kurza, with Russian beer and maybe lamb fries lurking somewhere in the background

Sitting on the back patio at Caucasus Garden in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, I was pretty convinced that I was in another country. We guzzled Ukrainian and Russian and Japanese beer, purchased at the bodega next door. The TV inside the restaurant blared Russian news at full volume. Everybody else on the patio—including my Armenian companion—spoke Russian. And the menu included fried lamb testicles. Clearly, I wasn’t in Iowa anymore.

For better or worse, Caucasus Garden has a massive menu that features dishes from all over Central Asia and the former Soviet Union. You can get dolma, hummus, and kabobs, as you would in many countries that were once part of the former Ottoman Empire. You can have your choice of Russian ravioli (better known as pelmeni), Siberian ravioli, or Azerbaijani ravioli (kurza). Or lamb testicles, fried with onions. In keeping with the theme of the evening, we decided to stick with the stuff that included the word “Azerbaijan” in the menu description.

meat and spinach kutabs (sour clotted milk not shown)

That worked out pretty damned well. I started with a bowl of dovga ($4.90), a cold Azerbaijani soup made from yogurt, dill, rice, garlic, mint, eggs, and a few bits of finely diced parsley and spinach. It was an interesting dish: I loved the combination of dill and mint, but the yogurt was on the acidic side, and almost seemed to have a hint of carbonation in it. Slightly fizzy cold yogurt with greens and rice? Pretty cool. Almost as cool as lamb testicles.

(After our meal, I found a dovga recipe that included this magnificent line:  “In order to make dovga, beat up sour clotted milk with sour cream and flour, add egg and rice. To prevent the sour clotted milk from decomposing, all the mass should be continuously stirred.”  That nice fizzy taste?  From beat-up sour clotted milk.  Yum!)

Our next three appetizers were outstanding. We tried kurza ($5.90), the Azerbaijani version of ravioli or pelmeni: lovely pieces of a pasta-like substance, stuffed with a mild, gently herbed sausage. The kutabs ($2 each) were even better: Azerbaijani crepes stuffed with a thin layer of either mild lamb sausage or spinach, topped with sumac and served with a side of yogurt sauce. Even the green salad ($6.90) was fantastic, with unusually flavorful vegetables and a stellar, salty vinaigrette dressing.

irresistible Azerbaijani bread... with a side of equally irresistible beer

After four appetizers, we decided to order another meat kutab. And we accidentally ordered an insanely juicy lamb shank ($9.90), marinated in sweet peppers and olives. And we ran through two loaves of fresh bread, topped with roasted sesame seeds. We told the server that we loved the bread, and she responded by insisting that the bread would taste particularly good with a plate of fried onions and lamb testicles.

And just in case two loaves of bread, three kutabs, a plate of kurza, a bowl of soup, a salad, and a lamb shank weren’t enough, we then ordered Caucasus Garden’s monstrous mixed grill, a platter of grilled chicken, lamb and lamb sausage (adana) kabobs, intended as a full dinner for two people ($26). The chicken and lamb were about as perfect as grilled meat can get, though the adana was our only (mild) disappointment of the evening.

And the lamb testicles? Unfortunately, we didn’t have room for them, though the server told us that they would make a great dessert. Maybe next time.

not dessert

Caucasus Garden
2715 Avenue U, Brooklyn
Subway: Avenue U (B, Q trains)

Share

In case you haven’t already noticed, I really enjoy eating massive quantities of ethnic food.  You might say that I eat like a pig.  Or a truck driver.  Or a truck-driving pig.  Or a guy who drives a truck filled with pigs.

Either way, a civilized “tasting” of dainty, fancy food puts me a little bit out of my element.  I don’t really do “tastings.”  I usually do “feedings.”  You know, like the other pigs back home in Iowa.  Put a trough in front of me, and I will feed my face.  No dainty “tasting” needed.

still life with powdered brown balls

Since I’m not exactly the world’s most sophisticated dude, the New Nordic Cuisine tasting at the Union Square Greenmarket was definitely not my usual choice of food scenes.  They served very fancy, innovative food made from local ingredients, prepared by three world-famous Danish chefs.  There was a well-behaved crowd of pleasantly dressed gourmands and friendly Danes… including the Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark.  I was clearly way out of my league here.

