54-46, that's my number: the Queens thread

Now it is. I'm sitting near the piano. I think the original bass player listed is in Peru and the drummer in Canada but I've high hopes for this lineup

Oh no. We're at home now, but likely will be back for the cinco de mayo party tomorrow night.

Ha, I just made myself look crepey and asked

a few ladeez if they were librarians. Maybe you were checking out as I was checking in. Did you come on a bicycle?

Haha, that was me! I left on a yellow bicycle...

OK. probably won't make it to the Dia de Los Muertos thing but at least I have an inkling now

Turkish cat on drums is awesome. Too bad Hurting isn't here.

I prefer siamese cats on my drums -- better tone.

Kind of psyched about this place:

http://www.jacknellies.com/

http://foresthills.patch.com/articles/meet-the-owner-cyril-burke-of-jack-and-nellie-s

Craft beer, wine, small plates. Wouldn't blink if it opened in Williamsburg, but something like this is badly needed in FH.

Hm. What time does that Dia de Los Muertos thing start?

OMFG the M. Wells cafeteria in PS1 is amazing.

It also happened to be a perfect way for us to have something of a restaurant experience without worrying about the baby (quick service, ultra-casual atmosphere, etc.)

Tonight at Terraza: a Portuguese singer with two Brazilian guys playing six-string basses in kind of a high life style

Which is pretty awesome so far.

Sorry, no space in highlife

Now a slow minor key number with some scatting.

All with Yayo Serka on drums. But you probably already knew that.

Tried a Peruvian place called I think Urubamba in Jackson Heights today -- v tasty, reasonably priced, nice atmosphere.

Yeah, I took a photo of the menu once ages ago and finally tried it a few months ago. Peruvian but specializing in "Incan" pre-Columbian type stuff as well. They had two drinks everyone was getting, their special pre-columbian juices. We got both, one was nasty and the other was great, but I can't remember which is which. Kind of nutmeg-y grape juice non-alcoholic spiced wine tasting stuff.

Food was pretty good...not super destination restaurant good, but good enough, a nice change for the neighborhood and nice atmosphere.

Awesome band at Terraza tonight, Manhattan Vibes, and now they are playing a song called "Red and Black." No relation

Food was pretty good...not super destination restaurant good, but good enough, a nice change for the neighborhood and nice atmosphere.

― dan selzer, Sunday, January 13, 2013 1:14 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, I'd say this is right. We also kind of didn't know what to order, so we wound up getting a lamb stew and a fish-in-broth thing, both of which were good but IDK if it's their specialty.

the buildings north of 37th Ave. seem pretty nice. We were briefly like "hmm maybe we should live here instead of Forest Hills" but I still think Forest Hills is probably better for parents with small kids

the buildings are nice but jackson heights is pretty lacking in white people stuff whereas forest hills is lacking in non-white people stuff

I wouldn't really say the latter is true, depending on what you mean by "non-white people stuff"

Forest Hills doesn't have 500 nepali restaurants.

if you mean, say, good asian or latin american restaurants, yeah. In fact it doesn't really have good anything restaurants. It's full of non-white people though.

My building is a mix of eastern europeanss, israelis immigrants, dominicans, asians, and a smattering of no-label white people.

that's what I meant

all of queens is like that but it doesn't help you in your day to day unless your neighbors make you food

yeah total food wasteland. I actually pick up boston market when we need takeout because it's pretty much I shit you not the best option.

Nick's Pizza is good though.

I heard there's good uzbek kebab in rego park. I tried the one that's closest and it was meh, but the really good one is further away.

nick's is really good, you guys get a reward for having no other good food, and the rest of queens is punished w/ having shitty pizza

the amount of shitty pizza places that exist in nyc really makes me question certain aspects of capitalism

supposedly wafa's on metropolitan is good, but that's so far from me it might as well be another neighborhood

we have a gastro pub/tapas thingy now called something like Jack and Nellie's. It's across from Nick's. Wife tried it with friends and said it was alright. At least it's not ridiculously cheesy looking like exo cafe and all those other places.

Wafa's was pretty good, but not the destination that chowhounders make it out to be. I went once at the original location when it was off metropolitan and tiny, then again when it was bigger and on metro. It was good, but not SUPER special.

I love Nick's, even if the mozz is a bit rubbery, which is something I kinda like anyway. I love the arugula house salad or whatever, and getting a root beer with my pizza. Also great is the calzone, totally ridiculous ricotta overload, and the desert canoli, which I had to ask them to not dust pistachio all over.

The other two places on metropolitan that got chow attention are/were the sushi place, I can't remember the name, and db wine bar. Haven't been to either.

