Posted by: Jeffsayyes | December 19, 2012

Woks and Lox 2012 – Reasons why it’s awesome this year

We’re doing it again! Woks and Lox is coming at you Christmas Eve – for all you lonely people on Christmas. Memories of my childhood, no one could ever hang out, and I’d be walking Merrick Road on the way to the Chinese take-out next to Blockbuster… it was cold and the streets were still. Stoplights seemed superfluous. I kind of miss those days sometimes actually… Never again….

This year we’re keeping the same format as last year, but just being more awesome. We were very lucky how things turned out and most of our methods worked, but I want it to be even more awesome. So without further delay, here are the reasons why we’re awesome this year (in no order that means anything):

1 – SingleCut Beer – They’ve hit Queens by storm as the only brewer based in Queens in half a century – and they’re making a custom brew inspired by Woks and Lox! How awesome is that??

2 – Soy Vay – We’re excited and happy to have a major sponsor for this years event. Beyond just the stuff they are providing, it’s great to see someone has the faith in what we are doing. Their story of when a Chinese Girl meets Jewish boy occurs again and again with our event: the obvious of V and I, and our hosts, The Queens Kickshaw

3 – Chichi Wang – Holy shtetl, Chichi is so smart and such a damn good cook with integrity. Her stuff tastes soooooo good, and she can’t consider anything that doesn’t taste perfect. Things still might change, but tentatively, the menu is

Dinner:
Daikon, Carrot and Cucumber Pickles
Taro, Black Bean and Garlic Knishes
Matzohball and Rice Cake Soup with Ginger Shiitake Broth
Turnip Cake and Noodle Kugel
“Gunpowder” Latkes
Levite’s Cheese and Potato Wonton Pierogies
Kale and Cabbage Salad with Bialy Croutons and Soy Vay® Toasted Sesame Dressing and Marinade Red Bean and Black Sesame Rugelach

Noshes Party:
Levite’s Cheese and Potato Wonton Pierogies
Taro knishes
Red Bean and Black Sesame Rugelach

4 – More games, funner in wit – Veron and I have a bunch of fun things to do, paying attention to the layout of the Queens Kickshaw. We’re doing more with Jewish and Chinese idioms, more stuff on walls, bigger boards, and the most popular game in China. The night is going to go quick.

5 – And we have soooooo much stuff for giveaways and prizes. For me, this is one of the most fun (and exhausting) parts of the event. I have met so many new people and had the excuse to experience new places. Just yesterday, while waiting for T-shirts being brought by the delivery guy at Lansky’s, I almost fell over from hunger at the constant taunt of the pastrami wafts from the kitchen. I need to eat some celebratory lunch there soon.  And this past week, I met the people from Gefilteria in their kitchen in the back of a Jewish school. They were so nice, and I got to see some of the process for making the gefilte fish and their drinks.

We’ll have prizes and giveaways from these kind people and organizations of many kinds:

Soy Vay®, The Queens Kickshaw, Fresh Ginger Ale by Bruce Cost, Ben’s Best Delicatessan, Lansky’s, Kosher Chinese by Michael Levy, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee, The Chinese Takeout Cookbook by Diana Kuan, M. Wells, Lotus Blue, The Astor Room, 5 Napkin Burger, Lactaid, Atlas of the World, 19th ed., and The Diner’s Dictionary by John Ayto from Oxford University Press USA., Gefilteria, JoJu’s Modern Vietnamese, Belief NYC, Hail the Right Brain, Jeffrey Tastes Food Tours, Barney Greengrass, OXO, GrubKit, Katz’s Delicatessen, and more.

For the prizes, we will do this in a Chinese Auction format. This means, people will purchase raffle tickets, and they will put their raffle tickets into a box (a tzedukah box?) which represents one of about 10 prize packs – and the end of the night, we will draw a winner. All proceeds from the Chinese Auction will be going towards organizations based on Social Justice, JFREJ (Jews for Racial and Economic Justice) and the  CAAAV (Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence).