But they fed me some interesting and tasty Danish food.  For free!  In an outdoor pavilion on a sunny fall day.  I can handle that, even if I was nowhere near my favorite lowbrow, high-calorie feeding grounds.

At the first feeding tasting station, a beautiful blonde Dane was passing a plate of soft, round, brown, doughy balls.  (See?  I told you I was unsophisticated and pig-like.) They were described as smoked bone marrow topped with vinegar powder.

And now I have no idea what I’m talking about.  Smoked bone marrow?  Vinegar powder?  Huh?

small army of potato balls, stuffed with mustard cream

It turns out that the soft brown balls were a variation on aebleskiver, a round Danish pancake.  The aebleskiver were unreasonably light, with just a hint of the smoked marrow flavor.  After eating the brown ball, I realized that my shirt was dusted with vinegar powder, which added a pleasant little undertaste of acidity to my shirt.  And to the aebleskiver, which was absolutely delicious.

The first feeding tasting station also featured three cute, dainty bowls of unexpected pickled things:  marinated rose petals, elderflowers pickled in apple cider vinegar, and a delicacy described simply as “ram’s capers” by the lovely blonde Dane at the table.  I was particularly fond of the capers—they were smaller, crunchier, more intense versions of standard jarred capers… and potentially habit-forming, if I ever have the pleasure of encountering them again.

When I arrived at the next feeding tasting station, a tall, happy-looking man was there, enthusiastically greeting the guests and describing the Danish dishes.  His table was absolutely loaded: scoops of potato stuffed with mustard cream, some sliced carrots and Jerusalem artichokes (a mild tuber, reminiscent of jicama) layered with oyster cream, and an insanely tasty little cube of marzipan cake (mazarinkage) topped with vanilla yogurt and a fresh raspberry.

rye bread and small army of smorrebrod

It gets better.  The tall, happy Dane was also offering two varieties of smorrebrod, an open-faced Danish sandwich served on astoundingly tasty rye bread.  One type of smorrebrod was topped with a delicious liver and hazelnut pate, marinated in aquavit and topped with diced raw kale and apples.  The other smorrebrod featured salmon cured in salt, pepper, and juniper, sitting atop a shockingly appealing smear of pureed cauliflower.

I liked the tall, happy Dane.  I kept peppering him with questions as I nibbled on the smorrebrod and vegetables, and he answered everything with warmth and enthusiasm.  The guy was infectiously likable.  Clearly, the guy couldn’t actually be a chef—I worked in restaurants and bars for 12 years, and have seen countless chefs wave a cleaver menacingly in the direction of a waiter or waitress or dishwasher.  I’ve met plenty of chefs who make waitresses cry, just for fun.  So it was pretty smart of the Danish chefs to hire such a friendly, warm, likable guy to represent the food at this tasting event.  But of course, the amazingly nice guy had to be an actor or a hired server, and not actually a chef.  Most great chefs are complete dicks.  That guy totally couldn’t have been a chef.

smorrebrod with juniper-cured salmon, smorrebrod with liver pate, and sliced vegetables with oyster cream... I think I need a bigger trough

Oh, wait.

Since I’m an unsophisticated pig who wasn’t paying much attention to his surroundings, I had no idea that the smiling Dane serving the amazing smorrebrod was actually Adam Aamann, the renowned chef behind a new retaurant called Aamanns/Copenhagen, opening in TriBecCa in December.  He’s a pretty big deal. And he’s totally not a dick.

So I can’t believe that I’m saying this, but I think I might have just accidentally become a fan of a high-flying chef who is about to open a fancy Manhattan restaurant that is way beyond my tax bracket and wardrobe.  It’s hard to imagine that I’ll ever replace my favorite hole-in-the-wall feeding stations with a classy place like Aamanns/Copenhagen.  But it’s going to be tempting to support a place run by a supremely nice guy who can do some damned impressive things with a loaf of rye bread and a chunk of cauliflower.

I could feed on this stuff all day

Coming soon:  Aamanns/Copenhagen
13 Laight Street, Manhattan
Subway: Canal St. (1, 2, A, C, E trains)

Share

This has nothing to do with Guatemalan or Salvadoran food... but who doesn't occasionally need a hand with their toilet paper? From The Good Fork restaurant in Red Hook.

