Uzbek samsy filled with beef, lamb, or onion-laced pumpkin are abundant in Brooklyn and Queens. For a change of pace, how about a samsa filled with chicken and spinach?
Brighton Tandir (principle signage in Cyrillic only)
504 Brighton Beach Ave. (Brighton 5th-Brighton 6th Sts., near the foot of the stairs; service window to the left of Home Made Cooking Cafe), Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
It's the unofficial start of okroshka season: a light, refreshing rendition of the cold Russian soup.
Ocean View Café
290 Brighton Beach Ave. (at Brighton 3rd St.), Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
718-332-1900
www.OceanViewCafeNY.com
(This venue is closed.) Just one sweet, I told myself. This day, apricot, the apparent crowd favorite, another time, perhaps walnut, farmer cheese, cherry, or blueberry — not to mention all the savory piroshki and chebureki.
Tatar Bakery & Pies
Roadside stand on Brighton Beach Ave. near the northeast corner with Coney Island Ave., Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
(This venue is closed.) Freshly chopped greens fill this zhingyalov hats, a griddled Armenian flatbread. It's only the takeout box that's not custom made.
H/T Lisa Braun
Hi Food Cafe
3078 Coney Island Ave. (Ocean View-Neptune Aves.), Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
347-713-4747
www.Instagram.com/FoodHiCafe
Outside a shuttered stall labled simply "Old fashioned Coney Island food," Coney Island, Brooklyn
Pinball-action artwork by Tats Cru, 2005
"Let's send together to Kyrgysztan" is the message in the window at the Brighton Beach location of this worldwide chain. Singling out the Central Asian country — even if the spelling does transpose the "s" and the "z" of the much more common "Kyrgyzstan" — raises an interesting prospect.
We'd imagine that Ria, which was founded in New York in 1987 and now comprises a network with locations in more than 150 countries, fine-tunes its marketing efforts by keeping well-informed on local demographics. In this neighborhood I'd noted an uptick of businesses with roots in Georgia, and later in Uzbekistan. Can we hope for another Kyrgyz restaurant sometime soon?
See also my thoughts while perusing the newsstand in Canarsie.
Ria Money Transfer
709 Brighton Beach Ave. (Brighton 2nd St.-Brighton 3rd St.), Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
(One of many locations)
855-355-2141
www.RiaMoneyTransfer.com/us/en
Robert Wilson, 2004 (silk screen on glass bricks; detail of hot dog)
Coney Island-Stillwell Ave. station (street level), Coney Island, Brooklyn
http://web.MTA.info/mta/aft/permanentart/permart.html?agency=nyct&line=Q&artist=1&station=27
These lightly netted Uzbek melons — a variety called Golden Hami, grown domestically by Fisher Ranch — were very enticing, at a glance. But even one, with the size and gentle swell of a rugby ball, would have doubled the weight of my already weighty backpack. I claimed a cantaloupe-like, very sweet Galia (shown below) instead. See also this tale of two melon countries, Uzbekistan and California.
Previously: "Pine soda!" my friend exclaimed. He spoke of bygone spruce beer in Montreal, and I recalled an encounter with Scots pine ale in Astoria, but, alas, the soda at hand (shown in the final photo below) was no match for our memories.
Some hours later I determined that the most prominent word on the label is the adjectival form of "taiga," a word that describes the coniferous forests girding the high northern latitudes of the globe. The ingredients, on closer inspection, included extracts of Siberian ginseng, St. John's wort, and licorice root, as well as unspecified "needle" (spruce? pine? larch?). The illustration, then, is more evocative than definitive. Shippi brand taiga-flavor soda is generally woodsy but, to my taste, insufficiently coniferous.
Tashkent Supermarket
713 Brighton Beach Ave. (at Coney Island Ave.), Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
205-282-7777
(This venue is closed. This post is based on a visit to the restaurant's former premises on Brighton 2nd St., shown in the first photo.) To hungry Russian-speaking expats, the oversized golden glechik calls out more clearly than words in any language, especially from a distance. Indeed, during renovations several years ago the proprietors revamped the old awning but kept the cookpot. The slender half-moons called vareniki are likewise impervious to change. Mine were filled with sweet cottage cheese.
Varenichnaya
504 Brighton Beach Ave. (Brighton 5th-Brighton 6th Sts.), Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
718-332-9797
"Along with a litany of hearty hot soups — shurpa, lagman, borsch — are two chilled alternatives, one Eastern, one Western. Okroshka ... hails from Russia; this milk-based version is playful, with tiny bits of egg, celery, potato and bologna. Kuksu [shown] ... from Korea, is a beef noodle soup decorated with sesame seeds, pickled cucumber, dill and cabbage. When all that's left is the restorative broth, down it straight from the bowl."
The menu seems little changed since my review of this café, staffed by Russian-speaking ethnic Koreans hailing from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, appeared in The New York Times in 2010. Prices are higher (though my latest kuksu was on the house); the secondary name of the restaurant is now "Eddie Fancy Food" (and not "Elza"). Although the Brighton Beach restaurant, close by the boardwalk, has closed, the ambiance at the remaining location is just as homey, if snug. For more photos, see my collection on Flickr.
Café at Your Mother-in-Law (a.k.a. Eddie Fancy Food)
With a few tables, but better-suited for takeout, at 8611 19th Ave. (86th St.-Benson Ave.), Bath Beach, Brooklyn
718-234-1940
www.Facebook.com/CafeAtYourMotherInLaw
Thank you!
