Elmhurst tour

Elmhurst in Queens is one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in New York City. As expected, the variety of food and restaurants here is as diverse as well. Mare and I have been frequenting (more her than me) this quaint Thai place on Broadway called Boon Chu, and I would say they're up there amongst the best Thai food places in New York City (together with Sri Pra Phai and Ubol's Kitchen).


However, on the way to Boon Chu from the Elmhurst stop on the R, V and G lines, you get to pass by one of my favorite all-time drinks. QUICKLY! Within the past two years, Quickly has opened about four locations in New York City. I found out about Quickly in NYC about two years ago when I was walking around SoHo, and I spied a girl/lady carrying the familiar Quickly drinks. I ran after her and stopped her (I must have nearly given her a heart attack), and politely asked where she bought her drink from. She told me, and that's the start of my Quickly adventures in New York! Me and my foodie tendencies!

I got me a taro ice (slushy) with pearl (tapioca, or as the Filipinos know it - sago) and lychee bits. Mare had a lychee slush with the same add-ins. Having Quickly reminded me of college back home when I couldn't not buy Quickly on the way home because the store was on the way. Yeah, I was a Quickly guy in college, not Zagu or Orbitz, but Quickly. :-)

After Quickly, we then walked down the block to Boon Chu. It's a small space, with 7 tables seating 2 people each. The decor is nice, and the staff friendly. I like the way their menu looked. I liked the menu contents even better! They had a good selection of appetizers (from thai steamed dumplings to satay), entrees (chicken basil, etc), noodles (pad thai, pad see ew, etc) and curries (green, red, jungle, penang, etc). I was disappointed that they didn't have the crispy fried watercress salad that Sri Pra Phai has, but whatever. lol.

Whenever my friends and I eat out, we usually get down to business right away. No more starters. If we do get appetizers, we have them served together with the rest of the entrees. Last night, Mare and I ordered the Kana Moo Grob, Chicken larb, Penang Curry with Beef and Jungle Curry.


There is something about the Kana Moo Grob that Filipinos love. It's basically a sauteed chinese broccoli dish with crispy slivers of pork. The crispy pork and the veggies are a good mix, plus, the taste! Sweet and just a bit tart. I think there's oyster sauce in it, but Maricel thinks otherwise. She says it's soy sauce and fish sauce. Regardless, it was very good!

I also liked the Penang curry. Even though I think it's origins are Malaysian, I tend to go for coconut based curry dishes, regardless. We originally ordered the jungle curry, but it turned out to be not what Mare liked (she does not like bamboo shoots), so we ordered the Penang curry.

The larb on the other hand felt out of place. I guess it's one of those things where you have to have it before the entrees. Larb is a meat salad with roots in Laos. It is unofficially the national dish of Laos according to wikipedia. Larb is made with raw or cooked meat that is then minced and mixed with chili and mint, and then flavored with fish sauce and lime. Our larb was made with minced cook chicken and spicy! almost fiery! But still good!

As I said earlier, I think Boon Chu is one of the up and coming Thai restaurants in the city. Dinner last night was great, and I definitely will be becoming back.

(Boon Chu is located at 83-18 Broadway in Elmhurst, NY and Quickly is only a couple of doors down.)

I'm back!

A bunch of my friends have expressed interest in my food blogging, and because of that, I'm going to start blogging again.

I can't believe it's been almost three years since I last posted. WoW. Now, armed with my camera phone (my apologies in advance for the crappy photos) and a penchant for good food, happy eating!

Coming up next... Quickly and Thai!

a favorite... (or two)

My aunt makes these wonderful food for the gods. I like to say it's food for me. :-) not food for the gods. get it? i'll try to get her recipe for it.



Another favorite of mine that I recently was able to have is fresh lumpia. I had this at Rene's in Woodside last week.

i'm almost back...

Hello there. I still don't have my computer on me, although I got my camera back a couple of weeks ago. Having just a camera and no computer to upload photos to makes for no blogging. :-)

There's a restaurant I frequent in the Times Square area of New York City that I believe hasn't been discovered by tourists yet. It's a very cozy Japanese noodle shop that has really good noodles (ramen) among others. It's also very cheap, a downside though is that they don't take credit cards. I was there last night with my friend Michael, and I had the Sapporo Special Ramen which contains among others a variety of sliced meats and fish cakes, while Michael had their Yakisoba. We also shared an order of gyoza for appetizer.

my apologies

I have to apologize to everyone. It's been a while since I last updated this post. I have kinda been in a blogging depression. Reasons are, first, I didn't have a computer, and second, I didn't have my camera either. I sent in my computer and camera for repair the day after the previous post. I had to make that decision because I was starting school in a couple of weeks, and I wanted everything revitalized and in good working order. I underestimated the time for it to get done, so, now, six weeks after, I still don't have my camera. I did, however, get my laptop back though.

