Want to know where to find the tastiest soup dumplings in Chinatown or the best borscht in Brighton Beach? Read on!
East Village
Baked curry at Curry-Ya
214 E. 10th St.; 1-866-60CURRY ($11.50 to $14.50)
“My philosophy is you don’t need to fly to Japan, you can enjoy good Japanese food in the East Village,” says restaurant king Bon Yagi, who owns five Japanese restaurants in the East Village neighborhood. His latest venture, Curry-Ya, which opened on East 10th Street in 2007, specializes in interesting curry dishes with diners perched on stools at a bar-style counter.
In his native Japan, Yagi says, “Curry isn’t exotic by any means. It’s a comfort food all moms know how to make.”
But the restaurateur wanted to do something different. So his recipe begins with a bouillon- based soup made with carrots and potatoes, which is stewed for three to four hours, strained, then cooked an additional three hours with spices. And to let the flavors shine, it’s not served until the third day. For the baked curry dish, the sauce is poured over a bed of rice and topped with an organic egg and cheddar cheese, merging multiple comfort food stars for a profoundly satisfying meal.
Chinatown
Soup dumplings at 456 Shanghai Cuisine
69 Mott St.; 212-964- 0003 ($5.25 for regular pork dumplings, $6.95 for crab and pork dumplings; eight per basket)
There are many restaurants in Chinatown that serve xiao long bao, so it’s no longer necessary to wait in an endless line to get a taste of these delicate pork dumplings, which unleash a mouthful of hot, rich broth when you bite into their thin steamed skins. But don’t be fooled — they are not all equal.
Chef Zhou Li models his dumplings after the ones sold at the famed Din Tai Fung, a popular Taiwanese chain found mostly in Asia and California. They are half the size of your typical soup dumpling and can easily be eaten in one bite. “The small ones are harder to make,” says restaurant manager David Lew, who explains that the Chinese name literally means “little basket buns.” Every day, three dedicated cooks expertly hand-make them from lean pork shoulder that’s been ground with tiny pieces of aspic and kept cold. Then they’re steamed for five minutes — “If you go over, they’ll break open,” says Lew. Just remember, first poke a hole in the skin to cool it down and/ or let the soup run out into your spoon, then add the ginger-vinegar and savor.
East Harlem
Special mixed taco at Taco Mix
234 E. 116th St.; 212-831-8147 ($3)
George Sanchez first started selling his tacos from a small cart on 135th Street and Broadway before moving his business to East Harlem in the early ’90s, when the neighborhood was largely Puerto Rican, black and Italian. The tacos were similar to the ones he’d sold in Mexico City and Los Angeles.
“Customers would go to the local taco stand [in Mexico] and ask for different types of meat,” translates George’s son and restaurant manager, Alejo. “They would mix it up, and it would be called a ‘mixto.’ ” But you won’t find the mixed special — which consists of wonderfully seasoned and unctuous pieces of flank steak, pork ear and beef stomach piled over tiny corn tortillas and topped with diced onion and cilantro — on the menu. “That was a technical problem, and it was left off,” says Alejo, “but people ask for it all the time.” Like any good taqueria, Taco Mix also provides complimentary salsas: house-made red chile de árbol, a green habañero and an avocado salsa. It’s necessary to try all of them, but you’ll want to be especially careful with the habañero.
Koreatown
Ginseng chicken soup at Arirang
32 W. 32nd St., third floor; 212-967-5088 ($22.99, serves one to two people)
At night, the glowing signage lining the buildings along 32nd Street, the heart of Koreatown, evoke the nightscape of Seoul. But up on the third-story of a building in the middle of all the bright lights, chef Chang-Il Kim serves up traditional samgyetang, or ginseng chicken soup, unlike any other.
Concocted with ginseng, red dates, whole garlic, onion and young whole chicken stuffed with sweet rice, the soup starts brewing daily at 8 a.m. And though it’s ready 2½ hours later, it will continue to simmer on the stove for the rest of the day as customers place their orders. When it’s served, the dish is sprinkled with fresh scallions and black sesame seeds. Somehow, the broth is silky and porridge-like rather than thin — which Kim reveals is her own special touch: She adds ground sweet rice during the cooking process. On the side are bowls of kimchee, which Kim makes herself, as well as a salt/pepper/black-sesame mix, which you can dip the tender pieces of chicken in for extra seasoning.
Greenpoint
Pirogi at Krolewskie Jadlo
694 Manhattan Ave.; 718-383-8993 ($6.50 for six pirogi)
Before chef Krzysztof Drzewiecki opened this Michelin-recommended Polish restaurant in 2005, he put in time in the kitchens at Nobu and Sushi- Samba. “To be a good chef, you need to practice a lot of cuisines,” he says.
Still, his extra-large cheese-andpotato pirogi (“probably the most important dish for Polish people”) are as traditional as they get. And they face a discerning crowd in Greenpoint’s largely working-class “Little Poland” of Brooklyn.
“Everyone makes them pretty much the same way,” says Drzewiecki, who is on the verge of opening a new organic Polish eatery called Dziupla in Williamsburg. “We make 1,500 fresh pierogies a week. We serve so many, it’s impossible to have old pirogi.”
