Ike's Profile
My Vote for Best Falafel In Midtown, whats yours?
My vote goes to the new place, Pitopia, on 37th just off Broadway. It's just like Maoz, but with MUCH tastier falafel balls! Truly excellent.
That said, I went there at *night* when it was nearly empty. Not sure how good it is at lunchtime, when it's reportedly totally packed with hungry office workers.
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Pitopia
1369 Broadway, New York, NY 10018
Fei Long Food Court, Sunset Park
Ah, so the place out front is called Shanghai Traditional Dumpling! I failed to make a note of the name, and our source did not know it either. Thanks Dave.
I love those Shanghai dumplings. The texture is really nice and unique. I like things that are crispy on the bottom. The wontons are really good too.
Does anyone else find that the Uzbek places in Queens tend to be rude?
There were no specials as far as I could see. I don't recall anything like sweetbread skewers. I could have missed them easily though.
Does anyone else find that the Uzbek places in Queens tend to be rude?
I don't know about Queens, but if you want very good Uzbek in Brooklyn with decent service, then try Nargis Cafe. On my first visit, I went with a Russian speaker and got good service. The second visit, without a Russian speaker, they were maybe a little bit frostier, but still pretty OK by Eastern European/Russian standards. Popular place in that neighborhood. I was a little bit disappointed in the plov (I guess I prefer a different style of plov, like the one that existed for a hot minute at the long-gone Roosevelt food court in Flushing), but everything else was yummy.
It may not be a fair comparison since I haven't been to Cheburechnaya in a few years, but Nargis is way better than Cheb based on my experiences.
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Nargis Cafe
2818 Coney Island Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11235
Chinese Mirch --how hot IS it?
I have a craving for good chilli gobi or gobi manchurian, after having a pretty damn addictive one from Delhi Garden in Edison NJ recently (but I'm probably not getting back to central NJ anytime soon). Is Chinese Mirch no longer the place to go for this? Can anybody recommend something better in Manhattan? Who's currently got a good Indo-Chinese chef, anybody know? I could venture to Jackson Heights if that's appreciably better. Tangra in Sunnyside is mentioned elsewhere, but there are some pretty poisonous recent reviews on another site... I need up-to-date info....
Mompou in Newark is a Solid Choice for Tapas
Ah! What a range of choices! Is there one you would say is best overall? I'm glad to see lots of choices since I'm probably not going back to Casa Vasca -- my last visit there suggested they might be going downhill into bland Iberia/Fornos-style territory. (Yes, yes, I know Portuguese and Spanish are not precisely the same, but I'm just looking for seafood in the Ironbound in general.)
Burmese joint, I think Leff reviewed it, anyone???
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/789924#6658905
Injera - Ethiopian Bread in NJ/NYC
I second the hearty recommendation for Lalibela. It's a bit pricey compared to some places, but it's worth it because the food is excellent, and the portions are very large. The food is much better than at any Ethiopian place in NYC that I've tried, and I've tried several of them.
Where to go for lunch near Verona/Montclaire/Caldwell: Thai? Vietnamese?
I suggest getting authentic Sichuan dishes at Chengdu 1 in Cedar Grove (just west of Montclair). They also have American-Chinese dishes if any of your colleagues want that, but I've never gotten that there.
I've had good-to-excellent experiences at Aroma Palace in Montclair for Indian.
If you can venture as far as Bloomfield, there is excellent, unusually authentic Thai food at Boonsong and at Brookside Thai.
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Brookside Thai Restaurant
380 Broad St, Bloomfield, NJ 07003
Chengdu 1
89 Pompton Ave, Cedar Grove, NJ 07009
Aroma Palace
379 Bloomfield Ave, Montclair, NJ 07042
My Favorites List - Union, Essex County mostly
FINALLY got over to Topaz. Based on my one visit so far, I'm not that impressed -- Boonsong and Brookside in Bloomfield are better. Admittedly that's pretty tough competition though.
Any ideas on making cereal similar to discontinued Tr. Joe's Oat & Wheat Brn Swirls?
Trader Joe's has discontinued their delicious Oat & Wheat Brain Swirls cereal, which I've been eating for at least eight years now. I'm distraught. Any ideas for recipes for something similar? I'm willing to experiment but I barely know where to start. I make my own granola at home frequently, but so far, my baking skills don't extend much beyond that and cookies. I'm not sure how to approach making a sweet, crunchy cereal involving oat and wheat bran. (Maybe this would require more equipment than I've got.) Any ideas?