So yeah… I went to Red Hook ball fields for Latin food, and I’m at least seven years too late to be cool. If you’re familiar with the NYC food scene, you’re either licking your chops right now in expectation of awesome Latin food porn, or else you’re rolling your eyes at me for being such a NYC food blog cliché.

If you’re not rolling your eyes, here’s a little bit of background: since sometime in the 1970s, a fleet of Latin American food vendors have descended on the Red Hook ball fields to provide sustenance for the sweaty dudes playing soccer and baseball in the park. For the first few decades, the Red Hook vendors were an informal thing–they would set up folding tables, and sell whatever they felt like selling. The Red Hook vendors became legendary among both Latin American immigrants and non-Latinos who were lucky enough to stumble upon the place.

And then somebody in the New York City bureaucracy got a corncob stuck up his ass a few years ago, and decided that all food vendors needed to be licensed and inspected. No more food sold on folding tables; vendors were now required to have some sort of food truck. Many of the original vendors survived the policy change, but others went out of business. Sad.

mmm... deep-fried tentacles

I made a point of getting to Red Hook before noon on a recent Sunday to avoid the worst of the crowds. There were nine vendors, hawking food from Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala. I only have one stomach, so I only ate three meals from two nations.

I started with a Guatemalan pacaya from the Antojitos Chapines cart. I ordered it because I had no idea what a pacaya was. It turns out that pacaya is a type of forest palm, found only in parts of Central America, and the flower of the pacaya has tentacles that vaguely resemble long, slender fingers of baby corn. And you’ll never believe this, but the tentacles actually taste like… tentacles of baby corn. And the tentacles are loaded with calcium and vitamin C, apparently.

no, really... deep-fried tentacles

At Antojitos Chapines, pacaya tentacles are coated in flour and deep-fried, then served in a corn tortilla with a mild red salsa, reminiscent of a Mexican ranchero sauce. The pacaya was pretty interesting—at first, I thought I was biting into a breaded egg patty, and then realized that it had a bitter, tentacle-ish aftertaste and just a hint of crunch to it. Nope… not an egg.

I can’t say that I was wild about the pacaya, but it was interesting, and tasted healthy… if we conveniently ignore the part about deep-frying. I also munched a chicken tamale as part of the Guatemalan portion of my meal. The tamale was about twice the size of a standard Mexican tamale, stuffed with stewed chicken and a strip of seared bell pepper, and topped with just a hint of that same mellow red salsa. It was a much larger, softer, butterier tamale than I’d ever eaten in, say, Mexico. It was arguably better than any tamale I’d ever eaten in Mexico or in a Mexican restaurant—and them’s fighting words, ‘cuz I love tamales.

8 inches of thick, spicy, meaty dough

As the crowds started to thicken at the ball fields, I noticed that by far the longest line was at El Olomega, a vendor of Salvadoran pupusas. El Olomega had one of the largest food trucks at Red Hook, and the company appears to be a pretty serious pupusa empire: they have two huge food trucks, a twitter feed, and a website. Apparently, things have changed since the days of unlicensed food vendors on folding tables.

Pupusas are thick grilled corn patties, stuffed with some combination of meat, cheese, beans, and vegetables. Since I’d already eaten lunch at Antojitos Chapines, I thought it would make sense to order the hugest and most gruesomely decadent item on El Olomega’s menu: a super pupusa ($8). I watched as one of the friendly Salvadoran cooks washed her hands, grabbed a ridiculously massive glob of cornmeal dough, and started grilling.

eat enough super pupusas, and you might start breaking Ikea chairs

I ended up with a beast of a meal: a thick, round patty of dough (8” in diameter… that’s $1 per inch, if you’re into measuring that sort of thing), stuffed with cheese, chicken, refried beans, zucchini, spinach, and finely diced loroco flowers, which tasted like a cross between squash blossoms and asparagus. The pupusa beast was topped with spicy marinated cabbage and as much red salsa, sour cream, and marinated jalapenos as you wanted. The super pupusa might have been the best thing I’ve ever eaten from a food truck in NYC, besides maybe the Cambodian awesomeness served by Jerry Ley.

