Editor’s note: In our State of the Stomach pieces, Culinary Backstreets looks at how – and why – a city is eating right now. This is our latest for Queens.
For many visitors to New York, the first sight of Queens comes from above, during the approach to JFK or LaGuardia, the city’s two international airports. And the first thought, upon landing, is to keep going. How far is it, they wonder, to our hotel, and to the museums, theaters, shopping, and sights? How long till we get to “the city”?
For culinary explorers, Queens is not merely a way station, it is a destination in itself. The largest in area of the five boroughs of New York City, Queens is the home of well over two million people, half of them born outside the United States, speaking untold hundreds of mother tongues. During the course of a day, we might hear a dozen languages without breaking a sweat.
The gastronomic variety is perhaps even more astonishing. Queens embraces innumerable small neighborhoods within neighborhoods, and no single cuisine or family of cuisines holds sway in them all. The local favorites in food and drink, and the favorite ways to enjoy them, seem to change before our eyes every time we turn a corner.
A healthy day’s walk might carry us from a single savory slice of flaky Balkan burek, to a plateful of the lush Afghan dumplings called mantu, to the excess of a Brazilian steam-table feijoada, to the splendor of a Neapolitan delizia al limone, literally a “lemon delight.”
Or maybe, instead, we’ll begin with a fried oyster onigirazu, a jewel-like Japanese sandwich framed in sushi rice and nori; indulge in a Veracruz-style cóctel de camarón with a sporty crest of avocado; tuck away an order of flame-kissed tawa kaleji, chicken livers reanimated with chili powder and ginger, Punjabi style; and put our appetite to rest with all variety of empanadas – savory, for sure, but why not sweet empanadas, too?
One of our empanadas might be served by a street vendor who displays the flag of Venezuela. After fleeing economic and political strife in that country, in recent years many Venezuelan immigrants have found themselves in New York with few options for supporting themselves. Selling their home country’s food is one way to help make ends meet, however tenuously – most if not all must work without the proper permits, which are strictly limited by the city. It’s a business model that we’ve seen repeated all across Queens, notably by vendors from Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America who work from trucks, carts and other temporary stands in Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Corona.
In the busiest parts of these neighborhoods, on the streets, sidewalks and other public areas near the elevated 7 train, street-food vendors not only compete with one another, but sometimes also find themselves at odds with brick-and-mortar competitors, local business associations, and city regulators. On afternoons and weekends during the latter part of the Covid-19 pandemic, Corona Plaza played host to an especially lively and crowded Latin American marketplace filled with food vendors; many of these vendors, too, operated without permits while struggling to make a living. As the pandemic waned, so did the city’s tolerance for Corona Plaza, and for a time the plaza was cleared of vendors entirely. Some have returned under a new regulatory umbrella, and although their operating hours have been scaled back, whenever we visit the vendor spirit still quickens our appetite.
Some restaurants face troubles of their own. During Covid, many of their regulars became accustomed to dining out less often, at earlier hours and with a more casual approach – which, generally, meant spending less money per meal. In the wake of the pandemic, diners in search of a carefree afternoon or evening out might get a bargain, but often they find that their favorite menus have been pared down, and that the service is slowed by staff cutbacks.
All sorts of brick-and-mortar food businesses – not only restaurants but also bakeries, grocers, cafes, lunch counters and other establishments – might be weighed down by the pressures of gentrification and the consequent rising commercial rents. In recent years these pressures have spread from Long Island City, the Queens neighborhood most convenient to Manhattan, northeastward into Astoria, where some smaller businesses, we’ve heard, are beginning to feel the pinch. Similar concerns about gentrification have risen in Ridgewood, which a century ago was a rural haven for residents fleeing Manhattan crowds; today it’s become an alternative for couples and young families fleeing Manhattan rents.
