Delicious Food at Mu Ramen

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The other day I decided it was time to check out Mu Ramen, a pop-up ramen spot in Long Island City, Queens, so I met a friend there Wednesday night. By day the space is Bricktown Bagels, and at night on Tuesdays through Saturdays it transforms into an intimate ramen joint. They serve a couple kinds of ramen, a couple kinds of buns, a few appetizers. The menu is simple and the food is amazing.

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The folks behind this venture, Joshua Smookler and Heidy He, started things up a couple of months ago. Joshua Smookler, who has worked at places such as Per Se and Nobu, starts working on the food each evening around 5 p.m., and they start taking reservations after 6 p.m. There are only 14 seats available, and they fill up pretty fast; we hear the busy time is between 7 and 9 p.m each night. I was happy to be there at 6:30.

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We started with the short rib buns, which were meaty, rich, and delicious. Continue reading “Delicious Food at Mu Ramen”

13 in 2013 – Good Eats in Queens (and Brooklyn)

This year I ate at a lot of restaurants, but didn’t write about them here—sometimes I didn’t blog about them at all. I’ve been meaning to do a roundup of some of these places and the dishes that thrilled me the most this year, so I figure an end-of-year summary seems appropriate. So, here are thirteen of the tastiest things I ate in 2013.

Achat at Savory Cafe

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This past Fall the first restaurant serving Malaysian food opened in Astoria, Savory Café. They also serve American food, but for me their Malaysian dishes really stand out. In particular, I loved this achat—crunchy pickled vegetables like cabbage, carrots, and cucumbers, marinated in a vinegary homemade dressing that was nice and tangy, with a little bit of heat and sweetness. It’s quite a large portion, served in a bowl, and topped with toasted crushed powdery peanuts and lightly toasted sesame seeds. I loved how refreshing this was and found that it was a great way to start the meal. 47-12 30th Avenue, Astoria  Continue reading “13 in 2013 – Good Eats in Queens (and Brooklyn)”

Tourtières at M. Wells in Long Island City in Time for the Holidays

A Tourtiere, which is a meat pie traditionally made in Quebec

Photo credit: Jesse Winter

I got an email newsletter today from M. Wells, the source of all French Canadian food goodness in Queens, updating subscribers on what’s going on with their restaurants—M. Wells Steakhouse (open!) and M. Wells Dinette (new menu!). They also mentioned they are offering tourtières:

The 10-inch pies are filled with an array of birds, brisket, pork, potatoes, spices and draft beer. Each comes with a jar of cranberry ketchup and serves 4 to 6 people.

I have to admit, it sounds delicious. I wanted to learn a little bit more about the tourtière. Turns out it’s a traditional French-Canadian meat pie served during a réveillon, which is a big, long meal traditionally eaten on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. The fillings vary in different parts of Québec (it’s also eaten in New England here in the US), with coastal areas using fish and inland areas using pork, beef, and wild game (sounds like the ones from M. Wells are more like the inland pies). The name of the dish is based on the vessel this pie was originally cooked in, the tourtière.

Well, I am sorely tempted to order one of these tourtières. They are $45 a pop, and can be ordered by phone (718-786-9060) up until noon Saturday, December 20th (I think they mean the 21st). Pickup is at M. Wells Dinette on Sunday and Monday. It comes frozen (directions come with how to heat it up), which adds a level of convenience. I’ll report back if I buy and eat one.

In Which I Eat Adjarian Khachapuri at Brick Oven Bread in Brooklyn

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Last month I mentioned that I really wanted to try khachapuri—Adjarian style, in particular—which is the traditional Georgian cheese bread. I’m pleased to tell you that I made it down to Brooklyn and my wish came true. The bread was truly delicious and I can’t wait to eat it again!

