bigjeff's Recent Activity
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New in Flushing: M&T Restaurant - A Taste of Qingdao
yo Scoop; thanks for the report! haven't been out to flushing for a couple months; glad you are blazing the way for us.
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Best Indonesian Food (including outer buroughs)
you are pretty much limited to the outer boroughs when it comes to indonesian so I'd throw your search queries on that board. what will come up is all basically in elmhurst: upi jaya, minangasli, mie jakarta. there are some malay/indo hybrids in chinatown and probably some other places in queens. and throughout the summertime, you will need to wait for the well-documented indonesian food bazaars held at the Al-Hikmah mosque in Astoria.
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Poll: What restaurants do you eat in most often in Queens or Brooklyn?
QUEENS
Ayada
Chao Thai
Coatzingo
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Sripraphai is opening a second branch in Williston Park
if they got the mussel fritters (or even the soft-shell crab app), I'll be very happy! and . . . srip does well with the salads topped with crispy things too!
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What's your favorite small NYC food festival?
for me, the astoria indonesian bazaar definitely edged out the briarwood burmese fun fair event this year.
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SF CH looking for authentic or different Chinese and Taiwanese food
where the good broth at??
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Skate Wing
or the other way around; stringy scallops i can see as being like stringy skate, but you would have to do so much processing to line up the "strings" if you were gonna make fake scallop out of skate. I much prefer skate anyway.
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Seeking a (very) downtown lunch place (e.g., a Korean market) with really high quality vegetables
i used to work down on battery place and unfortunately, zaytuna ended up being a go-to and I hated it. never found a great alternative so i just packed my own.
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SF CH looking for authentic or different Chinese and Taiwanese food
ummm, that it is delicious?! like . . . a gangster bowl of pho or a gangster bowl of ramen or, in this case, a gangster bowl of hand-pulled noodles with hella different kinds of meat, vegetable and garnish AND a fried egg!
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Po-boy Article in NYT
nice link on mahoney's:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/543664
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Mahoney's Po-Boys on Magazine
NYT article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/din...
and some chatter here:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/666289
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Not Healthy Manhattan Tour
wow, congrads! sounds like a great time that you had and a great mix as well.
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SF CH looking for authentic or different Chinese and Taiwanese food
consider also that combo noodle at 1 Doyers too! it's pretty gangster.
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Pho Tu Do - decent vietnamese food
not a health issue for me: the dancing on my lips just bothers me and tends to overwhelm the natural flavors. it's more an indicator of the kitchen taking shortcuts than an actual physical symptom.
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Pho Tu Do - decent vietnamese food
New Tu Do, it is now called and, it's been a go-to for the last couple months. however, msg still lingers whenever i have the pho but many dishes I've had there (some random stuff) have been good. they have a rice cake fried with egg and preserved turnip that is tasty, the bun are indeed good (the meatball is alarmingly red and unfortunately msg-savoury but really good).
the place is always busy no matter what time I go, large tables, large family groups too.
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Izakaya in Manhattan
reading your description; i felt bad because I totally neg'd my friend's request on gyoza, thinking that I never want to order them in a restaurant. next time, gyoza it is!
Chowhound Post
Izakaya in Manhattan
Lau,
tried rockmeisha last week, it was quite good! very rich food (small portions but strong) and you end up smelling like what you eat but:
+ chashu ramen
+ nanban (fried chicken with tartar)
+ okra special
+ octopus takobo (octo pancake like what you had but not shrimp)
+ mentai onigiri (as a palate cleanser, haha!)
the food was quite good! the ramen looked light but tasted really strong; quite good. not the thick oily broth of ippudo's modern (which i love) but, a nice simple ramen, good noodles, pork very tender and tasty. the nanban was frickin' delicious; really good marinade on the dark meat chicken, great frying technique; imagine that two people could pull apart a single piece with chopsticks and the skin stays intact to the meat; amazing. the tartar sauce certainly added something but get it on the side, it is too crazy tossed on top the way they serve it. one of the finest fried chicken dishes I've had (not sure if it counts as kara-age; it was more a cutlet fried, and then chopped after). the okra was very very good; raw minced okra, bonito, wasabi and soy sauce; mix it together and it becomes very sticky; the freshest item we had in the meal. the octopus pancake was indeed like the batter-style okonomiyaki and slathered with kewpie and the tonkotsu sauce; quite rich this dish but the pancake itself was underseasoned; it really needed the two sauces (makes a perfect bite). the shaved bonito on top was extremely rough tho, not very good. and the onigiri were really good! purple rice, great texture, and the mentai was mixed with yuzu-chili sauce or something.
