tasty, well-behaved cucumber salad

I rarely get excited about the pleasant, well-behaved plates of food served at most European restaurants. I do, however, get excited about spicy bowls of green mush and black-as-death spicy baked fish and gelatinous fish skins. Carefully manicured plates of meat and starch, with minimal spice? Not interested, usually.

Then again, sometimes those

carefully manicured plates of European food are just damned good, even if they’re not wild or sexy or exotic. Andre’s Hungarian Café, a cozy little spot in the Upper East Side, serves an impressive, tasty three-course prix fixe (in my world, this term is pronounced “pricks fix”) Hungarian lunch for a mere $13.95. Not as exciting as good chicharron, but still pretty exciting in a well-behaved, central European sort of way.

tasty, meaty, well-behaved cream of mushroom soup

Our meals began with a reasonably well-behaved choice of soup or salad; my (usually) well-behaved Puerto Rican friend ordered the cream of mushroom soup, which was wonderfully rich and meaty, in a mushroomy sort of way. I opted for the salad, which turned out to be a giant bowl of peeled, sliced cucumbers floating in a vinegary brine, topped with a (well-behaved) flash of red paprika; imagine really good Russian-style pickles that haven’t quite had time to pickle yet, and you’ll be on the right track.

tasty, meaty, well-behaved veal goulash with nokedli

We felt obligated to order veal goulash and chicken paprikash as our entrees, since both are generally credited as the national dishes of Hungary. Both meals were fiery-looking, thanks to the generous use of paprika, but neither were remotely spicy; the veal goulash tasted like high-quality meat in red sauce—which was exactly what it was. The chicken paprikash tasted like high-quality bird simmered in a red sauce until it was fall-off-the-bone tender—which is exactly what it was. Both dishes were served with a

tasty, well-behaved bird

perfectly manicured cylinder of nokedli (Hungarian dumplings, nearly identical to German or Austrian spatzle), which appeared to be seasoned with a dollop of sour cream. Central European comfort food at its finest.

Our prix fixe pricks fix also came with dessert, and we opted for two plates of palacsinta (Hungarian crepes); one was stuffed with nuts and stewed apricots, the other was stuffed with a delicious mixture of melted chocolate and a sugary chocolate powder. The sugary powder made the crepes amusingly crunchy, in a grainy sort of way. By the standards of our nice, civilized meal, the crunchy crepes were downright unruly—but in a very nice, pleasant, civilized central European sort of way.

chocolate palacsinta... crunchy and rebellious

Andre’s Hungarian Café
1631 2nd Avenue between 84th & 85th, Manhattan
Subway: 86th Street (4, 5, or 6 train)

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About a week ago, an old friend from Pakistan—let’s call him Sid—stopped by NYC for a far-too-brief visit. He’s had a damned interesting life: he grew up under rough conditions in Karachi, which had been turned into a war zone by rival ethnic gangs in the early 1990s. His father died when Sid was in his early teens, but Sid managed to land a scholarship to a two-year international high school in the United States. That was the relatively easy part: Sid’s family was thoroughly broke when he finished high school, and he had nowhere to go. My pal spent a year wandering through the United States, volunteering for various organizations, dodging immigration authorities, and trying to cajole a college into giving him a full scholarship so he could avoid the mess back home in Karachi.

tandoori chicken and chicken seekh kebab... roti and naan not pictured

Impressively, it all worked out. Fifteen years later, Sid is now the go-to man for a London-based hedge fund. After winding his way through Iowa, Georgia, West Virginia, upstate New York, and Manhattan as a young adult, my once-destitute friend has earned himself three college degrees, a master’s degree, a gorgeous Italian girlfriend, and U.K. citizenship. Amazing.

The last time we crossed paths in NYC about ten years ago, Sid and I gorged ourselves silly at some of the Pakistani places in Murray Hill. Stupidly, I blew it this time: we ate good French food (thumbs up for Cafe Charbon) and crappy pizza during his visit, but never went out for Pakistani treats—and I forgot to even ask where his old haunts were. But by an odd twist of fate, I was picked up by a Pakistani cabbie a few days after my friend left; the cab driver sent me to his favorite place, called Lahori Kabab in Curry Hill. As soon as I walked in, I recognized the place: Sid and I used to eat there every time I visited NYC back in our student days. It was the first place I’d ever eaten Pakistani food, ten or twelve years ago.

potatoes and peas, served with lentils and rice, naan, roti, and more rice... anybody want some rice?