My two friends, Anne and Jen, traveled to BK with me—a straight shot on the N train to Kings Highway—and we met their friend Aleksey, who knows the neighborhood and speaks Russian. We planned to stop first at Brick Oven Bread, then walk a mile or so to Cafe Avat, make a stop in at Russian grocery Cherry Hill Market, and end our trip at Baku Bakery. Spoiler: Baku Bakery was closed, so I’ll have to go back.

When we got to Brick Oven Bread, we knew we wanted to get khachapuri, and settled on splitting among the four of us one Adjarian khachapuri. Jen also ordered a Mengrel khachapuri to take home, which was a flat circular bread with cheese both inside and out, and is placed in a pizza box. She said it was delicious the day after, too.

Anyway, our bread came out and it was super gorgeous.

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It arrived piping hot with a knob of butter and a raw egg in the center. Aleksey stirred the egg and butter together with two forks, which eventually created something like a creamy scrambled egg.

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We tore or cut off (it was quite hot to the touch) fluffy pieces from around the edge and dipped it into the egg and butter mixture.

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The tangy cheese inside (a mix of mozzarella and feta, since the traditional sulguni is not available in this country, probably because it’s young and raw) added another great flavor to the mix and I loved the whole thing. I do believe I could eat one of these myself on a very hungry day (which is most days).

We drank a bright green tarragon soda with the bread, Zedazeni brand. The bakery owner sung its praises. Jen likened it to Jones Soda. Aleksey warned us that it would be very sweet, though I found I liked it. The color was amazing—this is not the color of the bottle, but of the soda itself. It didn’t really taste like what I consider tarragon to taste like, but that was probably because it was so sweet. It’s very popular in the Caucases, Russia, Ukraine, and parts of Central Asia.

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This was a great way to start our visit to Brooklyn. More on Cafe Avat and Cherry Hill Market in a later post. Many, many thanks to Aleksey for being our guide and giving his time to our adventure!

Brick Oven Bread, 230 Kings Highway, Brooklyn, NY 11223, (718) 759-6250 

Tlacoyos and More at Tacos Morelos in Jackson Heights

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This past weekend, I met up with a group of friends and headed out to Tacos Morelos, a Mexican restaurant on the east end of Jackson Heights that makes traditional antojitos and platters of food. Morelos is a Mexican State south of Mexico City. When I sat down, I was given a menu almost immediately. I was looking forward to digging into it and seeing what they had to offer.

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I was happy to see a lot of familiar fare—tacos, huaraches, quesadillas, cemitas, tortas. Also, there were the less common tlacoyos, which excited me. And then the even less familiar tacos placeros, which, according to Sara Markel-Gonzalez of Serious Eats, the term tacos placeros “means different things to different people, but generally are tacos that you can buy in an outdoor plaza in Mexico, usually inexpensive, made with a variety of fillings, but simply prepared.” I expect I could have bought them from the street vendors in downtown Cancun when I was there years ago.

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Parque las Palapas in Cancun, Mexico.

You can see the food vendor area in the distance. At that point in time I was not open to eating street food much, so I abstained. You better believe I’d be all over that now!

Anyway, about those tacos placeros—I remember seeing one on the menu that included potatoes, and there was also a chile relleno taco. I think next time I’m there I’m going to try them.

The first thing that came out to the table was chips and salsa. The chips were good—nice and light, and came with an excellent salsa that had visible bits of onion and cilantro in it. I also loved the color; the black specks are likely bits of charred chiles. It wasn’t very spicy but had great flavor, and we finished it off pretty quickly.

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For drinks, people at our table ordered beer (Modelo, Pacifico) or micheladas. This Mexican beer cocktail has become easier to find in NYC recently, but for a while there were only a few places (that I knew of) that served them. A basic michelada is essentially beer, lime, and salt. But more commonly they contain hot sauce in addition to the lime and salt.

You can also add chamoy syrup, which contributes an additional tang. A few years back, a friend who lived in Mexico City for a few years showed me how to make a michelada. She got chamoy flavored candy at a local bodega and melted it so that we could taste it; that’s what’s on the rim of the glass. I have had a devil of a time finding chamoy syrup proper in NYC. Here are the micheladas from that evening in 2010:

homemade-micheladas

And here are the micheladas from Tacos Morelos.

