Blogs : Outer Boroughs Digest
Outer Boroughs Digest Weekly highlights from the most interesting Chowhound posts on the Outer Boroughs board, including restaurant and bar reviews, best-of lists, and hidden local spots for eating and drinking.
Taiwanese Revelation in Rego Park
Oysters, oysters, oysters—they show off the first-rate Taiwanese cooking at Andy’s Seafood Kitchen as well as anything, bigjeff suggests. He tried them three ways, and the show-stopper was salt-and-pepper fried oysters, ordered with a dipping dish of the salt-pepper mix they’re cooked with. These were “no joke,” jeff declares, “fresh, sweet beautiful specimens, perfectly hot and juicy inside, great crust and when dipped into the salt/pepper mixture, heaven.” Completing the bivalve trifecta were a “pitch-perfect” oyster pancake and oyster-vermicelli soup, deep in seafood flavor, agreeably thick and goopy, garnished with cilantro and fried onion.
For lovers of Taiwanese chow, who are too often disappointed at New York restaurants, “this is the spot!” promises jeff, who was blown away by “the prep, the care, the heart and the soul poured into our meal.” Alongside dishes from Sichuan and elsewhere, this month-old restaurant does Taiwanese specialties like stinky tofu, various innard soups, the burgerlike gua bao, and the classic san bei ji (three cups chicken), unhelpfully translated as “chunk chicken with basil.”
Others report commendable versions of tea smoked duck and chicken with eggplant, and a budget special of two lobsters for $18, steamed with ginger and scallions. But bigjeff is sticking to the Taiwanese specialties; “let’s keep the chef churning out the quality regional dishes,” he urges, “and don’t let them get trapped into the drudgery of making sesame chicken all day long.”
Andy’s Seafood Kitchen [Rego Park]
95-26 Queens Boulevard (near 63rd Avenue), Rego Park, Queens
718-275-2388
Board Link: Andy’s Chinese Restaurant, Rego Park
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Tagged with: outer boroughs, restaurants and bars, andy's, andy's chinese restaurant, andy's seafood kitchen, taiwanese, chinese
Pizza Done to a Turn
Salvatore of Soho has reinvented the wheel, or at least repurposed it in a good cause: superior pizza. This newish restaurant—not in SoHo, actually, but on Staten Island—spins its pies on a rotating metal disk in a coal-fired oven. The result, according to comestible, is an excellent thin crust: beautifully charred, crisp, yet slightly chewy.
But this place isn’t only about pizza. “To say Salvatore’s is a pizza joint is doing it a disservice,” insists famdoc. In fact, he says, it does some of the best home-style Italian cooking in New York. Hounds recommend lobster ravioli, eggplant rollatini, house-made mozzarella, pizza-dough garlic bread, and Swiss chard in garlic-scented tomato sauce, among other things. Expect a wait, which will probably pass in no time thanks to the neighborly vibe. “You see,” famdoc observes, “Staten Island is like a small town.”
In Brooklyn, Pizzeria Del Corso has gotten some big-city press since one of its co-owners, Nino Coniglio, made the U.S. Pizza Team. For those not into extreme kitchen sports, this is the X Games of pizza, a pie-in-the-sky throwdown of flying, spinning, twirling dough.
Yet hounds find substance as well as style at this Marine Park newcomer, evidenced by mozzarella made in-house and San Marzano tomatoes crushed by hand. “The pizza is out of this world,” declares midgec. She’s high on the white pie, the fresh mozz, and the desserts, especially tiramisu and cannoli.
And yes, there are acrobatics, too. Check out the behind-the-back flip, advises bebhinn79—“the kids love it!”
Salvatore of Soho [Staten Island]
1880 Hylan Boulevard (at Slater Boulevard), Staten Island
718-979-7499
Pizzeria Del Corso [Marine Park]
3003 Avenue U (at Batchelder Street), Brooklyn
718-646-2080
Board Links: Restaurant near St. George theatre in Staten Island
Salvatore’s of Soho (Hylan Blvd., Staten Island)—the early reports are positive
Pizzeria Del Corso in Marine Park?
