New York City Restaurants by Neighborhood
3183 Broadway between Tiemann Place and 125th Street
$20 each for 4 people, with drinks, with tip
646/559.2862
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Ramen in Harlem? This is seriously the best thing that has happened in my neighborhood in the 7+ years I’ve lived there.
Notable:
1. Happy hour $10 Sapporo pitchers after 10pm when I visited on a Monday night
Need I say more? I’ll be making more trips to Jin Ramen this winter for sure.
41-16 Queens Boulevard, Sunnyside, Queens
$40 each for 4 people, with drinks, with tip
718/433.3702
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Taking advantage of Queens while one of my favorite eating partners is in town from Chicago, we visited Salt & Fat with her brother to check out the scene in what is a very unfamiliar part of the city to me.
Tastiest:
1. Yellowtail tartare with yuzu gel and cassava chips – We got two orders of this because the combination of yuzu and tartare was very good.
2. Pork belly buns – Comparable to the trendiest of them all
3. Fried chicken – Pretty good and happily-salted fried chicken; I didn’t even need the herbed ranch that came with it. The spattering of pickled cubed daikon was a nice touch.
Pretty good:
1. Oxtail terrine – A little salty for me, but it didn’t seem to be a terrine
2. Pork trotters – Crispy and perfect with the slow-cooked egg
3. Truffled beet salad with yuzu crème fraîche – Simple
Notable:
1. Prices – Go now before the prices hike for visiting Brooklynites (as if they will ever leave Brooklyn!)
Weird:
1. Ice creams for dessert – A-plus for effort on the miso-apple, jalapeño-white peach and Thai iced tea flavors, but I felt like they lacked ooomph.
2. Service – Though pretty fast, our waitress seemed unhappy to be there. We had to ask for our pig trotters twice and we wondered if she was distracted.
3. The bathroom – It looked like Sanibel, Florida in there
82-18 45th Avenue, Elmhurst, Queens
$20 each for 4 people, without drinks, with tip
718/898.8001
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One of my favorite eating partners was in town from Chicago, so I basically forced her to eat in Queens and drag Paul, her Malaysian friend, with her so he can order for the rest of us and show us Malay food in the city.
Tastiest:
1. Kangkong belacan – Call these hollow vegetables whatever you want: swamp cabbage, water spinach, ong choy or phak bung, but they will always be Filipino kangkong to me. Belacan, the Malaysian variety of shrimp paste is deliciously salty–the perfect side vegetable to any Southeast Asian fare.
2. Rojak – This sweet and sour dish had the best combination of texture: cuttlefish (soft), prawn fritters (crisp), cucumber (tender), jicama (crunchy), pineapple (soft), mango (fleshy), sesame seeds (toasty). Named after the Malay term for “mix”, it not only refers to the seafood-fruit-vegetable combo, but also the multi-ethnic Malaysian-Singapore influence.
3. Singapore kari laksa – How can you go wrong with curry as good as this? This bowl of yellow-orange noodles brought back such good memories of my trip to Singapore I almost wept. It turns out the hot broth that burst from my quickly eating the soft tofu squares were too spicy for me in one go. Burning my throat was worth it though.
Weird:
1. Petai beans with belacan and shrimp – Petai beans look like a larger version of fava, but they had a bitter aftertaste that was, for a lack of a better word, weird. And I rarely describe food as “weird”. After some Internet research, I found out why they would taste so weird: they’re called stink bean and resemble the smell of natural gas!
Disappointment:
1. Sizzling pork with marmite sauce – I was warned that the restaurant is now under new management, but that shouldn’t be a reason as to why they would serve a dish other than how it’s advertised. This dish was in no way sizzling–it was just on a plate that resembled a sizzling platter. The pork chops were soft, but lacked that chargrilled flavor I was looking for and tasted more like a bottle of store-bought sauce was lazily poured in.
24 Minetta Lane off Sixth Avenue
$75 each for 3 people, with drinks, with tip
212/933.1824
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On a steamy Monday night, we were entertained by the Everybody Loves Raymond bartender lookalike at the bar.
Tastiest:
1. Fried pig’s ears – I can only cook pig’s ears Fergus Henderson style and they’re never this crispy and delicious
2. Squash blossoms – They’re usually bland and boring with goat cheese inside, but they used Caciocavallo and anchovies
3. Pasta with chanterelles and the pasta with tripe that did not taste like tripe at all
Underwhelming:
1. Braised octopus with oven-dried tomatoes – I can’t help but order octopus every time it’s on the menu, but with all their other decadent offerings, this was pretty tame.
Notable:
1. Great service at the bar – They make good Negronis
2. Splitting the primi pastas between two people
Warning:
1. $18 for half a dozen oysters! Yikes!
127 Columbia Street between Kane and Degraw Streets, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
$55 each for 5 people, with drinks, with tip
718/923.9322
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After a bland dinner at Mission Chinese the week before, I was eager to taste what a Portland, Oregon chef could bring to discerning New York City diners.
Tastiest:
1. Cha Cha La Vong – a turmeric-marinated catfish fried with scallions and, surprise, dill; served with vermicelli, fresh mint leaves, cilantro and peanuts
2. Kai Yaang – roasted hen stuffed with lemongrass, garlic, pepper and cilantro
3. Phak Buung Fai Daeng – water spinach wok-fried with fish sauce, chili and garlic
Notable:
1. The Chiang Mai sausage was described as having aromatics, but it failed to mention that it will be overwhelmingly kaffir lime leaves
Questionable:
1. 20% service fee was automatically added to our bill – I thought that was for a group of 6 or more
2. $1 fee charged to every credit card because we used 4 and their limit is 3
3. No American Express accepted