It would be easy enough to mistake Lahori Kabab for an Indian restaurant: the awning says that the place serves Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi food, and the menu contains plenty of classic dishes (chicken tikka, aloo gobi, channa masala, dal, biryani) that appear on the menus of every Indian joint in the United States. Lahori Kabab’s menu is diplomatic: beef is off the menu to avoid offending Hindus, and all meats are halal in honor of the Muslim crowd. I love chicken and lamb and vegetables as much as the next guy, but I was mildly disappointed by the lack of beef—I was hoping to try Lahori beef karahi, which is often lauded as the national dish of Pakistan. But I had to settle for chicken, vegetables… and assloads of carbs.

closeup of the truly amazing lentil-rice-chicken sludge

In my effort to try as many flavors as possible, I opted for a tandoori combo platter ($10.99), which included rice, naan, a tandoori chicken leg and thigh, a few other random bits of charred chicken, and chicken seekh kebab (surprisingly un-spicy oven-barbecued chicken-and-onion sausages). I also picked up a mixed platter ($8), which came with rice, whole wheat roti, and any two non-tandoori items —I chose a lentil-rice-chicken mix, and a vegetarian slurry of peas and potatoes. I added a piece of chicken chapati ($3), which was a deliciously large, spicy piece of flatbread… except that it was made from chicken instead of dough.

Lahori Kabab has a few dimly-lit tables in back, but it’s mostly a take-out place, run by a cordial Pakistani gentleman whose quick, darting movements made me think of a small lizard. (That’s a compliment—the dude was speedy and precise.) I didn’t want to annoy the crap out of the Pakistani cabbies by taking flash-photos of everything on my plates, so I dragged the meal home, and assembled some super-combo plates for myself and my fiancée, who was buried under 3,000 pages of environmental law textbooks when I got home.

chicken chapati

As soon as I made sample plates for both of us, I realized something: there were way too many carbs on this plate. We had roti (whole wheat flatbread), naan (fluffy white flatbread), and tons of rice… all served as accompaniment to a potato-and-pea dish and a lentil-and-rice dish. Our carbs were served with carbs. Were we supposed to scoop the lentil-rice dish with the roti? Were we supposed to eat our potatoes on a bed of white rice? Do we tuck the surplus white rice into a piece of naan? I love carbs more than almost anybody on this planet, but it was too much for my little brain to handle: what do you do with such an embarrassingly large selection of carbs?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not really complaining: all of our food ranged from good (the tandoori chicken was tasty but a little bit dry; the chicken seekh kebab was on the bland side) to great (the lentil-rice-chicken sludge was fiery and absolutely amazing), and I wouldn’t hesitate to head back to Lahori Kabab. But only if I really was in the mood for carb-induced post-meal paralysis.

I think I’ll go eat a salad or something now.

Lahori Kabab
124 Lexington Avenue @ 28th Street, Manhattan
Subway: 28th Street (6 train)

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The food business is notoriously brutal, but Cambodian refugee Jerry Ley has been through a special brand of restaurant hell. After surviving the Khmer Rouge regime, Jerry came to the United States in 1979, and eventually opened a tiny, beloved restaurant called Cambodian Cuisine in Fort Greene in the early 1990s—long before Fort Greene grew into its current state of yuppieness. When real estate prices skyrocketed in Fort Greene in the early 2000s, the landlord squeezed Jerry out of his space. Undeterred, Jerry decided to move his restaurant into a larger location at 93rd and 3rd in Manhattan.

note the painfully appropriate slogan in the upper-right corner

And here’s where the story becomes downright heartbreaking: Jerry had a series of nightmarish experiences with dishonest and/or incompetent contractors, and it took more than three years for the restaurant to finally open, as detailed in this 2007 New York Times article. After burning through a massive bank loan, Jerry borrowed several hundred thousand dollars from family and friends to cover the cost overruns. Jerry spent more than $1 million during the building process, but he never missed a rent payment, and finally opened his new restaurant in 2008. A few months after the renovation was complete, the landlord—a Harvard-educated lawyer who had previously been convicted of laundering drug money—evicted him, citing a minor clause in Jerry’s lease that required him to open the restaurant within 18 months of the lease start date.

Cambodian spring roll... accompanied by greasy happy fingers

So after all of his hard work, Jerry was more than $1 million in debt—and had nothing to show for it. Worse, he owed much of the money to family and friends. Read Jerry’s website carefully, and you’ll get a pretty good idea of how miserable he feels about the whole ordeal.

I’ve had an eye on Jerry’s website for a couple of years now, and was thrilled to find out that he’s back in business—but this time, Jerry has avoided landlords entirely. Jerry’s yellow food truck, called Cambodian Cuisine Torsu, has the words “on the street looking to survive” written on all sides of it, without a trace of irony.