I tried eating Kellogg's Cracklin' Oat Bran instead, but yuck. It's all wrong. I used to like Cracklin' Oat Bran a few decades ago, when I was a kid, and I figured that Oat & Wheat Bran Swirls were a somewhat-altered knock-off of them, but as it turns out, that's not the case. Cracklin' Oat Bran has a much rougher mouth-feel and is heavier on the bran, I think. Tastes kind of gravelly.
Ironbound Section Newark
I disagree strongly -- Fornos is one of the factory-style tourist traps. "More quantity than quality" as the original poster put it. Go with Casa Vasca or Seabra's Marisqueira instead.
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Casa Vasca
141 Elm St, Newark, NJ 07105
Seabra's Marisqueira
87 Madison St, Newark, NJ 07105
Where can I buy really nice loose leaf tea?
Just to update, now that I've been to the Kam Man location in Edison, I can report their jasmine green loose-leaf tea is not very good, in my opinion. They don't have the same coarse-but-tasty $8/lb stuff as in Manhattan. They have one that's $7 for 4 oz. ($28/lb.) but it tastes salty and a bit fishy to me. I can't speak for their other loose-leaf teas but they might be worth trying if you're looking for a great bargain.
Sad to say, in fact, now also the Manhattan location has stopped supplying the same great "#1100" jasmine that used to be available for $8/lb. They've replaced it with something much uglier, resembling old, stale-looking crumbled leaves -- it's not as bad as it looks but it's not as flavorful as the previous #1100 and has some unfortunate hints of grassiness, like a bad Japanese tea.
Shawarma & Falafel Question
I am beyond mystified that anybody could find the falafel at Mamoun's to be anything other than totally bland and cardboard-esque. Or that anybody would prefer it to Taim. Mamoun's is for people who don't like real falafel. Or for people who don't like flavor. (JUST IMHO! No offense. I've read too much Pauline Kael, so I criticize harshly.) Maybe you grew up on it, or it takes you back to nights of drunken revels at 3 a.m.? It's a nostalgia thing? To me, it's like greasy Americanized Chinese food vs. REAL Chinese food.
I'm a real cheapskate, but Taim is definitely worth the much higher price. It would be worth twenty times the price.
ODE TO MAMOUN'S
Mamoun's, Mamoun's
lousier than fried baboons
I'd rather eat harpoons
than go to Mamoun's
like warm cardboard
but, if it's all you can afford*
then enjoy
but me, I'm like, "OY!"
this really sucks
even for three bucks
it's totally bland
I'd rather eat my hand
(*A low blow, I know -- I'm a cheapskate too, but Mamoun's? Ewwwww.)
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Taim
222 Waverly Place, New York, NY 10014
Mamoun's Falafel
119 MacDougal St, New York, NY 10012
My Vote for Best Falafel In Midtown, whats yours?
I'm also a little obsessed with falafel. I really miss the Taim truck, which used to park in midtown on certain days, but the police have kicked them out of midtown entirely, along with all the other trucks, due to some BS court ruling.
Kwik Meal #1 (a cart) has a really amazing falafel sandwich at the southwest corner of 45th and 6th. The sandwich is a bit small though, but it's excellent. I just read somewhere that it's brushed with butter, though. Isn't that cheating?! :) I don't know, I just feel like falafel sandwiches shouldn't have butter. But that won't stop me from going back again and again anyway! The bread (pita? thin laffa? something great anyway) seems to be homemade.
Of course, there's also Maoz at 40th & 7th as well as a new location on 8th Ave. near 43rd. But for me, that's more about the falafel salad bar (especially the pickled red eggplant) than the falafel itself. Their falafel is good but not as good as Kwik Meal's or Taim's.
I tried Gazala once. It was OK. I'd put their falafel at about the same level as Maoz's.
Any other suggestions that aren't too far west? I generally have to stick to places east of 7th Ave.
I've been meaning to try Azuri for years, but it's way too far out of bounds for me for lunch. I keep meaning to get over there for dinner, but I often work late. I don't want to get there close to closing time and incur the wrath of the proprietor. There are some scary stories in an older thread about what happens if you go there as late as, say, 8:30.
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Gazala Place
709 9th Ave, New York, NY 10019
Kwik Meal
45th St and 6th Ave, New York, NY 10036
Maoz
200 W 40th St, New York, NY 10018
Taim Mobile
, New York, NY 10001
Maoz
683 8th Ave, New York, NY 10036
Food suggestions in Clifton
Who, mine? In fact, yes, my parents have gone there several times. They're fairly adventurous eaters, but you don't really need to be that adventurous for Lebanese. If you like Greek, and/or hummus/grape leaves/kebabs etc., then you'll probably like it. The advice is intended for whomever reads it who also is likely to enjoy Lebanese food. If Scholar399's parents are relatively open-minded then they'll enjoy it.