South Williamsburg
Chocolate babka at Sander’s Bakery
159 Lee Ave.; 718- 387-7411 ($6.50/pound)
With growing real estate and business development, South Williamsburg has seen a major demographic shift in recent years. But the longstanding Hasidic Jewish community still dominates the area below the J/M/Z lines, particularly on Lee Avenue, where the street is dotted with kosher bakeries — and therefore, babka.
Brothers Herman and Aaron Sander inherited both their babka recipe and the bakery from their father, a Holocaust survivor who bought the corner stalwart in 1959.
But, to clarify, Herman says, “Babka has nothing to do with religion.” And though the chocolate-marbled bread (above) has secular Eastern European roots, he says many of his fellow Hasids like it for Shabbat because it stays fresh for a few days.
“Everything is done by hand,” says Herman. The babka is made on Thursday and Friday mornings (and sometimes on Wednesdays).
Brighton Beach
Borscht at Cafe Glechik
3159 Coney Island Ave.; 718-616-0766 ($6.60)
Sometimes referred to as “Little Odessa” because of the number of inhabitants who immigrated from the Ukrainian town of Odessa, Brighton Beach has been home to the original Cafe Glechik for 14 years. (There is a second location in neighboring Sheepshead Bay.) The savory-sweet, flavorful borscht here comes from a secret family recipe that goes back to father-son owners Vadim and Paul Tesler’s grandmother/ great-grandmother, who also hailed from Odessa. They will only reveal that it’s made from all fresh vegetables, including beets, carrots, onions, tomatoes, celery, cabbage and dill. “We make it every day fresh; everything is prepared on-site,” says Paul. “The way we’d prepare it at home is the way we prepare it here in the cafe.” It’s always served hot with garlicky pompushka bread, which is also made in-house, but the sour cream is optional.
Carroll Gardens
Sfogliatelle at Mazzola
192 Union St.; 718-643-1719 ($2.50)
Though their numbers have dwindled, Carroll Gardens still hosts a solid community of Italian-Americans and specialty shops, from butchers to bakers. Mazzola Bakery, owned by Josephine Messina’s Sicilian-American family (a k a the Caravellos), has existed on the corner of Union and Henry streets for 80 years, selling traditional Italian baked goods, including the clam-shaped sfogliatelle.
Baker Anthony Ilardi, who’s worked with the family for 15 years, makes the flaky layered pastry by hand every morning in a complicated two-hour process that involves rolling and chilling a special croissant-like dough and filling it with a shaved-orange-rind-and-ricotta mixture. While sfogliatelle may not be as renowned here as pizza or tiramisu, Messina says, “In Italy, they have it for breakfast and dessert.” And at this corner bakery, she adds, “It’s been a favorite with the new generation of neighbors here.”
Murray Hill, Flushing
Masala dosa at Temple Canteen
45-57 Bowne St.; 718-460- 8484 ($4)
If you’re using public transportation, getting to the Temple Canteen at the Hindu Temple Society of North America isn’t the easiest trek, but it’s worth it. Since 1993, the Canteen has been serving dosas in their basement cafeteria to anyone hungry for a taste of this traditional south Indian cuisine.
Made from a fermented rice-and-lentil batter, the dosas typically come as thin crepes or pancakes, and are served with a variety of vegetarian fillings — as well as small cups of sambar (a stew made from vegetables like cauliflower, carrots and lentils) and coconut chutney, which is made from fresh coconut, baby chilies and ginger. The masala dosa, with its spiced-potato filling, reigns here, but any of the 22 varieties are worth trying, including the Pondicherry, which is filled with mixed vegetables, and the onion and chilies-embedded Rava dosa.
“It’s a blessed food — after all, it’s on the temple premises,” says Uma Mysorekar, president of the temple, which opened in 1977. “Any blessed food has a very special taste. You can’t explain it in words unless you experience it.”
Little Egypt, Astoria
Egyptian mezze at Kabab Cafe
2512 Steinway St.; 718-728-9858 ($10 for one person, $15 for two)
Little Egypt, the stretch between 28th Avenue and Astoria Boulevard on Steinway Street, has been home to chef Ali El Sayed’s masterful culinary art for 27 years — and art it certainly is. “Eggplant is the best canvas because it has no taste,” says El Sayed, who specializes in cuisine from his native southern Egypt.
“You have to add things to it. Put your madness into it.”
El Sayed sublimely blends his madness into the striking mezze platter, filled with freshly fried falafel and chicory leaves, cut apples and crudités, handmade baba ganoush, hummus and ful. The delicate falafel are asymmetrically shaped by spoons as opposed to the typical uniform balls, scooped from a fresh mixture of split fava beans, parsley, leek, cilantro, cumin, sesame seeds, salt and a hint of cinnamon. The garbanzo-bean base hummus and the ful, which is made from fava beans,fresh tomato, onion, lemon, olive oil and “Egyptian hocus pocus,” have a little texture, as opposed to the overly processed grocery-market versions. “Put yourselves in the shoes of our ancestors,” El Sayed explains. “Did they always have food processors? A chef has to be like a chemist. You can’t overdo it.”