Queens

Wheels Down, Surf's Up: A JFK Layover in Rockaway Beach

John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) is the gateway for many travelers entering and leaving New York City. If one leg of your journey is an international flight, you might easily have a scheduled layover of six hours, maybe longer. You'll probably be tempted to spend some of that time exploring. Hitting the tourist highlights of Manhattan might be a stretch, however – from the airport, which sprawls over the southernmost reaches of Jamaica, Queens, you should allow at least three hours roundtrip travel time. (If you leave the airport on any itinerary, you might also need to clear customs and immigration, as well as security.)

Queens

969 NYC Coffee: Japanese Snacks in Jackson Heights

Mitsumine Oda's original idea for 969 NYC Coffee, in Jackson Heights, was just what the name suggests: a simple, small coffee shop. The bright yellow awning shows a wispy "969" – Oda's favorite number, we later learn – rising from an "NYC" cup. The side of the awning, however, reveals that this is much more than your average neighborhood coffee place. In bright green lettering, it reads matcha (powdered Japanese green tea and the beverage made from it) and onigiri, accompanied by the terse explanation "rice ball." Left unmentioned, at least until we climb a few steps to the small covered patio and within reading distance of a review affixed to the window, are onigirazu.

Queens

Super Heroes: Our Favorite Italian Sandwich Shops in Queens

Just about anyone raised in or around New York City – and who loves eating – can tell you about Italian sandwiches. Not long ago, when we raised the subject with some of our dining buddies, in person and online, we were overwhelmed with recommendations. Our list of a few favorite sandwich shops quickly grew to more than two dozen that, we were told, we really ought to try. To be sure, this crowd understood that by "Italian," we didn't mean sandwiches native to Italy itself – not panuozzi, not schiacciate, not even panini. We were thinking instead of their hefty, even humungous U.S. descendants, the sort that are served on a long, flat wheat-flour roll, typically one with a chewy crumb and a crisp crust.

Queens

Angel Indian Restaurant: Divine Eats

"Simple but good." This guiding principle is evident from the moment we step into Jackson Heights’ Angel Indian Restaurant, where the small dining room is almost bare of decoration. Until our food arrives at the table, the most eye-catching sights – just barely visible above the tall partition that screens the seating area from the open kitchen – are the flames that leap from a pan as chef and owner Amrit Pal Singh puts the finishing touches to our meal. It's unlikely that the flames leapt quite as high at home in Pathankot, a city in the northern Indian state of Punjab, where Amrit was born in the mid-1980s. (Even today, few home kitchens are outfitted with a high-powered commercial stovetop and ventilation system.)

Queens

Neighborhoods to Visit 2022: Ridgewood, Queens

Although it's a highlight of our local culinary wanderings, when seen within a map of New York City as a whole, Ridgewood is an unremarkable-looking neighborhood. It describes a downward-pointing triangle, bounded to the north and east by the Queens communities of Maspeth, Middle Village and Glendale. To the west it shares a long, irregular border with Brooklyn, mostly with the far-more-hip neighborhood of Bushwick. In the 19th century both Bushwick and Ridgewood offered gainful employment and more attractive housing to German-Americans living in the cramped Kleindeutschland of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Bushwick was developed first, and became home not only to residential properties but also to many breweries and factories.

Queens

Bhanchha Ghar: Momo Champ

Bhanchha Ghar (Bahn-sah Gar) is the only four-time winner of New York City’s annual Momo Crawl. Early one afternoon, more than a thousand event goers fanned out from the block-long, pedestrian-only Diversity Plaza, at the western edge of Jackson Heights, and called on dozens of nearby restaurants, cafés, trucks and carts. Each dished out at least one style of momo, a filled dumpling best-known from Tibet and Nepal. Several hours later, after momo-crawlers had returned to the plaza and the popular vote had been tallied, Yamuna Shrestha, the owner of Bhanchha Ghar, once again proudly raised the Momo Belt high. The decorated yak-hide belt returned to its glass case, mounted on the back wall of the upstairs dining area, where it overlooks an open kitchen and a handful of tables.

Queens

Rincon Criollo: Memories of Cuba, In Queens

"Everything had to remain the same." In the dining room of Rincon Criollo, a Cuban restaurant in Corona, Esther Acosta recalls the pledge that she and her older brother, Rudesindo ("Rudy") Acosta, made to their great-uncles when they took the reins of the family business. The surrounding community has changed in the years since the restaurant opened in 1976. Today, it's easier to find chaulafan from Ecuador, chalupas from Mexico or chow from many other Latin American countries than to find the shredded, slow-simmered flank steak of a traditional Cuban ropa vieja.