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You can still get tickets for the Nosh Party at woksandlox.com

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Posted in Events, Queens | Tags: , ,

Posted by: Jeffsayyes | December 10, 2012

Jackson Heights Gift Crawl

By popular demand, here is the map for the Jackson Heights Gift Crawl.

This was one of my dream events – in particular because it didn’t specifically involve food. It is very important to me to relieve myself of these dreams by making them happen, and I’m lucky to live in a place where these things can come true.

Here at the JH Gift Crawl, we went to around 10 of my favorite spots to get fun stuff. I got great feedback from the group, most never being at these places before. It was also an excuse for everyone to walk around the neighborhood. I’m not going to prosthelytize the neighborhood, but I will prosthelytize being outside and walking around a new space, meeting new people.

Unfortunately, one of my favorite places to get stuff, Botanica San Francisco de Asis, had to move out of their location because of a heating dispute (there wasn’t any) – but otherwise it was good to get some money and minds circulating.

The big commercial winner of the event was J&A Laundromat (7510 Roosevelt Ave) a laundromat which has endearing sweaters, hats, and kids outfits from Ecuador.

Stay tuned for the next dream: the conclusion of the Halalathon!

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Posted by: Jeffsayyes | September 20, 2012

What to Eat at the Viva La Comida! Festival

The first thing I want so say is that it’s pretty much Viva La Comida! every day of the week on 82nd Street – But tomorrow on Friday, it’s going to be even more comida loco.

But before you get hungry, tell your friends on facebook what you’re doing tomorrow:  https://www.facebook.com/events/357936310952589

Now let’s get to the guide.All of the trucks will be lined up on 82nd Street across the street from Dunningham Park. There may be one on Baxter Avenue too, look for it as you peruse all the stuff. There’s a lot, so bring friends and be prepared to loosen your pantwaists. Here are some suggestions for what to eat:

Taqueria Coatzingo (40-18 82nd St) is going to have a table outside, I have no idea what they are doing (other than having a mariachi band), but there is no reason why you shouldn’t go inside and have al pastor tacos and beers there.

or woah, look at this cemita below of the milanesa de res kind (beef cutlet)

—- Again, bring friends….

Now let’s talk Chipper Truck (normally located at 237th St & Katonah Ave, Woodlawn, Bronx) . Here’s my post. You cannot go more chipper than the battered and fried bangers (sausages). Whooooo!

Pandebono from Las Delicias de Pandebono (40-23 82nd St). This is a mainstay of my food tours – and many other people’s tours in the area. It’s cheap ($1.25), and guaranteed delicious because they keep fresh ones in the oven all day. You cannot go wrong.

Las Delicias de Pandebono

Now, let’s go over to the Arepa Lady(Normally located at Roosevelt & 78th or 79th St). She is a local and a legend. Yes, her arepas are the best, and yes, you should get one with cheese or a choclo – which is sweeter b/c it’s made from corn. Both has it’s suitors. Which are you?

Choclo courtesy Roboppy

And now let’s Tacos la Familia (Roosevelt & Warren NE, after 9:30pm). Victor and Laura have the homiest Mexican food found on the streets of Roosevelt Avenue. I asked them to make something special like her pancita, but I have no idea what is on their menu for the night. Look at the picture below at the items flanking the quesadilla. These are their Gorditas. They are incredible and massive. I only get these on tours if I have at least 8 people to share it with.

Tacos la Familia

Now let’s talk about Louie’s Pizzeria (81-34 Baxter Ave). It’s a necessary stop on my world tours, they are that good. Could be the best Grandma slice in the city.They might have a pasta special too for the day. They are in the rear of Dunningham Triangle, so be sure to get a slice before you’re full.

Grandma Pie at Louie’s Pizzeria

But of course, you gotta get a torta from Tortas Neza (Normally at Roosevelt/111th St NE, 1pm-1am). He’s the star of the show. I’ve already posted about him a million times, if you aren’t a convert yet, you just haven’t been there. If you have any annoying friends that harp on “ohh, there’s no good Mexican food in New York…” — You HAVE to bring them here.