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You can see that they were pretty popular! And rightly so—they were extremely tasty. I loved the sourness of the lime, the spice of the hot sauce, and the salt rim was also good.

I, on the other hand, got something non-alcoholic; I was going to a whiskey and bourbon tasting later that evening, so I thought it would be best to pace myself (I have a terribly low tolerance for alcohol). I chose a mora batida—a blackberry shake—with milk. Usually when you order them, they’ll ask you if you want your batida made with water or milk, and I always go with milk, since I like a richer shake.

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It was gorgeous and delicious, with plenty of flavor. I loved the bubbly top of the batida.

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One of our eating companions got a piña colada, which was refreshing and sweet, and quite strong.

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There were a few more piña coladas served to our table later in the meal, too!

Across the table, Jen ordered sopes, another masa-based dish, related to the tlacoyo and huarache. They were three grilled discs of masa topped with beans and chorizo, as well as lettuce and crema. I didn’t get to taste them but she said they were delicious.

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Sopes are one of my favorite things to order in Mexican restaurants here in NYC.

As I mentioned, there were tlacoyos on the menu. I love the word, which has origins in the Nahuatl language, an indigenous language to Mexico and greater Mesoamerica. In this language, the word tlacoyos comes from the Nahuatl word tlatlaolli, which essentially means “ground corn dough.” They are made from masa and shaped into a long torpedo shape. It’s easy to liken them to huaraches, but in my experience huaraches are much larger.

The tlacoyos, about three inches wide and six inches long, came three to a plate ($7.50). I got mine with al pastor (recommended by the wait staff over the carnitas, when it came to pork) with a green sauce, and another person got it topped with goat and a red sauce. Both were excellent! I loved how they were stuffed with mashed black beans, too.

The salsas were spicy and flavorful, but not killer in the heat department (though the red was hotter than the green). I also liked the addition of crema, too, and felt like it tied everything together with its slight tang and creaminess.

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Tlacoyos with al pastor and green sauce.

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Tlacoyos with goat and red sauce.

Tacos Morelos also offers platters of food, and my friend Mark ordered chicken in salsa mora, a specialty at Tacos Morelos. The chile mora is a dried and smoked chile, similar to a chipotle. Lesley Téllez of The Mija Chronicles, talks about the chile mora:

It’s a smoked, dried jalapeño, and therefore classified as a chipotle. But it’s a bit sweeter and more raisin-like than the brown chipotles you see in the markets. It’s also not as hot. (The chile morita, a cousin, is much spicier.)

Mark said the burn was easy at first and increased as he ate it, finishing with something quite hot. I tasted it and really enjoyed the flavor, but only caught the early, baby burn.

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Note the avocado on his plate, some of which ended up on my tlacoyos, because I like avocado on pretty much anything. They were nice, ripe, creamy slices, too.

Another platter of food was ordered, which looks like mole poblano. Whatever it was, it looks fantastic! I’ll have to find out what it was.

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Platters also came with a beautiful plate of black beans and rice. I didn’t try it, but according to Serious Eats, the beans are flavored with epazote, an herb used in traditional Mexican cooking.

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I loved the food here, and look forward to my next trip back. The service was also good and I got to use some of my high school Spanish, always a good thing. It was pretty warm in there, though, with no A/C or visible fans, but despite that I would return in a heartbeat. It’s always good to find well-prepared Mexican food in NYC.

Tacos Morelos, 94-13 37th Ave., Jackson Heights, NY 11372, (347) 832-0193, Yelp, VV, SE 

What’s On the Menu at Sage General Store

Sage General Store, a locavore/farm-to-table restaurant in Long Island City, is one of my favorite spots in the area. I’ve really enjoyed the food there over the years, and one of my favorite things they serve is at brunch—chilaquiles.

