Shank House Restaurant Dubai Cuisine

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES 🇦🇪

For those of us without vehicles, Floral Park remains a faraway land that can only be accessed on special occasions. Already long rides on the 7 train to Flushing only get you to the midway point of Queens if "faraway" needs more description, to get here would require at least one connection and a long bus ride from the end of a Jamaica-bound train. Technically still part of Queens, one could walk a few blocks east and end up on Long Island and start using 516 area codes.

The moral of the story? Borrow your friend's car.

Amongst the many South Asian restaurants and groceries that line both Union Turnpike and Hillside Avenue, a relative newcomer has come to the neighborhood offering "Dubai Cuisine." Take a deep dive into their menu, and indeed some of the wonders of Emirati cooking do emerge, a unique offering in New York City.

The restaurant is casual with counter ordering service, but does offer comfortable tables with banquettes for seating. On one side a gigantic poster shows the skyline of Dubai at night.

Somewhat like more familiar biryanis, mandi is perhaps the star of the cuisine. Emiratis and Saudis fight over the origin of the dish, each claiming it as their own. This mutton mandi ($13.99, above) comes with a massive shank served over spiced basmati rice. While I do not think the restaurant dug a hole to cook the meat in tandoor style, it was nevertheless incredibly moist and fell right of the bone. The dish can also be served with a half chicken instead of mutton. Any version will include a thin well-spiced soup (above, background) that works to get your mouth salivating before the arrival of the mandi.

While sauces were certainly not necessary because it was already so good, three squeeze bottles arrived with the mandi and can be used as desired to create different tastes. The yellow bottle is full of their wonderful yogurt white sauce, always a good combination with basmati rice.

Sticking to sheep, the preferred animal to eat in the Emirates, a bowl of mutton salona ($12.99, below) was also ordered. The first taste of this provided flavors unique to any bite I had ever taken, as the broth is full of a zesty sourness that works well to cut the fattiness of the on-bone meats.

Our conversation with the server yielded only the presence of "Arabic spices" and pomegranate dust, but research seems to show these spices might include the powder of dried limes known as loomi. Regardless, the stew is fantastic. Had we not been eating so much, an order of bread would have been a perfect companion.

Most of the population of the Emirates lives along the sea and seafood makes an important part of the diet as well. Served grilled or pan-fried in a tawa seems to be the most popular options.

The tawa fish ($6, above) is cooked in a good deal of oil, which it retains to serving. I was unable to identify the fish this large fillet came from, but most of the taste comes from the generous rub they apply.

While certainly not Emirati, order a cup of their milky pink tea ($2.50, below), a chai from Kashmir full of spices and crushed pistachios.

For dessert there is masoob ($5, below), vanilla ice cream with mango syrup covered in whipped cream and more crushed nuts. While sounding quite sweet, it is not overly so, and ends the meal perfectly.

Shank House has a large menu and lots of options. A "Desi Corner" section seems to appeal to the neighborhood, but many cuts of meat, kebabs, and of course shanks are available served a la carte. The namesake wrap includes every type of kebab meat together, while the Burj al Arab, named after the famous hotel in Dubai that looks like a sailboat, is filled with chicken tikka boti.

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FLORAL PARK Queens

259-07 Hillside Avenue

Taste of Cochin

INDIA 🇮🇳   (KERALA)

Taste of Cochin has been on my list of places to try for years, but it lives in the far eastern reaches of New York City, a pocket of Queens with road names in the high 200's. Three sides of this pocket are neighborhoods of Long Island's Nassau County, leaving Glen Oaks as somewhat of a peninsula into different area codes. Having previously enjoyed a Keralan meal at nearby Taste of Kerala Kitchen, a return trip was long overdue.

Thanks to a tip from @CitySpoonful, I learned about the harvest festival of Onam, celebrated in India's Kerala state. Wednesday, September 14th was Thiruvonam, the most important day of the 2016 festival (which is following the Malayalam calendar, not ours), a non-religious celebration that acknowledges the return of a revered king from the underworld.