And another favorite from the Midnight Tours, Coyote Dormilon (Roosevelt & 92nd Street, after 9:30pm). This group makes the best quesadillas on the avenue and their cart is the coziest. They love to cook and it shows.

Morocho - Here’s a picture (I am not going to wait to ask for permission to post the picture, just click the link)- but I’m excited to try their burger everyone talks about.

There’s also going to be Colombian fruit shakes on the street from Las Americas Bakery (4030 82nd St) and others.

And then when you’re done, Kung Fu Tea (8202 Roosevelt Ave) is doing a special too. Damn. There’s more, but this is a start…. Enjoy it.

And of course, to digest the food, there’s a market inside the Jackson Heights Cinemas, seating on Ithaca Street, and musical entertainment, and the silleteros.



 

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Posted in Events, Latin American, Mexican, Queens, Street

Posted by: Jeffsayyes | September 16, 2012

Viva La Comida! – Festival Of My Dreams on Friday

I am a lucky man. I was picked up by the 82nd Street Partnership to help with a festival to celebrate the less-often celebrated Dunningham Triangle on 82nd Street. I have been wanting to work with this organization, part of New York City’s Business Improvement District program, for years. Only this year have they had someone in charge with vision, passion, and ability to make something incredible happen and be open to my ideas.  Together, we seem to be on track to doing something amazing —
It has come to this: The Viva La Comida! Festival.



This Friday, September 21st, 4-9pm, Dunningham Triangle at 82nd Street and Baxter Avenue in Elmhurst/Jackson Heights.

It’s a total Queens event. We have such talented people who live in ths area, and we have culled together amazing music, dancing, food and stuff from 82nd Street businesses like Taqueria Coatzingo and Louie’s Pizzeria (you must get Louie’s grandma pie, it is the only 100 percent staple on my tour), and also kids stuff, lots of seating and tables, and a locals-only crafts market inside the Jackson Heights Cinemas. But my dream came in the form of the assembly of street vendors we have secured to come.

I have always wanted to do a festival with my favorite street vendors in the city. Incredibly, this is dream event. Right now, we have:

Tortas Neza – The King of the Mexican Sandwich. He is my favorite vendor in NYC and he was robbed of the Vendy Cup! Vindicate him and order his Torta Puma (only 2 people have eaten it, and I am one of them).

I want your pictures of you eating this sandwich. There is no prize, but I think the next 28 hours of not eating will be prize enough — although you may want to just feed your whole group with one.

Arepa Lady – Legend.

The Chipper Truck - Irish truck from waaaayyyy up there in the Bronx. They are only open from 1am-6am every day. It’s incredible that they are actually coming here!

Patacon Pisao – Washington Heights legends. Selling Venezuelan patacon and other food. They actually live in the area, so of course they were down to bring their new truck here.

Tacos La Familia (Roosevelt/Warren NE, after 9:30pm)- This is one of my favorite Mexican carts in the city. It is the homiest food I have eaten from the streets, and I’m so happy to call owners Victor and Laura my friends — even though we both can barely speak each other’s language.

El Coyote Dormilon (Roosevelt/92nd St S, after 9:30pm) – I’m so happy this crew is coming. Another family operation (I believe all of these are family operations), they are kings of quesadillas, but more than that they are such sweet and talented people. They deserve a ton of success and I hope they do well.

Morocho - Peruvian fusion – I am excited to see how the area takes to lomo saltado tacos! Owner Rafael is so nice and cool, it’s an honor to work with him.

There’s a million stories to this event. Like how a BID is opening up to street vendors, or how these street vendors who are coming are so talented, yet unappreciated by the city as a whole – it’s amazing because I did contact more popular ones, but they were all busy. People like the Arepa Lady and the Chipper Truck were so open to coming to this. All of these vendors need major catering gigs, and they will destroy the bland typical big graphic ones of the city.

