Queens

Best Bites 2021: Queens

For Queens, one culinary claim to fame has always been the variety of cuisines on offer. That was the case in 2019 and before, it held true in 2020 and continues to this day, late in 2021. The onset of the pandemic, however, meant that businesses sometimes felt as isolated as individual families. Many were cut off from the cross-pollination of ideas and intelligence – not to mention customers – that helps them grow and thrive. Survival, of course, had been the immediate business goal. But today, street vendors are going as strong as ever, and more and more restaurant owners are openly discussing plans for new dishes, new locations, new collaborations.

Queens

Leticias: Ecuadorian Eats & Treats in Corona Plaza

Our first encounter with the chaulafan from Leticias, an Ecuadorian restaurant in Corona, was at the 2021 season opener of the nearby Queens Night Market. As it cooked outdoors – in a wok over high heat, a testament to the dish's origins among Chinese immigrant workers – the fried rice was a dramatic sight. Our second encounter was outdoors, too, at sidewalk table, although the wok was confined to the kitchen. We didn't watch the fried rice as it cooked, but the presentation told the same story of culinary connection: Our chaulafan was served in a deep bowl that mimicked a Chinese takeout container.

Queens

Corn Dogs & Dumplings: A Snacker's Guide to Murray Hill’s “Koreatown”

Just to the east of Flushing, the home of New York City's largest and fastest-changing Chinatown, is a sprawling neighborhood that boasts many of the city's most interesting Korean restaurants and food shops. We hesitate to call it a Koreatown. Compared with the few dense blocks of Manhattan's Koreatown, this part of Queens has a more open feel, with modest buildings, wider streets and more sunlight. Here, in the late 1700s, the Murray family owned a nursery of more than 100 acres filled with trees and other plants imported from around the world. In the late 1800s, when the nursery gave way to residential development, the burgeoning neighborhood was named for the family: Murray Hill.

Queens

Foda Egyptian Sandwiches: Falafel Mavens

Hamburgers and ketchup, hot dogs and mustard. Many of us who grew up in the United States learned these food pairings early in life, at ballparks, backyard cookouts and birthday parties. In our case, we encountered falafel and tahini sometime later, probably at the urging of adventuresome schoolmates. Ahmed Foda – or just "Foda" for short – serves his falafel, too, with the familiar ground-sesame twang of tahini. But at Foda Egyptian Sandwiches, his year-old Astoria food cart, the fritters are called tameya (tah-May-ah) and rely on fava beans rather than chickpeas. This is what distinguishes the Egyptian style of falafel from that of its Levantine neighbors.

Queens

Beyond the Courts: CB’s U.S. Open Eating Guide 2021

Each year in late summer, some of the best athletes on the planet converge on Flushing Meadows Corona Park to compete in the United States Open Tennis Championships. In 2021, the U.S. Open begins with practice sessions and qualifier matches on Tuesday, August 24, and concludes with the men's singles final, scheduled for Sunday, September 12. The tournament site does provide hungry fans with several cafés and casual bar-restaurants as well as a pair of “food villages.” But when in Queens – where some of the best food in the city is so close at hand – why would we confine ourselves to the boundaries of the tennis center? To energize ourselves beforehand or wind down afterward, here are a few of our favorite nearby dining destinations.

Queens

A Snacker’s Guide to Flushing

New York City has many Chinatowns; how many is a matter for dispute. While the oldest and most famous is in Manhattan, southern Brooklyn now boasts two such neighborhoods – or maybe three, depending on who's counting. Without a doubt, however, the city's largest and fastest-changing Chinatown surrounds the eastern terminus of the 7 train in Flushing, Queens. One measure of Flushing's vibrancy is the variety of spoken languages. Flushing is home to speakers of Mandarin, Shanghainese, Fujianese, Cantonese, Taiwanese and many other Chinese languages and dialects. The neighborhoods immediately to the east are densely populated with Korean speakers; in much smaller numbers, we also find speakers of other East, South and Southeast Asian languages.

Queens

Fried Fellowship: Building Community around Loukoumades in Queens

Our first New York encounter with loukoumades was under a canopied table, in a church courtyard, at a Greek festival in Brooklyn Heights many years ago. The ladies who fashioned these dough fritters, one by one, seemed just as attentive to the behavior of their (mostly young) customers as they were to the cook pot. No tomfoolery, their expressions told us, or no loukoumades. Since then we’ve seen loukoumades at many similar events, most recently in late spring outside a Greek Orthodox cathedral in Astoria. A line of would-be festival-goers, who had endured month after month of Covid regulations and cancellations, stretched a considerable distance down the block. Food, we’re sure, was one attraction.