Festivals like these are usually wonderful opportunities in New York City to see expat groups gathering to celebrate their holidays. Taste of Cochin advertised a 28 item traditional Keralan buffet known as Onam sadya. This Keralan feast is something that every person in the state either makes or attends, so I grabbed a friend who visited Kerala years ago and made the drive out to Glen Oaks.

We found a subdued yet celebratory mood, with rows of tables set up for diners all facing the same direction. This made it easy for the servers to walk down the other side of the table and ladle out portions of each of the feast's 28 items. There is a tradition for this holiday of buying and wearing new outfits, some of which we saw on proud display.

By the end of our meal, the place was quite crowded and some percussionists had started playing in the front of the restaurant to offer even more festivity. We also could hear that music was coming from the basement and later found some sort of party going on down there, but were shy to stay.

The sadya itself is traditionally served on a banana leaf, here replaced with a disposable version. We were the only non-Indians there and were very kindly guided through the list of foods as each came to our "leaf." Banana chips, pappadam, various vegetable curries, pickles, rice, chutneys, a couple desserts, and a small, wonderfully aromatic banana all eventually made it in front of us.

I watched a couple others while this was happening to see if there was any order or best practice, but it all seems like a free for all, with each diner steering the course of their own meal. If you run out of something you particularly like, you can ask for more, as everything is unlimited.

We were offered spoons, but declined, feasting the same way as everyone else in the room: with our right hand. This of course is important to most Indians and South Asians, a way to taste the food better they say. When I have traveled in South Asia I can start to feel this as well during daily rhythms, a natural way to experience food without anything foreign entering your mouth with it.

The rice here is quite fluffy and does not stick together at all, which is where the curries come in good use. Squeezing yourself a small fingerful, picking it up, and shoveling it into your mouth with your thumb all becomes second nature quickly.

The only problem with this type of meal is when you come across the curry you love the most and realize there is only a bite or two. You can ask for more though, but don't expect a larger dollop unless you are very insistent like the man who was sitting next to us.

By the end, the leaves are completely annihilated, with just some remnants of each dish mixed together. It feels somehow empowering to see this progress made, and since the meal is completely vegetarian it all does not feel that heavy in the belly.

Taste of Cochin is offering the Onam sadya for the next three nights as well, Thursday the 15th through Saturday the 17th of September, for anyone interested in this beautiful and festive occasion.

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GLEN OAKS Queens

248-08 Union Turnpike

Five Star Indian Cuisine

INDIA 🇮🇳  (KERALA)

Depending on what you look at, 5 Star offers either Indian or South Indian cuisine. While some northern items do pepper their menu, they specialize in southern with an angle towards the backwater state of Kerala, definitely the reason to seek out the place.

At 4pm on a weekend, the remnants of the lunch buffet are still showing, but the all you can eat weekend event is over. For the better though, as far as I know the Keralan food does not feature here. Grab a table, ask about any specials, and get prepared for a feast.

Our first offering was something we spied in great quantity on catering trays being prepared for an event in the evening that the restaurant was providing food for, which they called simply "cutlet." These deep fried pieces ($1 each, below) beat any appetizer we may have ordered otherwise, especially with the nice onion sauce that accompanied them.

Naan is a northern thing, so make sure your table has plenty of porotha ($1 each, below) for gathering up your meats and vegetables. In the background below is the kappa ($6.95), a dish of boiled yuca that we might pass on during our next meal.

The beef ularth ($11.95, below) sounds delectable but is held back by its dryness. The dish of beef cubes are pan friend in red onions and coconut, but would do better in a sauce.

A staple of coastal Kerala is of course fish, and we were recommended the mathi fry ($10 for 8 pieces, below), a plate of sardines that had an oily goodness in each bite.