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I’m also a big fan of their bacon brunch plate, too.

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Recently, though, they made some changes—they expanded and added more seats to the dining room, and added some things to the menu. With my We Heart Astoria colleagues, I was invited to try some of the current menu items; our group review is over at the site. I wanted to share photos of my very favorite dishes of that evening.

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This raspberry lemonade is something I’ve drunk at Sage many times. I love how sweet tart it is and the color is gorgeous; I did not amp up the color in any way in this photo, that’s just the way it is. They also serve a lovely ginger mint iced tea, too, but I just love this lemonade. Along with tasting great, it’s very cheery.

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I’m a huge guacamole fan and will eat it whenever it is presented to me. I had never eaten it with tostones before, though, but they are wonderful with guac! And for those for whom it’s an issue, they are another gluten-free option as a dipper. I loved the flavor combination, too. Sage’s guacamole was wonderfully creamy, such a delight. Good guacamole is a blessing.

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As I mentioned in our review, “Coming from California, fish tacos are (along with guacamole) an informal official state dish.” They always catch my eye on a menu, and these fish tacos were excellent. Note how fresh everything looks, along with the presence of that guacamole again. The tortillas are corn, and there was a nice chipotle crema running through each taco. Love the jicama slaw, a vegetable that always brings back memories of the California of my youth (jicama was ubiquitous there in the 1980s).

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I’ll go on record saying I dislike Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, as well as their “healthier” alternatives from companies like Annie’s. I just don’t think it tastes very good, what with its weak cheese coating and lack of flavor. With that in mind, I just want to say, thank goodness for real, homemade macaroni and cheese. This was made with five—count ’em, 5—different kinds of cheese. I also liked the little crispy breadcrumbs on the top. This mac and cheese was everything the boxed stuff is not—creamy, fatty, and delicious. It was a big hit at our table.

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We tried a variety of desserts and this one won my heart. This is serious chocolate, and I loved how moist the cake was, especially. I thought it was beautiful, too—just look at that sheen on the top of the cake!

And that’s that. We ate a number of other things, too, including beets, polenta, chicken, and a few other cakes. These above I would for sure order again. In fact, what’s displayed would make for a pretty nice dinner, I’d say! I look forward to my next meal there.

Sage General Store, 24-20 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101, (718) 361-0707, www.sagegeneralstore.com

Georgian Khachapuri, My Latest Obsession

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Adjaruli Khachapuri, a variety of the famous Georgian cheese bread. Image source: DanielSedoff on Wikimedia Commons

Actually, Georgian food as a whole is on my mind, but khachapuri, the ubiquitous Georgian cheese bread, in particular has really caught my attention. But let me back up a little bit and wander slightly away from bread and into the greater Georgian cuisine.

I first got a taste of Georgian food during an evening in 2009 of The Sunday Night Dinner, which is an underground supper club run by my friend Tamara. The title of that evening’s dinner was Ramadan, Deconstructed, With A Little Georgian Influence. The food was spectacular—here is the menu from that night:

Spicy Caramel Popcorn
Fatoush
Grilled Duck with Tomato/Sesame/Saffron Sauce
Rice Pilaf with those Dates
Green Beans with Cinnamon and Clove and a Garlic Yogurt Sauce*
Beets with Sour Cherry Sauce*
Qatayef married to Jean Halberstrom’s Fried Peaches

The two dishes I marked with an asterisk were the Georgian dishes. I absolutely loved them! They had fresh, vibrant flavors that really took my palate by storm. Here’s a shot of the green bean dish—that is a fantastic amount of mint, too.

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And as a lover of beets, you can bet I was really into the beets with sour cherry sauce dish. Sadly, I did not take a photo of it. I probably was so eager to dig in, I forgot to pull out my camera for that.