But if you want a fancier place, then try Toros, a Turkish restaurant with gorgeous decor just across the border from Clifton in a decent part of Paterson.
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Toros Restaurant
1083 Main St, Paterson, NJ 07503
Burmese Food Fair Sunday - fantastic
Ooops, sorry, I hope I didn't mislead anybody with that post. This time at Briarwood, they DID have tea leaf salad, to my great surprise. HOORAY! Plus, the music was a little bit less deafening than usual. I only needed the earplugs for some of the louder live-band karaoke singers. Overall I'd say the food was especially good this year. They ran out of yellow beans (dal?) to go with the paratha, so they made paratha with ground meat instead, which was better IMHO (I can't remember if it was beef or pork, but it was delicious). The shan noodles were fantastic too.
Food suggestions in Clifton
Kamil's for outstanding Lebanese food. The decor isn't much but in the warmer months, you can sit outside. Really delicious.
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Kamils Restaurant
1489 Main Ave, Clifton, NJ 07011
Burmese Food Fair Sunday - fantastic
I've been to Briarwood three or four times. One time they did have tea leaf salad (the first year I attended, I think), but the other two or three times, they didn't, sadly.
BRING EARPLUGS. Usually a Burmese-American teen-aged rock band plays music at pulverizing volume at this event. I'm dead serious. Do NOT come to this thing without earplugs. Your eardrums will be severely hammered.
Where can I buy really nice loose leaf tea?
HillJ: Baking? Presumably you are using a lot of green tea POWDER then? I doubt my info is of much use to you, then. Kam Man probably doesn't have a better price for that prepackaged powder than any other average Asian market. I don't like the grassy taste of that Japanese and Japanese-style stuff, personally, and the loose oolongs and black teas I've tried from Kam Man in Manhattan haven't impressed me much -- they're blunt and heavy. Extremely inexpensive, though.
Where can I buy really nice loose leaf tea?
After hearing a lot of good things about Adagio, I ordered a green tea sampler pack from them. But I found all of them very bland and flavorless.
I normally go to Kam Man supermarket on Canal St. in Manhattan for my loose-leaf jasmine green tea, which is extremely inexpensive at about $6 a POUND. (Not an ounce. A POUND.) It's a little coarse, as you'd expect at that price. The last batch I bought there seems a little stale, but generally, it's excellent for the price, and much more tasty than the Adagio ones I've tried. It's on the basement level. There's also a Kam Man in Edison (at 511 Old Post Rd) and in East Hanover but I've never been to those locations so I don't know if they carry loose-leaf teas in giant glass jars from which you can scoop out the amount you want. But if they do, I recommend trying them. However, their black teas are not as interesting, in my experience.
NewarkâWithin Walking Distance of Penn Station
Mi Pequeno Mexico at 81 Ferry St. is the only non-Spanish/non-Portuguese place I can think of. I'd recommend it based on my two visits there. If I remember correctly, I had excellent enchiladas. The huaraches were just average or slightly above-average though. The chips and salsa are very good as well. Nice people. Definitely very different from Spanish and Portuguese, to my taste buds anyway.
I'm sure I read something about a good Italian place around here, but that's not my area of expertise and I can't locate the thread... sorry....
Another option: Ride the PATH 10 minutes to Journal Square and walk a few blocks north if you're in the mood for Indian. That's a block of Jersey City that makes you feel like you've suddenly stumbled through a wormhole leading to the middle of Bombay.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/691033
Great, Unique Korean-Chinese at 144-18 Northern Blvd., Flushing
Uh oh, North Dumpling House is apparently a bit inconsistent. I returned on Friday night to introduce a couple of my friends to this place and we were a bit disappointed. Maybe they were having an off night. The bean noodle dish with sour cabbage was not nearly as good as last time. Last time, it was mostly noodles with just a touch of cabbage, which is all you need. This time, the cabbage and the noodles were in roughly equal proportion and the cabbage, which was a bit like sauerkraut, overwhelmed the dish, while the noodles were just a bit chewier, not the same luscious melt-in-your-mouth consistency I'd found before.
The squid salad was good, but not as good as last time. Last time, it was just a bit fresher and juicier. I still liked it though.
We also tried the mushroom dumplings. These were OK, but nothing to go out of your way for.
