Eating In Translation

PNK Surinamese Cuisine: Small Country, Big Flavor

Fingers are fine, we were told, when we wondered if we should eat our flensje with a fork. Flensje — a thin Dutch-style crepe transformed for the tropics with scarlet coloration and a payload of grated coconut — is one of several desserts recently added to the menu at PNK Surinamese Cuisine, in South Richmond Hill, Queens. They also include lapis, steamed sticky rice that resembles a layered jiggly pudding, with Indonesian roots, and bojo, a Surinamese take on Caribbean cassava pone, baked with coconut, spices and a little pineapple.

Like many dishes on the menu, the desserts reflect the complex culinary heritage of the small South American country once known as Dutch Guiana. Read more on Culinary Backstreets.

PNK Surinamese Cuisine Finds a Home in South Richmond Hill

The cuisine of Suriname combines foods and flavors contributed by the many populations that have settled in the country — Indonesian, Caribbean, Chinese, and Dutch among them — in dishes such as Javaanse bami kip, moksi alesi (shown), tjawmin, and rund worst. Aromatic mingles with earthy, sweet with piquant. Read more about this new restaurant, PNK Surinamese Cuisine, on Eater NY.

Bakewell Bakery & Restaurant

Even for Guyanese cassava pone, this rendition is not only dense and sticky but generously spiced as well. Also shown (and comped): beef and chicken pies; coconut-rich salara.

Bakewell Bakery & Restaurant
12708 Liberty Ave. (127th-128th Sts.), Richmond Hill, Queens
718-322-5600
www.Instagram.com/Bakewell_Bakery_and_Restaurant

Bark Barbecue

Brisket, turkey, plantains, and congrí; the sides point to the pitmaster's Dominican heritage. Also shown below, from a previous encounter (and in different light): more brisket, more congrí. I never considered that rice and beans might go so well with barbecue.

H/T NYCBBQ

Bark Barbecue
Smoker and stand on 149th Ave. near the northwest corner with Crossbay Blvd., Ozone Park, Queens
www.Facebook.com/BarkBarbecue
Saturday only, noon till sold out

Boishakhi: A Journey to Bangladesh, via Ozone Park

In New York, where many restaurants advertise an "Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi" menu and offer a bill of fare rooted in the north of India, customers not raised on Bangladeshi cuisine often conflate it with the food of its larger neighbor. As a hub for Eurasian traders for many centuries, however, Bangladesh has developed its own delicious combinations of cardamom and clove, coriander and chile pepper — and acquired a special love for river-going fish such as ilish, also known as hilsa (shown above).

Last autumn, Tozammel Tanzil and his longtime friend Khaled Khan (shown below) introduced Boishakhi, a Bangladeshi restaurant, to the southern Queens neighborhood of Ozone Park. Yet despite the temptations of ilish pulao — fatty fish and fluffy rice — opening a restaurant during the pandemic was a "big risk," says Khaled. "People don’t want to take chances on food they don’t know,” adds Tozammel. Get better acquainted on Culinary Backstreets.

GT Kingston Diner

(This venue is closed.) Two Caribbean capitals are called out, separately, in the restaurant's name: "GT" as in Georgetown, the largest city of Guyana, and Kingston, its counterpart in Jamaica. My entree was plated in similar fashion. I'd hoped (while waiting in the heated, but perhaps overly enclosed, outdoor dining area) that sweet and sour shrimp fried rice would appear as a mound of rice enjeweled with tidbits of shrimp rather that rice and shrimp side by side. True, that's a greater challenge for the kitchen; my fork took up these efforts instead.

GT Kingston Diner
10908 Liberty Ave. (109th-110th Sts.), Richmond Hill, Queens
347-561-7540
www.Facebook.com/GT-Kingston-Diner-2183915811846934

Give some, take some: Ozone Park Community Fridge

Hand-painted artwork (Brandi Jones, Black Village Arts, 2020)
Outside Dave's Barber Shop & Hair Salon (that's Dave at work near the window)
13206 Liberty Ave. (132nd-133rd Sts.), South Richmond Hill, Queens
718-577-8331
https://Daves-Barber-Shop-Hair-Salon.business.site

Phagwah celebration in Richmond Hill

(Many of the fairs, festivals, and other wonderful food events that usually fill my calendar each spring have been postponed or cancelled. This post is based on celebrations in previous years.)

Phagwah (Pog-wah), an Indo-Caribbean celebration of spring, is better known as Holi in India and among the country's worldwide Hindu diaspora. It's also known as the festival of colors, which are playfully applied, generally in powdered form, to friend and stranger alike. In the parade photos shown here, anything that might look like a puff of smoke is actually a cloud of powder, which may be directed with intent or simply tossed to the shifting winds. (First-time celebrant? Don't wear your best clothes.)

Hack's Halal Restaurant

In its native Guyana, the preparation of cassareep (Cazh-uh-rip) begins with the painstaking process of extracting juice from cassava roots. The juice, boiled until thick and brownish-black and seasoned with spices, hot pepper, and brown sugar, acquires a molasses-like consistency and bittersweet flavor. Here it's lacquered over chicken.

Hack's Halal Restaurant
107-25 Liberty Ave. (107th-108th Sts.), South Richmond Hill, Queens
718-674-6418

Guyana Choice Bakery

A restaurant or bakery that prepares different items with a similar appearance often marks its wares with an in-house code, so counter staff and customers can look at the outside and tell what's inside. The crimped edges of empanadas and pastelitos, for example, can be notched and pierced in various patterns.