As you might expect from a survivor like Jerry, the space limitations of a food truck haven’t harmed his food at all. His menu is smaller than in his previous ventures, but he still manages to pump out an impressive array of 17 dishes—not bad at all by NYC food truck standards. More importantly, the food itself is still inspired; the financial and legal struggles haven’t beaten the soul out of Jerry’s cooking.

Cambodian spring rolls, without greasy fingers

As an appetizer, I ordered a plate of fried Cambodian spring rolls (naem tchien, $5.95), which were deliciously intense little bundles of spiced pork, bean threads, chicken, and carrots, served with a gentle peanut sauce. For our entrees, I decided to order the two dishes that contained galangal (a lovable ginger relative, often used in Southeast Asian cooking), beginning with kroerung tofu ($5.95), a giant mound of tofu and broccoli sautéed in a non-dairy “creamy hot spicy galangal lemon grass sauce”—which was at least as delicious as it sounds.

Our second entrée, karry tuek ($5.95) was probably the highlight of my entire week: spicy Cambodian curry with chicken, lemongrass, galangal, coconut milk, onions, bamboo shoots,

tofu in "creamy hot spicy galangal lemon grass sauce"

water chestnuts, and stir-fried potatoes, served on a curry-soaked bed of vermicelli. The curry was lick-the-container good, and I jammed the empty bowl with some random non-Cambodian leftovers (boiled chicken, rice, a few raw vegetables), goofily hoping that some of the magic of the Cambodian curry would rub off the contents in time for breakfast the next day.

As thrilled as I was with our food, I was equally happy to see that the six-week-old Cambodian Cuisine truck was already attracting a decent crowd—especially by the standards of a chilly, crappy, NYC weeknight. As the son of a failed restaurant owner (and grandson of a Greek diner owner), I have a huge soft spot for guys like Jerry. Maybe I’m unreasonably biased, but I can’t help but root for a guy who survives the Khmer Rouge, two greedy landlords, and financial ruin –and still has a smile on his face while making a damned good Cambodian curry. I’d love to see the Cambodian Cuisine food truck succeed beyond Jerry’s wildest dreams; I’ll smile when I see higher price and a line winding around the block. I’ll smile even more when Jerry manages to open another restaurant someday—but hopefully without the landlord troubles next time.

Keep fighting, Jerry.

one of the best curries I've ever eaten... bring on the crowds, please

Cambodian Cuisine Torsu (food truck)
usually near LaGuardia and West 4th St. (Washington Square Park), Manhattan
subway: 8th St. (N, R trains) or West 4th St. (A, B, C, D, E, F, M) or Astor Place (6)
follow Jerry Ley on twitter
follow United Nations of Food on twitter

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In my book, Bolivia earns some serious points just for the name of one of its national dishes, pique a lo macho. My Spanish is pretty rusty, but I think the (very) rough translation is something like “snacks like the macho” or “pickings of the manly man.” I’m pretty sure that the name comes from the fact that you need to be a big, badass dude to finish a plate of the stuff, especially if you’ve already warmed up with a few salteñas as appetizers.

nothing is more macho than fried hotdogs with fried cheese, fried potatoes, fried onions, and fried beef

Pique a lo macho consists of seasoned beef, fried onions, more fried beef, a few fried peppers and tomatoes, fried (mild, white) cheese, fried bits of hotdog, and fried potatoes, topped with a mildly spicy red sauce. It’s a perfect dish if you’re on a diet… well, at least if you’re on the Chub Load diet. Sunnyside’s Mi Bolivia, which seems to be NYC’s only established Bolivian restaurant, serves a monstrous plate of the stuff for $11; it might be enough to feed two manly men, depending on the size of those men.

My lovely dining companion—who is arguably somewhat less manly than I am—ordered revuelto de pollo ($11), described on the menu as “chicken with egg sauce.” I don’t think either of us were particularly excited about the thought of egg sauce, but the dish was actually a plate of eggs scrambled with chicken, diced

looks grey and lifeless and un-macho, but tastes delicious

potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and green peas. It was a deceptively tasty meal, even though it looked grey and lifeless; the revuelto de pollo reminded me of Ecuadorian mote pillo, which is among the best Latin foods I’ve eaten anywhere in NYC.

