The aftermath of Woks and Lox feels good. No more stress, no more mystery. We were very lucky to be working with Ben and Jen from The Queens Kickshaw and our chef Chichi Wang. I still can’t believe how good the food was. I was always averse to fusion before. Maybe it was just everything that goes along with fusion that I don’t like, but I loved it here. The spin on Jewish food made it thrilling! Take potato pancakes and put Szechuan peppercorn on it, add scallions and chili oil to kasha varnishkes — All of a sudden the tastes of my yore had the kick of my present. I can’t believe I dug ‘fusion’.
But the food was only half of it. We more than sold out, and midway through, when the crowds packed it too much to play any stupid games, I realized that this collection of people was why we were here. We all wanted to be together, feel good, and eat fun. The Chinese auction was an exciting thing to look forward to, but we were all there to be in the moment. We had 2 hours for the dinner and 2 for the party. These couple of hours of experience was great – I loved the short timing because most people want to link another activity to the night and also with limited time, you really want to make the most of it.
Above are Szechuan peppercorn latkes, Kasha varnishkes topped with scallion oil, Spring roll blintzes filled with schmear and Chinese jujubes, and Sweet red bean rugelach. Here are 5 Woks & Lox recipes from Chichi Wang
And the one thing everyone keeps asking us: Are we going to do it again?
We might just have to.
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This I should mention: the original logo for Woks and Lox took about 8 minutes to create. It came from 2 google searches which I’m probably in copyright violation of, and the joining of using MS Paint. It was done in haste, yet the more we thought about creating a new one, the more we liked the original.
Press people obviously didn’t think it was a real logo, so when they asked for a picture, we kinda just shrugged. I didn’t realize it would become a thing for people to create their own for their articles. Here’s a couple:
Why Leave Astoria added scallions to the lox and did not forget to include shading to their logo:
Gothamist went ultra deluxe, putting the lox inside a bamboo steamer and loading the bagel with onion, tomato, and capers:
I want more Woks and Lox
Thanks for sharing these brilliant, wonderful photos of what definitely had to have been one of the best events ever held in Queens (or anywhere in the NY/5 boroughs/LI area, full stop!). Kasha varnishkes is one of my all-time favourite comfort foods in the entire universe – I would’ve loved to try the variation on the theme, as it sounds (and looks) amazingly, incredibly delicious! As does everything you’ve taken photos of. It’s at times like this when I truly do miss living in New York. I wish I could’ve just hopped on a plane and joined all of you there. Every one of those photos has that friendly, fun vibe. Everyone’s so happy…and not just because of the amazing food (although that’s of course a huge part of it), but just the whole ‘community spirit’ thing, and the foodie thing, and the Queens/NY thing.
I’m so happy for everyone who took part in what I hope will become a regular event. It was definitely a success from what I can see here. Well done to both of you for coming up with the fantastic idea in the first place, and also for organising it and making it the brilliant experience it was – I don’t have to have been there (although I wish I was!) to know that.
Seeing these photos really made me smile – all those happy, smiling faces! You are way cool, Jeff. Thanks again for sharing. – June
By: Greek Girl from Queens on January 10, 2012
at 16:47