And the best part is that the transportation from Manhattan to the Red Hook ball fields is free on the weekend Ikea ferry. A few nights ago, I sat on one of our three-year-old Ikea kitchen chairs, and it snapped like a really fresh pickle. So I think Ikea owes me something. A free ferry ride to Red Hook so that I can wedge 3000 calories of Central American food into my gullet… and then I can get fatter and break more chairs? Sounds fair to me!

a few more of these tamales, and I might sink the ferry

El Olomega and Antojitos Chapines
Red Hook Ball Fields Vendors
Near Bay St. & Court Street, Brooklyn
Subway: Smith-9th Street Station (F train) or take the free Ikea ferry

Share

thieving little bastard gnawed through a tupperware and ate my oatmeal

It’s pretty much impossible to live in New York City without occasionally doing battle with mice. If you’re fortunate enough to live in a well-maintained building, “doing battle” means calling the building staff, and getting them poison the living hell out of the mice. Easy.

But if you happen to be engaged to an animal-loving softie environmentalist, it’s not so easy. The first few times a mouse ripped into our bread or bananas or oatmeal, my (excessively?) warm-hearted fiancé yelled, “Noooo! You can’t kill our friend Mousey!”

OK, fine. “Our friend Mousey” is a dirty, food-thieving, disease-spreading vermin, but I won’t kill him. Yet.

To placate my (excessively?) gentle fiancé, I went to the hardware store, and bought some humane, non-lethal mousetraps. Fail. I then spent hours trying to plug every single hole in our walls and cabinets. Fail. I went to the store, bought a fleet of airtight canisters, and spent an evening moving all of our dry goods into them. Nope—the little rodent shithead still nibbled his way into our oatmeal. Time to bring out the poison for “our friend” Mousey.

Mousey, my friend! Want some oats and peanut butter? Just take a few steps this way...

And again, I got the puppy-dog eyes from my (excessively?) lovely fiancé: “Nooooooooo! Don’t poison Mousey!”

As I cleaned mouse pellets off our bookshelf—muttering vulgarities under my breath—I had one last, stupid idea, based loosely on a mousetrap design I saw online. I carefully balanced a piece of junk mail on the side of a shelf, and put a tall plastic garbage can underneath it. I loaded the garbage-can end of the junk mail with oats and peanut butter (Mousey’s favorite foods, apparently), so that Mousey would step onto the envelope… and hopefully land in the garbage can with a squeak and a thud. And just to make sure that Mousey wouldn’t be able to escape, I greased the sides of the garbage pail with corn oil.

eff you, Mousey

And guess what? It worked. We awoke to a bewildered, exhausted Mousey, trying unsuccessfully to scramble or leap his way out of the garbage can. We closed the trash can, marched over to the subway station, and put “our friend” Mousey on a 7 train to downtown Flushing. It’s amazing what you can accomplish with a few oats, a Metrocard, a dollop of Skippy, some otherwise unwelcome junk mail from Chase Bank, and a greased trash can.

And none of this has anything to do with Sierra Leonean food. I was just so proud of my mouse-catching skills that I had to share.

groundnut (peanut) stew... Mousey woulda loved it, too bad he's in the wrong borough

In other news, Sierra Leonean and Guinean food are pretty damned tasty. And it turns out that in the great city of New York, Guinean and Sierra Leonean food are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week… but only if you’re willing to haul your ass up to a thoroughly unglamorous stretch of Webster Avenue, just underneath the Cross Bronx Expressway.

It’s arguably worth the trip, though, even if it means that you need to borrow Mousey’s Metrocard. B.B. African and American Restaurant is a classic New York West African spot, with no printed menu. You basically wander into the kitchen in the back of the restaurant, and make your selections from the steam table. In our typical style, we grinned goofily at the server behind the counter, professed our ignorance of West African cuisine, and asked for a pair of dishes loaded with a little bit of everything. She generously obliged, and served us two gigantic combo platters and two large bottles of water for a grand total of $20.

cassava leaf stew... so sad, Mousey woulda liked this one, too

When we visited, B.B. was serving only four dishes, three of which were variations on standard classics served in most West African restaurants: a groundnut (peanut) stew with unusually tender chunks of beef, a cassava-leaf stew (which, interestingly, tasted even peanuttier than the peanut stew; “our friend” Mousey would’ve loved it), and a deliciously slimy okra stew. The fourth dish—which I’d never encountered in other NYC African restaurants—was an interesting fish stew, made with firm pieces of baked fish and a surprisingly sweet, dark sauce that seemed to have a hint of molasses, tomato paste, and onion. All four dishes were solid; none were outstanding.