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Tagged with: outer boroughs, restaurants and bars, salvatore of soho, pizzeria del corso, pizza, italian
If It's Monday, This Must Be Vietnam
Williamsburg’s Simple Café offers a Mediterranean-accented menu of sandwiches and other light fare. But not on Mondays. That’s when the café crew takes a break, a Vietnamese-Parisian cook settles in, and the place is temporarily rechristened Bep, or “kitchen” in Vietnamese.
Among the favorites on the short rotating menu are banh mi filled with first-rate grilled or barbecued pork. These sandwiches are delicious and well composed, a deftly balanced mix of meat and vegetables in light, fluffy bread, F.N says.
Soups are less successful, early reports suggest. Bun thang, a Hanoi-style chicken, pork, and egg soup, lacked complexity, DaveCook laments. F.N recommends spiking it with mam tom, a funky and authentic shrimp paste that the kitchen will supply on request.
Jack Barber reports excellent cha gio (spring rolls), but for banh mi he prefers the nearby Nha Toi, which he says packs “more life and flavor across the board.” dhs likes the original with pâté, “better quality and a little more abundant than most.”
Flavors here range beyond Vietnam, including summer rolls with bulgogi and kimchee—unusual and excellent, says dhs. “The cook owner is going for a little David Changdom,” Jack suggests, citing the Momofuku empire builder. “There was an obvious passion for what he was doing,” dhs adds. “That is always a good thing to see.”
Bep [Williamsburg]
At Simple Café
346 Bedford Avenue (at S. Third Street), Brooklyn
718-218-7067
Nha Toi [Williamsburg]
160 Havemeyer Street (near S. Second Street), Brooklyn
718-599-1820
Board Links: Bep Vietnamese pop up restaurant in Williamsburg.
Banh mi in Wmsburg?
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Tagged with: outer boroughs, restaurants and bars, simple cafe, bep, nha toi, banh mi, vietnamese
Mexican on the Rebound on Staten Island
Something’s up at Taqueria Geovani, which Flaco had written off years ago as nothing special. Under new ownership, it’s now turning out great homey Mexican food. Recent winners include hearty, spicy pozole, and caldo de olla, a chunky beef and vegetable soup in fiery red broth that comes with house-made tortillas.
Surveying the dining room, which is usually populated by workers from the nearby auto shops, Flaco has also spied tempting chiles rellenos, carne asada, chilaquiles, and braised oxtail in salsa verde—“this place deserves the love,” he declares.
Taqueria Geovani [Staten Island]
1285 Castleton Avenue (near Clove Road), Staten Island
718-720-1447
Board Link: Taqueria Geovani, 1285 Castleton, SI
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Tagged with: outer boroughs, restaurants and bars, taqueria geovani, mexican
Smoke, Spice, and Rigatoni
Boston Jerk Cuisine had Jim Leff sold from the first bite. “I’m totally in love,” swoons Jim, who describes beautifully smoked jerk pork and chicken. But the best thing he had there was rigatoni with smoky jerk chicken in creamy sauce. “Sounds awful,” he allows. “It is pure heaven, a culinary miracle.”
Boston Jerk Cuisine [Bronx]
3377 Boston Road (near E. 213th Street), Bronx
718-881-8102
Board Link: Boston Jerk Cuisine (Great Jamaican in North Bronx)
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Tagged with: outer boroughs, restaurants and bars, boston jerk cuisine, jerk, jamaican
At a Brooklyn Bar, a Sicilian Surprise
Bar Matchless, a Greenpoint hangout that occupies a former auto shop, has swerved unexpectedly toward Sicily. A recent addition to the short menu of burgers and sandwiches is panelle, the Palermo-style chickpea fritters, tucked into bread. “I’m certain that this is the first time the panelle sandwich has ever been served in this kind of environment,” surmises FatRobbie. “Truly old Brooklyn meets new Brooklyn.”
Bar Matchless [Greenpoint]
557 Manhattan Avenue (at Driggs Avenue), Brooklyn
718-383-5333
Board Link: craving panelle
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Tagged with: outer boroughs, restaurants and bars, bar matchless, panelle, chickpeas, garbanzo beans, italian, pub grub
