round out the menu with desserts.
H/T Joe DiStefano, Chopsticks and Marrow, who still loves his Singapore mei fun
Asian Bowl
10111 Queens Blvd. (67th Rd.-67th Dr.), Forest Hills, Queens
718-275-1888
Closed Monday