The restaurant, does, however, deserve some bonus points for serving the most interesting hot sauce I’ve eaten lately. The server plunked a mustard squeeze bottle on the table, filled with an odd orange mixture of mustard and hot peppers, halfway between French’s and a Cholula-style Mexican hot sauce. I didn’t love it, but it was an entertaining addition to the meal. And it was probably more interesting—and definitely far tastier—than a mousetrap made from junk mail.

have fun in Flushing, "my friend"!

B.B. African and American Restaurant
1715 Webster Avenue, Bronx
Subway: 174th-175th Streets (B, D trains)

Share

I’m proud to announce that I’m now halfway through my quest to eat food from 160 nations without leaving NYC. (Burp.) A few quick reflections on my journey so far:

• I’ve eaten herring four times, livestock hooves three times, pig tails once (boing!), and kangaroo once. I got drunk and pretended to be a barn swallow only once. Not bad.
• 69 of the 80 nations were eaten in restaurants—and four of the restaurants have already closed. The other 11 outings included trips to a Russian grocery store, three outdoor festivals, two food trucks, a mosque, two churches, a private social club, and one meal cooked in a private home. The home-cooked Malawian meal was my favorite (hint, hint).
• I’ve only gained 7 pounds so far! That’s 1.4 ounces of extra flab per country. Also not bad.
• Even though I’m convinced that Queens is the best ethnic food borough, I’ve eaten more meals in Manhattan (33) than in Queens (23) or Brooklyn (21). I’ve barely been to the Bronx (2) or Staten Island (1)… and that’s kind of pathetic. I’ll work on that.
• In my spare time, I got engaged and ate deep-fried butter on a stick. Those two events are not related.

tripe, with a side of technicolor

To celebrate my achievements, I decided to head uptown for some spicy tripe at Accra, a bizarrely colorful Ghanaian restaurant in the Bronx.

I’m not an expert on tripe, but as I understand it, there are two distinct varieties of tripe: there’s the vaguely gelatinous type that melts in your mouth, and then there’s the chewy tripe that reminds me of fillet of shoe sole. Both types of tripe add a tasty richness to any stew, and even the rubbery-shoe tripe is probably severely underappreciated by most Americans.

On my recent visit to Accra, I skipped the fufu (large balls of pounded cassava, yam, or plaintain), and was instead blessed with a stellar plate of jolloff rice (basmati rice, sautéed in coconut oil with spices, onion, tomato paste, and bits of meat), topped with some outstanding tripe stew. Accra’s version includes both the gelatinous and rubbery tripe variations, as well as bits of non-tripey beef meat (I think that’s the first time I’ve ever written the words “non-tripey beef meat”—apparently, that’s different from “tripey beef meat” or “tripey non-beef meat”… whatever that is.)

tasty Ghanaian tripe combo platter (nostril and butt flames not shown)

Anyway, the friendly women behind the counter at Accra generously loaded my plate with several other dishes in addition to the rice and tripe: a delicious fried cassava topping (reminiscent of Brazilian farofa), some spicy dried beef and chicken mixed with boiled eggs in a fiery red sauce, some wonderfully spiced greens, and a dribble of a fiery okra sauce.

The greens were particularly incredible—perplexingly flavorful, and cooked perfectly. And as usual, I absolutely loved the okra, especially since it was hot-flames-are-flickering-out-of-my-butt-and-nostrils kind of spicy. Who could ask for anything more? For just $8, I filled my belly with tripe and coaxed flames out of my nostrils. Awesome.

So yeah… now that I’ve happily singed all of my nostril hairs, I’m halfway through my quest, and I’ve already eaten most of the African food that I can find in NYC. If you know any African immigrants who might be willing to meet a grateful American blogger, please contact me at unitednationsoffood@gmail.com.

Ghanaian food has enormous balls... of pounded cassava

Accra Restaurant (formerly African Grill)
2041 Davidson Avenue, Bronx
Subway: Burnside Ave. (4 train)

Share