As an aside, the other dishes that night were absolutely delicious, including the amazing dessert of peaches and qatayef, a kind of pancake popular during Ramadan that is often filled with things like cheese or nuts). In fact, as I write this we are in the middle of Ramadan, and one of my favorite shops on Steinway, Al-Sham Sweets, makes a wonderful version.

But back to Georgian food. I think some of the reasons I like this particular cuisine are how flavorful the food is, as well as the Middle Eastern and Central Asian influences. There are plenty of fresh vegetables, meats (grilled meats known as shashlik, and sausages, such as kupati, both popular in the Kakheti region), yogurt and cheeses, pickles, walnuts, fresh herbs, plus there are the giant dumplings, khinkali. They look like soup dumplings and are filled with broth and beef. Regarding khinkali, I really like this video—I can’t understand Russian (yet), but love that they make the dough from scratch, and show how to cook and eat the dumplings (including a “Master Khinkali”—indeed, it’s big).

Georgia also has a long tradition of wine making—as far back as 6,000 BCE—with vines throughout the country. In the earliest days of wine making, they’d bury wine in pits and let it ferment over winter.

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Georgian grapevines. Image source: Wikimedia Commons 

According to Wikipedia, “wine is made in the regions of Kakheti (further divided onto micro-regions of Telavi and Kvareli), Kartli, Imereti, Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti, and Abkhazia.” This map easily delineates the different regions in Georgia (tourists are often discouraged to visit the disputed territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia). Apparently Kakheti is a particularly major player in the Georgian wine scene, and has been called “the cradle of wine” in the country.

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I would love to get my hands on some Georgian wines. I will do some investigating next time I’m in Rego Park and Forest Hills, an area of Queens with a Georgian population (mostly Georgian Jews who left Georgia in the late 20th century). By far, though, Georgians in NYC live in the southern part Brooklyn, and that’s where the restaurants and bakeries are. NYC is home to the largest enclave of Georgians in the United States.

But back to khachapuri. As it is so common (some people like to call it Georgian pizza, perhaps because both can be round and cheesy), there are variants. In Georgia, it will be stuffed with sulguni, a pickled cheese from the Samegrelo region, which apparently the United States doesn’t import (maybe I’ll try to make it sometime). Bakers here have figured out a workaround, and they often combine mozzarella and feta, plus butter to create as close an approximation as possible.

Many are named after their region. The most well known is the Imeretian (a.k.a. Imeruli) khachapuri. This is what most people think of when their hear khachapuri—it’s round and filled with cheese and really does look pizza-like.

Then there is the Adjarian (a.k.a. Acharuli/Adjaruli) khachapuri, which is pictured at the top of this post. That’s actually the very first style I laid eyes on (virtually). The dough is formed into a sort of open boat shape. When the bread comes out of the oven, it is topped with a raw egg and butter, which of course cooks the egg somewhat and melts the butter. I dream of eating this kind of khachapuri.

Wikipedia has a great list of regional khachapuri, including Mingrelian (Megruli), Abkhazian (Achma), Ossetian (Ossuri), Svanuri, Rachuli, and Phenovani. I’d love to try the Ossetian in particular, because of the inclusion of potato in the filling.

Some Georgian breads can be baked in an oven called a toné, which is like a tandoori oven. A convection oven is often used to make various kinds of khachapuri. Check out this great video by James Boo on Serious Eats of khachapuri—you can see examples of what looks like the Imeretian and the distinctive Adjarian types of bread.

1 Minute Meal: “Brighton Train to Georgia” from James Boo on Vimeo.

I spend so much time eating in Queens, that traveling to one of the far corners of Brooklyn is a real adventure. I expect to head down there soon, so stay tuned for a first hand report of my projected devouring of khachapuri. I plan to hit up bakeries Georgian Bread and Georgian Food a.k.a. Brick Oven Bread, both in Brighton Beach. A stop at Tibilisi Restaurant or Prisomani may also be in the cards, if only to chow down on a plate of khinkali, and maybe some borscht and eggplant with walnut paste. My mouth is watering just thinking about it all.