What I'm most bummed about is after giving up on De Mole delivery because their quality has just been sliding for years and we got delivery that was straight up gross, I discovered Cafe 58, little market looking place on 58th just around the corner from Roosevelt/Woodside/Donovans that's been a dozen places and I never would've thought twice about till I noticed they had good reviews on Seamless so I tried it and it was actually GREAT tacos, quesadillas and burittos. And now they're not delivering any more. Maybe they're closed altogether. I don't know.

maybe you shouldn't live so far from de mole! idk the takeout I get is always fine. who do you do for indian delivery?

De Mole delivery always comes fast, but maybe I just wasn't lucky. In general, De Mole was good to great, but after a few years it dropped to dependable comfort food. For a while, probably depending on who was cooking, it'd either be great, fine, or just good but needs tons of salt. But these last two times, I don't know what was wrong. It was just BAD!

I don't do indian delivery! People seem to love Masala, but it seems like standard boring indian, and I've had gross stuff from them so we gave up on that pretty quick. I've ordered from Curry Point (thanks Seamless!) and it was ok but not great. We used to love to go to Mehfil in Jackson Heights, esp for their buffet. It was kind of the "white persons" option for that part of queens, but it was really good. Now it's gone. Indian is tough. I hate sounding like a snob when anyone says "oh you live in near Jackson Heights with all the good indian" and I'm like "uh, it's ok, but the Tibetan food is awesome!". I haven't been to a lot of the places people like, I know there's still some good indian there, but not nearly as much as people think. We drive to hicksville to go to Ikea and get Dosas. And I've been to Dimple in NJ.

What I do do, is drive over to Sammy's Halal WAY too often. That's my favorite food in NYC. I should probably try more of the places. Kababish is supposed to be good for these weird kebabs.

yeah when we lived in woodside I could just walk to sammy's and I would go a ton. I'm not in jackson heights as much these days and have tried to shift my diet so I don't feel like half the atoms in my body come from a halal cart.

for that reason I'm kinda lucky that the halal carts in sunnyside suck

oh this strange new columbian chain originally from...miami? opened up on greenpoint, I was gonna try it but their credit card machine was broken cause it was the first day. anyway I hope it's good.

what have you done about indian? The place on skillman is supposed to be awful.

I should mention having a real soft spot of Indian Chinese but never going because it's the unhealthiest stuff ever but I love Tangra on QB, the food is decent and the atmosphere is mind-boggling. Nan King in Jackson Heights was good as well.

Also re sunnyside. We tried Yeti of Heizen when we first moved to Queens and had some really bad sushi.

Finally tried the fresh tofu korean place after many years and I really liked it but girlfriend not as much. She got a veggie one and said it was flavorless, while my beef one was pretty tasty. We haven't been back but I liked the place.

my friend went to the newish sushi place and said it was good, I forgot the name. the skillman place is pretty whatever but they have a delivery special where you get a ton of food for $15. curry point, despite being two block away, is bad enough that I can't even justify going out of laziness. I am not really that picky about indian, like I like masala fine, but both me and the gf find curry point borderline inedible.

should we even talk about chinese? There's the weird expensive place on Woodside at 64th that's actually good, Chu Ying, but everything else has been terrible. Even just for crappy american take-out standards.

A few places get good reviews on Yelp but they're disgusting. I want the good american chinese for jews type stuff you can find in Park Slope.

I heard there's good uzbek kebab in rego park. I tried the one that's closest and it was meh, but the really good one is further away.

― space phwoar (Hurting 2), Tuesday, January 15, 2013 11:31 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like Cheburechnaya on 63rd, especially the lamb fat kebabs. Istanbul right around the corner on QB is pretty good too.

Yeah we went to Danny Brown Wine Bar. It was very good, and it was probably like 20-30% cheaper than an equivalent place in manhattan. That said, I just don't get that excited by mid-high-range new american fine dining type restaurants, and I never feel like they're worth the money. It was also weird because we sat by the window and you're like looking out on this depressing stretch of Metropolitan Ave. with a Carvel and a Dunkin Donuts., and that kind of hurt the atmosphere.

(Istanbul is Turkish, obv)

Anyone tried Taiwanese Gourmet (used to be called David's) on Broadway in Elmhurst? I walk by all the time and want to go but have never been.

No. A bit intimidated by the variety of chinese places there. Went through a spell of checking out all the maylaysian and indonesian places and had some decent meals and some weird meais. Went to Uncle Zhou once and it was ok, I don't really remember. When we chinese we just go Little Pepper. Mostly in Elmhurst we just eat at Chao Too.

Been to New World Mall twice now in Flushing, it's the fancier one that looks like a food court and not the basement stall one that has the original Xian. The food at New World is more hit or miss, but there's a taiwanese stall where I got a combo plate that was fantastic, braised pork belly, rice, some kinds of pickles etc.

the bian dang truck (taiwanese rice bowls) that sometimes parks in midtown serves a similar combo, and I've had it, and I thought it was pretty good and very home-cooked tasting.

Ben's Best Deli in rego Park -- what shd I eat?

The document?

sorry