If the reviews on yelp are any indication, the real reason for Mi Bolivia’s popularity is its baked Bolivian empanadas (your choice of chicken or beef, $2 each), better known as salteñas. Bolivian salteñas are comparable to Chilean baked empanadas, except for two huge differences: salteñas are made from a much sweeter dough, and the filling is juicy as all hell; the Chilean beef and chicken empanadas are usually much drier. Mi Bolivia’s salteñas dripped all over our chins, but were obscenely delicious; my (somewhat un-macho) companion literally licked the juice off the plate while I pretended to look away.

juicy

Of course, we didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell at finishing all of the food we ordered; a pair of the salteñas alone could have made a reasonable lunch. In a rare appetite failure, I ate my share of the salteñas, guzzled a big glass of fresh passion fruit juice ($3, and highly recommended), and left most of the fried hotdogs and a few bits of French fries and beef and cheese and onions on my plate of pique a lo macho, delicious as it was. My belly was only macho enough to finish 2/3 of my entrée. You win, Bolivia.

Mi Bolivia
44-10 48th Ave., Sunnyside, Queens
Subway: 46th-Bliss (7 train)

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I still find it odd that so many NYC restaurateurs “hide” their nationality. A decent number of Jordanians and Algerians and Moroccans refer to their cuisine as simply “Middle Eastern,” many Bangladeshi restaurants seem content to pretend that their food is “Indian,” and plenty of Puerto Rican- and Dominican-owned places call their food “Spanish.”

very quietly Senegalese

New York’s African restaurants, however, seem to be the most universally vague about their cuisine. A large majority of the African restaurants I’ve seen in NYC just call themselves “African” or “African and American”—as if that narrows things down at all. Sure, there’s plenty of culinary overlap among the 50-something nations of Africa… but an awning that just says “African cuisine” leaves plenty to the imagination.

So when I saw Aicha Restaurant (“African and American cuisine”) on Nostrand Avenue near the northern edge of Crown Heights, I got nosy. I peered in the window, and saw only one customer (a very friendly West African who could easily be mistaken for Don Cheadle’s brother) in the place. So I walked in with a big, goofy, touristy grin on my face, hoping that an owner or staff member might take the time to educate a friendly-but-mildly-clueless Midwestern boy on the African delights in the steam table.

what $4.38 of Senegalese food might look like

The restaurant’s Senegalese owner was warm enough, but he wasn’t much of a talker. I tried my best to draw him and a friendly female bystander (perhaps his wife or partner?) into a conversation about the food, but they seemed determined to answer my questions with as few words as possible. They smiled shyly as I filled my plate with rice, peppery stewed chicken, peanut stew, and three different types of oily green mush; they helpfully explained that one of the green stews was made from okra, and the other two were made from cassava leaves, but just shrugged when I asked what the difference was between the two cassava leaf stews: “different meat , maybe” was all they would offer.

The reticence of Aicha’s owners did nothing to diminish the fact that I was eating a delicious, varied plate of West African food for the ridiculously low price of $4.38… just $3.99 a pound, which is roughly half the price of the soggy crap served in Midtown corner stores. At that price, the owners could have been downright mean instead of just shy, and I probably wouldn’t have held it against them.

The “peanut stew” that the owners identified was mafé, one of Senegal’s national dishes, made from bits of stewed beef or lamb and… well, peanuts. The mafé and stewed chicken were both tasty enough, but I get far more excited about oily piles of green mush. No really—I’m not kidding. I could happily live off of okra and spicy stewed greens—if, of course, I didn’t have to worry about the intestinal fury that would accompany that diet. I’d even say that I like spicy, oily, green mush more than I like gelatinous Korean-style fish skins, and that’s a pretty bold statement.

mafe (peanut stew) and tasty green cassava leaf mush

Aicha earns some serious points for the quality and quantity and cheapness of its mushy green dishes. Aicha’s okra (also with bits of beef) could have used a bit more spice, but it was still delicious. I was absolutely crazy about the cassava leaf concoctions, although I struggled to tell them apart. Both were reasonably spicy, and seemed to contain identical chunks of meat; one of the dishes was just a little bit yellower and spicier than the other, leading me to suspect that a slightly different type of hot pepper or a different amount of palm oil had been used—but that’s just a guess.

As happy as I was to munch on a big plate of okra and spicy cassava leaves, I won’t pretend that Aicha serves the most amazing African food I’ve eaten in NYC; Fatima and Abidjan still have Aicha beat, in my humble opinion. But by the standards of $3.99/pound hot bars, Aicha offers one of the most impressive meals you’ll find anywhere in NYC.

what the remnants of $4.38 of Senegalese food looks like... you think maybe there was some palm oil in there?

Aicha Restaurant
602 Nostrand Avenue, Brooklyn
Subway: Atlantic Avenue (A, C trains)

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