I will be back to updating this again soon.

middle-eastern dinner

To continue on with the middle-eastern/mediterannean theme of the day, my friend Seng and I had dinner at The Olive Tree in Greenwich Village. The Olive Tree is one of my favorite Middle Eastern restaurants, and I absolutely love their lamb combination platter. This dish is basically a sampler of their other entrees. There's a kefta kebab (skewered ground lamb), a shish kebab (skewered lamb chunks) and shwarma (sliced lamb) with mashed potatoes or rice and an Israeli salad on the side plus caramelized onions. We got there around 1130pm and found out that they ran out of shwarma. (Alas, it just wasn't my day! lol) We ordered the lamb combination, but instead of having shwarma i got another shish kebab instead. Also, we had the traditional Russian borscht which was served hot with pumpernickel bread and sour cream on the side. The borscht to filipinos would be a cross between caldereta and nilagang baka. Think nilagang baka with tomato sauce. :-)

Now, this was yum! Thanks Seng!

gyro

For lunch today, I had a gyro from the middle-eastern cart on First Avenue. It was cheap, $4, and it actually was good. A gyro is to Greeks (maybe) what subway sandwiches is to Americans. From what I've read, gyros actually are almost interchangeable with souvlaki depending on where you are and who you are talking to. Essentially though, the gyro is meat with tomatoes, lettuce and spices with tzatziki sauce. I had my gyro with slices of lamb, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, tzatziki and hot sauce on a pita bread.

three cheese ravioli in creamy pesto sauce

I didn't come home until late again tonight. Luckily, I still had food which was supposed to be for lunch in the fridge. This was a three cheese ravioli that we got from Costco. Last night, while eating dinner (the tacos), I started cooking the ravioli and the sauce. Now, I could have just doused it with canned pasta sauce, but I remembered having ravioli with a pesto cream sauce at a restaurant in midtown, so, I set about to doing that. For the time-pressed urban dweller, thank goodness for sauce mixes! I was able to get a creamy pesto sauce mix from Foodtown, and all I had to do was stir it in milk and olive oil, let it simmer, and voila! instant creamy pesto sauce.

One thing I know though, i need to learn how to plate. These pictures could use a little more aesthetics. :-)

tacos con pollos y carnitas

I don't know if my spanish is right, but it should read as chicken and pork tacos. :-) I was at Bryant Park tonight for the last film of the HBO Summer Series. The movie didn't end until late, so I had to grab dinner somewhere on the way home. One reliable source of food in my neighborhood is this taco truck on the corner of Queens Blvd and 41 St. They're always there! You can get a variety of South American fare including burritos, tacos, sofas, tortas, etc and also drinks. My roommate swears by their chorizo torta, which is like a burger, while I prefer their chicken and pork tacos. For $2 each, the tacos are a great buy!

The tacos I got tonight were chicken and pork. The chicken and pork are grilled/fried and seasoned and then placed on two flour tortillas that have been heated on the griddle. A mix of cilantro and some other greens are then added. I also like guacamole, red and green hot sauce on my tacos, as well as a slice or two of jalapeno.

chicken & beef teriyaki

Lunch today was chicken and beef teriyaki which I got from Go Sushi, a japanese fastfood place. It was not really japanese food, it was more like americanized japanese food. I've had the same dish from a real japanese restaurant and it tasted different. The lunch box came with a side salad and two shrimp dumplings, and the serving was huge. Not bad for $9.

bbq dinner

Tonight, my roommate was craving for barbecue and said he knows of this place on Vernon Boulevard that has good food. For lack of a better option, we called in for pick-up and I went to get the food. The total came up to around $28. We had pulled pork, bbq ribs and bbq chicken. For sides, we had corn on a cob, mac and cheese, coleslaw and baked beans. The bbq ribs and chicken were substandard, a little dry, butthe pulled pork was ok, nothing spectacular though. The meal is supposed to be good for two people but it only came with one corn-on-a-cob! The mac&cheese was not cheesy at all and the baked beans half cooked! How's that for value? argh. Over-all, the food could have been better. We've marked off this restaurant as one which we'll never order bbq from again.

(almost) Filipino brunch

I was feeling very lazy today. I was supposed to go have brunch with friends but nobody called so I just decided to cook my own brunch. I had a can of Palm corned beef which I sauteed with onions. Then, I made two eggs over easy and smothered it with Jufran banana sauce. I paired these with steamed rice, making it an (almost) pinoy brunch. If I took the time to cook sinangag (sinanglag in Bisaya, garlic fried rice in English) from the steamed rice that I had, it would have been an authentic pinoy meal. :-)

first post!

yay! first post! this blog is going to chronicle my journeys through the world of food. the way i see it, since i live in new york city, there should be a lot to blog about. i figured, i'll post whatever i had to eat, this way, i'll also be able to keep track of the food that i've had.

my food tastes are very varied (from mediterannean to continental american to east asian to southeast asian). so far, i've had food ranging from the staple chinese, to afghani cuisine.

this should be very interesting. :-)