Speaking of crowds, they’re nowhere more evident than in Flushing, home to New York’s most dynamic Chinatown. True, we occasionally retreat to the climate-controlled comfort, and relative calm, of upscale developments such as the Tangram complex, which boasts a cinema and a fitness center in addition to multiple places to enjoy a quick bite or a full meal. But the hustle and bustle on the streets – and just off the streets, in restaurants, snack shops, micro-malls and sprawling food courts – is part of the attraction. From Dongbei cumin lamb to syrup-splashed Cantonese douhua, from Lanzhou pulled noodles to Shanghainese xiao long bao, from Qingdao-style fresh seafood to Sichuanese chile-strewn fish filets – we could wander for a week and never take it all in.
Queens is also home to numerous smaller enclaves, many known, officially or unofficially, as “Little” neighborhoods. We might easily devote a day’s exploration to Little Guyana, in Richmond Hill; Little Egypt, in Astoria; Little Manila, in Woodside; Little Thailand, in Elmhurst; or what’s been dubbed Little Himalaya, in Jackson Heights, site of an annual momo crawl.
Nor would we want to overlook Southern-style hog maws, Nigerian efo riro, Uzbek veal-foot soup, Indonesian sate, Algerian chekhchoukha or the pleasures of a squeeze-cup of Italian ice beside a bocce court. A pit stop at a humble diner can offer culinary curiosities, too. Regarding one particular soda-fountain favorite that contains neither egg nor cream, just how did the egg cream get its name?
Even for native New Yorkers, the possibilities are inexhaustible. Our surest plan of action: Eat early, eat often, always save room for a little more.
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QUICK HITS
- Old School vs. New School
- Even if the soundtrack didn’t swing to Sinatra, as well as 1960s soul and 1970s pop and rock, Fuzi Pasta, in Fresh Meadows, would feel like a classic neighborhood Italian restaurant. “I always wanted a place where I could go a couple of times a week and have a good plate of pasta,” the owner tells us; here the noodles come with a twist, courtesy of Croatia. While pasta also has a place at Rolo’s, a capacious corner restaurant in Ridgewood, many more dishes issue from the wood-fired oven, and the dinner menu’s largest section is “small plates.” These can be paired with a varied rosters of wines and cocktails that beguile a young, well-to-do clientele.
- Watering Hole
- In the early 20th century, Queens and the neighboring parts of northern Brooklyn were home to many breweries run by German immigrants. All are long gone, but in the early 21st century, a fresh batch of small, inventive breweries began to take their place. Today, the borough is home to a dozen or so; SingleCut Beersmiths, in Astoria, might be our favorite for a Queens-brewed nightcap. Among cocktail lovers, Dutch Kills, in the small neighborhood of the same name, has an international reputation for top-notch ingredients that extends even to its hand-chipped ice. Enjoy them from a perch at the bar or in the cozy confines of a booth.
- To Market
- On Sundays all year round, we’ve paid many visits to the Jackson Heights Greenmarket, which brings the bounty of farms from distant counties in New York and New Jersey to a quiet block far from the rumbling 7 train. Lately, however, we’ve become fond of the Down to Earth Farmers Market, in Fresh Meadows (also on Sundays, though only from April through December). Even before we enjoyed a blueberry scone, a pair of hearty empanadas and an essential morning cup of coffee, we quickly saw how the market has cultivated a relationship with the community.
- Neighborhood Watch
- Ridgewood was our “neighborhood to visit” for 2022, and it’s one we won’t tire of anytime soon. Some credit goes to the quality of the light – many early residents fled Manhattan’s crowded Lower East Side for these comparatively wide-open spaces, and even today we can easily find a vantage to watch the sun rise and set. But we’re also charmed by the mingling of classic and contemporary: It’s a short walk from the Old World charcuterie at Muncan Food and the confections at Rudy’s Bakery and Café to a Vietnamese restaurant, coffee house and art gallery, Nhà Mình, or to Salty Lunch Lady’s Little Luncheonette, which manages to be both quirkily inventive and yet comfortingly familiar.
- Back to Basics
- The cuisines in Queens can be so wildly eclectic that sometimes we hunger for a meal that gives our culinary imaginations some quiet time. A hearty diner-style breakfast at Jahn’s in Jackson Heights; meats cooked “low and slow” at John Brown BBQ , in Dutch Kills; or a juicy burger and a proper pint at Donovan’s Pub, in Woodside, all will fill the bill.
Published on October 16, 2024
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