My friends ordered the lamb kidneys. Yikes. I'm probably not qualified to judge, because I don't generally like kidneys anyway, but they did not seem pleased. They were doused in more spice than I've ever seen at this type of restaurant before. I would almost suspect the extra spice was intended to cover up the less-than-fresh state of the kidneys, but then I don't know if kidneys ever taste fresh to me.
One of my friends said she would've much rather returned to Golden Palace. On my first visit, I much preferred this restaurant to Golden Palace, but now I'm not so sure.
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Golden Palace
14009 Cherry Ave, Queens, NY 11355
North Dumpling House
144-18 Northern Blvd, Queens, NY 11354
Burmese Excellence at Flushing's "Excellent Thai"?
Let us know if you found anything especially good among the Burmese dishes at Excellent Thai. Other than the tea leaf salad, nothing I tried compels me to rush back there. But as we noted, the Burmese chef could have been out that day. Or so we speculate.
For reference, for other readers who may not have seen it:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/789924#6646120
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Excellent Thai
36-50 Main St, Queens, NY 11354
Burmese Food Fair Sunday - fantastic
Jim, that could very well be the case, since it took extra time for the tea leaf salad to come out from the kitchen, several minutes after the other three dishes appeared.
Perhaps the chef needed to call someone and ask how to assemble the tea leaf salad! :)
Burmese Food Fair Sunday - fantastic
JFores and my friend Jeanne and I visited Excellent to try some Burmese dishes last night. I loved their tea leaf salad, which was better than the one at the festival in Woodside. It was much spicier than any other version I've had, and had lots of tasty crunchy ingredients. Surprisingly, the "kung bo chicken with ginger and hot pepper, Burmese style" was also very good. I'm no expert on Burmese food, but this didn't seem distinctively Burmese to me. It seemed more Chinese. But I liked it a lot. It reminded me a bit of salt-and-pepper chicken or something like that. And I'm always a sucker for that.
We asked what other Burmese dishes they recommended, and we ended up with the sauteed watercress with spicy shrimp paste sauce and a bland noodle dish that didn't seem Burmese at all. The bland noodles were livened up considerably when we got them to bring us some Sriracha. I wasn't too keen on the watercress itself (though Jeanne liked it a lot) but I enjoyed the spicy shrimp paste. I much preferred eating that paste with some rice and leaving out the watercress. I don't think I'd get either of those two dishes again.
Those four dishes were not as filling as we'd expected, and left us with some room to nibble a bit more, but we forgot to get some shwe yin aye. Dang.
I want to go back and try some more things even though, based on the menu, this didn't seem close to a proper Burmese place at all. (I'd love to see something as great as Myanmar Restaurant in Falls Church VA open around here.) I wonder if their Malaysian dishes are good. JFores said he heard the waitstaff speaking Mandarin to each other, if I remember correctly. Presumably they are Malay Chinese.
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Excellent Thai
36-50 Main St, Queens, NY 11354
Homemade Falafel: New Astoria Lebanese joint
I was in the neighborhood, so I tried the falafel and hummus sandwich. Not bad, and I LOVED the turnip pickles. I'll have to try making turnip pickles at home! I had no idea turnips could be so tasty! Nice crunch. Turnips aren't usually red, are they? Aren't they usually white? I don't think I've ever bought them. While I was eating them, I thought they were pickled beets or something, except the flavor was much more subtle.
However, as falafel goes, on a city-wide basis, I prefer Taim and Kwik Meal or maybe even Maoz. (I'm not sure about how this compares to other Astoria falafel, or even other Queens falafel.) This was definitely above-average, but I wouldn't go out of my way like I would for Taim.
Best bubble tea in Flushing?
Noobs!?!?! GRRR! I will defend Quickly to the death!
Nah, seriously though, I love Quickly, but my criteria for bubble tea is probably a LOT different than most. I generally get the iced green tea without milk. I drink it mainly for the taste of the green tea and not the bubbles. In fact, I often get it without bubbles, too. Quickly has the best-tasting green tea that I know of. People say great things about Ten Ren's bubble tea, but I tried theirs and wasn't impressed with the flavor of the green tea. I don't suppose any of you have this kind of unusual inclination? I presume most of you are getting milk tea with bubbles, and not green tea without milk?
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Ten Ren Tea
135-18 Roosevelt Ave, Queens, NY 11354
Union Square area "quick bite"
I LOVE Maoz (more for the red baby eggplant and other fixings than the falafel itself, although the falafel is no slouch), but just for future reference, there is very very VERY little seating/counter space there. I usually take it out to the park or something. (Now, if there were a Taim location closer to Union Square, the falafel options would be even more awesome.)
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Maoz
38 Union Sq E, New York, NY 10003