Our other fish dish was the fish curry ($12.95, below), which tasted heavily of coconut milk and was very smooth. We all liked it a lot but could only handle so much since it was very rich. It requires a good helping of rice.

My experience with thoran ($6.95, below) has always been positive in Keralan restaurants and I was eager to order one here. Thoran can be prepared with a variety of vegetables and is mixed with an assortment of mustard seeds, curry leaves and turmeric.

After all our entrees arrived, we were presented with a small dish of mango chutney (below) that tasted slightly bitter and sour but was absolutely delightful to scoop up with the porotha. Our server called it pachadi, and upon further investigation, this is a Keralan-style chutney that was completely new to me. As far as I can tell, this is not on the menu, but I recommend asking for it if you can.

Compliments of the house, we were also served another thoran (below) of green beans, which was even more delicious than the first. Both of these go superbly with the white rice that comes out for the table.

With time to spare on our lazy weekend, we were not quite anxious to leave and enjoyed at least the first half of Chennai Express, one of the highest grossing films from India and apparently known line for line by everyone working here.

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NEW HYDE PARK Long Island

247 Jericho Turnpike

Taste of Kerala Kitchen

INDIA 🇮🇳
(KERALA)

[UPDATE: Name change to Taste of Kerala Kitchen]

Queens is a freaking massive borough. It's amazing to think that the long ride to the last stop on the F train only gets you maybe 60% of the way to the border with Long Island. To get to places like Floral Park, a painstaking bus transfer is necessary in a land where people mostly have their own vehicles. Kerala kitchen is located one and a half blocks west of the border between 718 and 516, a place no longer known as New York City, but on these blocks at least, no different at all.

After our long journey (which in this case was actually by car but still seemed arduous), it would have been nice to arrive with warm greetings and smiles, but we seemed to be disturbing them more than anything, despite the fact that the place was 95% empty. On this frigid evening though, the tropical balminess and backwater attitude of the state of Kerala in southern India did not seem to register.

I could not help but think I was in a hair salon with all the rounded shiny domes of the lunch buffet table in a row along the wall. I wanted old ladies in curlers to be sitting under them the whole time we dined.

Regardless of the general feeling of intrusion, the most disappointing part about the restaurant was the lack of many dishes on the menu, and no way to know what was actually available. A friend who recently visited Kerala was looking for a few specific things but found them all to be unavailable this day.

What we did eat though, was delicious, and made the trip worth the time. We ordered many different types of breads to accompany our dishes, the first of which was the padavalanga ($8, above) which somehow translated to "snake gourd" in English. Listed in the vegetarian section, it still came with fish within, so don't say you haven't been warned. The soupy mixture was the most flavorful of our selections, and was the best item to use the bread on. The blend of spices and peppers got us off and running.

The beef deep fry ($10, below) looked like it would be dry and possibly tough, but the pieces were both juicy and tender, topped with raw onions, and sufficient enough for the five of us all to have a few bites. The porotha bread worked even better than a fork and spoon for shoveling it in.

The fish curry ($10, below) was also full of flavor, spice, and richness. A few bones were scattered here and there, but for the most part it was entirely meaty, almost to the point of seeming like something more on land than at sea.

The table also ordered chicken 65 ($10) despite my warnings of it coming from another distinctly different subgroup of Indian cuisine. It was unsurprisingly boring, quite a bit overcooked, but did come with tasty cashews and white raisins, something I had never seen before from this bright red dish.

The love-it-or-hate-it dessert payasam also was served, a sweet pudding with thin noodles and ginger that has a very creamy consistency. I find it a very refreshing palate cleanser, but not everyone at the table enjoyed it.

The moral of the story for any Keralan food connoisseur is to call ahead and ask what is on offer each day, but for the layman such as myself, the meal was completely satisfying. I would love to go back again and try more, especially a fish thoran and some mango curry.

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FLORAL PARK Queens

267-05 Hillside Avenue

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