Expanding the past Flushing threads so we can include Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, Astoria, LIC, Sunnyside, and wherever else our wandering about Queens in search of food leads us this year
Linking some past threads:
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Downtown Flushing:
I saw fresh sugarcane stalks (again) and stopped to see what they were doing with them. Turns out you buy a stalk, then the guy strips it and hacks it into chunks for you. Nice, very nice.
Soy sauce chicken in the name of further research on my home version.
Saw a curry beef puff at the bakery for the first time (turns out there was also a bbq pork version which I had mistakenly picked up, but the lady rectified that). And I gave in to my first sponge cake of the year.
Second time exploring a new-to-me grocery store with interesting things like marinated meats and fish paste (@small_h). Will have to seek out this kind of selection in Manhattan Chinatown next trip.
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Dunno why I’m excited. It’s not like I can’t make my own.
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have you found a new source for soy sauce chicken? I’ve sorta given up on making it at home, I’ve not come close and, unlike pizza, I can’t make ten in a night in the spirit of discovery (for pizza, it’s just dough, sauce, and some raw pasta on the sauce to prevent bubbling).
When are you next doing this and may I stand on the street and get leftover slices? I’ll be the one singing “When the moon hits my eye …”, so you know where to aim your pies.
(I’m assuming that by now you’ve the hang of it and are striving for pizza-perfection --so that the rejects are still almost-perfect.)
I got good at it but now that we live in nyc, there’s no longer an imperative to make great pizza at home. I do occasionally make pan pizzas (detroit, boston south shore) for variety, but they are comparatively simple and foolproof to prepare compared to launching raw, topped dough into a 900F oven.
best,
I’ll take any of those.
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I’ve asked before, and I’m asking again, if these posts can be made more specific. The boldfacing above is mine. What is “the bakery”? What is the store that is “new-to-me”? For posts such as these to be useful, these would be useful details.
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Nope. Same old.
But I was slightly disappointed this time, perhaps as I specifically bought it for a taste test to bring my own closer.
I went with sous vide and thighs last time, and I thought it came really close but couldn’t put my finger on exactly what was different.
After this tasting, I realized that the soy sauce does not penetrate their chicken either, and the poaching liquid must be a good bit sweeter than mine. I had already increased the star anise and clove, and I now own rose wine in case that was the elusive note. Will dial back on dark soy.
Oh, and the chicken itself. Their chicken is much more thin-skinned and less fatty than what I’m buying.
Try it at home again. You might be pleasantly surprised.
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thanks for doing this - the single thread which is Manhattan-centric was getting too crowded and the borough posts are getting lost. I will add a thread for Brooklyn - and SI - when I get around to it.
Idea was to collect the various Queens crawl threads in a single place. We don’t report those on that single thread, and they tend to get lost.
I happened to catch the dim sum “happy hour” again at the New World dim sum takeout outlet.
It coincided with me being very, very hungry from having not eaten all day, so I got a few things. Very good quality and flavor, as before. Tonight’s picks were fried taro (foot)balls stuffed with pork, shrimp cheung fun, har gow, and long hot peppers stuffed with shrimp. The peppers are some of the best I’ve had (or was I just that hungry? nah). Some of the har gow wrappers fell apart a bit from sitting, but they were nicely stuffed and flavored. Lovely delicate cheung fun. And the taro puffs were good, even better reheated to crisp up the outside when I got home.
I finally found the elusive Aroy-D curry paste jars I’ve been hunting for everywhere at one of the markets on Main, after having struck out at a bunch of places (why is Rooster everywhere and Maesri and Aroy-D nowhere?). Also found the soy sauce that was proving equally elusive, so double jackpot.
What else? Pork and chive dumplings. @vinouspleasure’s past joking about wontons almost got me in trouble because I pointed to the right thing (dumplings) but called them wontons, which led the lady to switch my order, until I realized what had happened and switched back. The wontons had almost been immersed – and there was a little yelling in the kitchen while the situation was rectified, and then some loud laughs. I admired the chopstick “trees” while they cooked.
But the best bite of the day was the prasad / offering from the Ganesh Temple – pongal. Rice & lentils cooked together with enough ghee that you can taste it 
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I got my last Maesri paste online https://www.amazon.com/s?k=maesri+curry+paste&crid=3MLQRCHIP4FY0&sprefix=maesri%2Caps%2C111&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_6, thanks for reminding me its there for the using in my closet!
yum pongal…
The Maesri cans are everywhere (including Whole Foods). The larger plastic containers / jars are suddenly mia.
Anyone still organizing small group food crawls in flushing/murray hill?
we choose a place to go, sometimes Flushing, sometimes Murray Hill sometimes other parts of the city.
Welcome to the forum @combooverrice.
Are you based in NYC?
Yup! Based in queens. Would love to come through next time you organize a link up @Saregama
Sure thing. What part of queens?
If you have an idea of somewhere to explore and eat together, feel free to throw it out to the group too.
You may enjoy perusing some of the recent nyc threads in the meantime (you can set the region to “follow” so you don’t miss a post).
There’s a general nyc 2025 restaurant eats thread that’s a catch-all for when people don’t feel like starting a brand new thread, and also a 2025 queens thread as that’s where we occasionally crawl. Brooklyn one coming soon.
Ridgewood! Thank you for sharing these 