we somehow managed to eat most of the food but it was quite quite rich. they serve super hot green tea in a can; they also have some interesting beer selections. service was kind of insane; one server working the entire room and I couldn't figure out if she was japanese or not. also, after we ordered our first two items we asked for some help and amazingly, she told us to get the chicken wings, even tho we were already getting the ramen plus the nanban. when we told her we don't need more chicken, she told us to get the skirt steak which also seemed very rich (not that our takobo was a light alternative); the table next to us got the skirt steak and it looked damn good tho.
overall, everyone should try this place; it's interesting, relatively inexpensive, and some nice food, albeit quite rich. the place seemed very authentic in the sense that it feels like they put a roof over some street-side dining stall; the music was very 60s surf-rock oriented and we were sitting under an interior thatched roof of some sort so it really felt funky. there are some real gems on the menu that i would like to try: maybe their chicken wings for next time.
shots from somebody here (including a menu):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tamngo/s...
Chowhound Post
Flushing Mall vs Golden Mall?
good dumplings upstairs (korean-chinese hybrid); otherwise, nothing of real distinction downstairs, but its always fun to eat there, given the choices.
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SF CH looking for authentic or different Chinese and Taiwanese food
dude, you gotta try it! it is quite good, I would call it a step up from lan zhou. the broth isn't homemade-style strong and thick, but it is pretty damn good; the noodles are good, portions generous. i may try the dao-xiao noodles in soup sometime (the dry saute too greasy/heavy)
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SF CH looking for authentic or different Chinese and Taiwanese food
or, if you go back to Lan Zhou, apparently they serve a great pork chop with noodle soup, chop served on the side.
Chowhound Post
SF CH looking for authentic or different Chinese and Taiwanese food
glad to hear that you enjoyed your trip; next time out you must have a long list of places you missed; I just had noodle soup at the place on Doyers and it was very good. we had the dao-xiao-mian stir-fried with beef, see this thread here [ http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6581... ] i agree it was very oily, but the soup noodle was good. I had the combo (there is a picture of it on the back of the menu) but basically, its like pho xe lua but with chinese-style beef soup and a fried egg; a monster with tripe, couple cuts of beef, some oxtail, basically the combo for I think $6 or $7. it was really good. and we also had tendon with noodles; also very good.
the place has a lot of different table sauces as well, including what tasted like a roast pepper or sweet tomato chili sauce, and also a chili powder based oil that was a kinda bitter but good. the place looks kinda ghetto but its warm and friendly inside and the food is great. Lau, I remember you ate here before, and a few others have also reported as well [ http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/5043... ]
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Crispy thai noodles
this isn't it exactly, but comes to mind:
http://khaosoi.blogspot.com/
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Malaysian restaurants in NYC
you write off manhattan after two bad places in chinatown? where are your recs for queens malaysian, along with dish recs for specials or particularly good renditions of authentic cuisine?
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Ethnic(indian, thai, malaysian) : sat night, leisurely,group of 4
we've had some really big meals there and . . . the steamed fish was aight. for a group of 4:
+ salt crab with mango salad
+ papaya salad (or yum woon sen)
+ dark beef tendon soup!!
+ sour curry
+ maybe catfish curry with thai eggplant
+ maybe a pork larb?
haven't had much of their regular curries, haven't had much of their noodles; I tend to stick to their salads, that tendon, and whatever else seems interesting. their apps aren't too different from other places, satays and such.
meals are always nice there, they may even have the heated bench seat against the wall up and running by now; service is good and because the place is still slightly under the radar, it is never rushed, never jam-packed.
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Anyone know where to buy Thai iced tea mix (leaves or powder) to make at home?
yup that place exactly; the snack place on the second floor. take the right hand staircase as soon as you enter the main entrance of the flushing mall (across from ocean jewel) it's at the top of the stairs across from the fancy comb/brush place.
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Ethnic(indian, thai, malaysian) : sat night, leisurely,group of 4
Ayada! plenty of reviews/threads, usually a nice leisurely experience every time.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/580023
can't think of worthwhile malaysian places in queens (big overstatement of course)
Chowhound Post
Dinner in Bed Stuy/Clinton Hill
thanks, did end up eating there a few weeks after i put that initial query; thoughts here:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6425...
thanks for your input as well; adobo pork eh? nice and sour? and crab served in the shell, can you elaborate?
Chowhound Post
Old time Bronx spinach borekas (boyos)
showoff! sounds amazing tho, wow. will need to give it a go; the recipe seems simple enough! how long do they go in? about 10-12 min? and how big each ball when going into the oil?