I am even more proud that this festival is FREE to attend and all the vendors are making money. You just pay for what you want to buy. I’m happy lots of people are making money here and hopefully everyone goes home with a smile on their face. And if it’s a success, this format of a festival will probably magnify in the near future. YES.

Invite your friends on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/events/357936310952589/

We’re not sure what’s going to happen, other than being wild and fun. I’m very happy to be organizing in a community like this and I hope to see you there. When you see me there, grab my arm and tell me if you think it’s awesome.

AND THERE WILL BE MORE GUESTS TO COME, BUT I CANNOT SAY A WORD YET.  STAY TUNED ON THE FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE.

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Posted in About Site, Colombian, Events, Food News, Latin American, Mexican, Queens

Posted by: Jeffsayyes | August 16, 2012

1st Queens Love event: Burger Party at F. Ottomanelli’s

The idea of Queens Love has been to use a network of storytelling Queensites to give attention to some of great things in our home borough. With the pooling of our group’s resources we can do great things without making a full-time job out of it. And perhaps most impactfully, I see Queens Love as an excuse to make awesome things happen. Our first live event was a burger party at the newly opened F. Ottomanelli Burger & Belgian Fries.

And the first Queens Love event was great! We even got a little concerned with the amount responses after the first shouts were made. We wanted to keep it around 35 people, so as not to overload the place, so after the initial round of invites went out, we kept it on the down-low.

Owner, Frank Ottomanelli was so happy about this project that he offered to give us a tour of the butcher shop before the burger party – it was more than we could wish for.

Their tour focused on why their meat was the best quality, and what makes them different. As usual, I didn’t get to participate because I was too busy rounding people up – but lucky for us, Joe Depace got in there and you’ll see evidence of that when you read further down this post…

50 feet west of the butcher is the burger shop. It was reallly good! I loved the fries and the burger was great. They showed really well, everyone was smiles all around. We couldn’t have asked for a better place to hold our first event. This is such a hard working family that runs this company, and they have been here for such a long time. It was really special with 2 Ottomanelli brothers there, their sister, their mother, and a daughter working the register at the burger shop. They do a great job top to bottom, and I wish them great success for the future. Queens pride all the way.


As for Queens Love – with such a great turnout, enthusiastic fans, and a great, diverse team – we see a lot of potential and hopefully will do a lot more with this “thing”. Stay tuned! – Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or the main site on Tumblr to stay in the loop.

One of the highlights for me was finally meeting Joe Depace – the prolific Queens youtube maker, who, along with his partner Lenore, is whacky and creative and borderline many things. At first when he started posting on my Facebook page, I was like “who the hell is this??” – but then he grew on me. I was in shock that he actually came to this event – that he was here in real life! And I was honored that he did a video on it. In the middle of his fun video recording, he did the best job of anyone for documenting the butcher shop tour. I have no idea his history, and don’t tell him this, but I see him as a great example of outsider art.

Below are Joe Depace’s videos on the night:


Click the >>| Next buttons on the video window to jump to different parts of the tour. This is the most complete record of the tour anywhere.

For me, hosting this event was inspired by Green Drinks and the We Heart Astoria parties. I really liked their ability to help a local business by bringing people together and helping locals meet each other. And as for QueensLove, we’re not done yet.

Check out F. Ottomanelli’s Burgers & Belgium Fries at 60-15 Woodside Ave, Woodside, NY 11377
And Ottomanelli & Sons Prime Meat Shop & Wild Game at 6105 Woodside Ave

See you next week!

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Posted in American, Burgers, Events, Queens | Tags: , , , ,

Posted by: Jeffsayyes | August 14, 2012

Momo Crawl, Dream Accomplished

When June in Jackson Heights approached me to do ‘something‘ for their yearly series of events, I looked into my bag of tricks (which I’ve been delving into a lot lately (World Record Crawl, Taco Bell vs Mexican Restaurant Mexican Comparison Tour – you’ll read about them soon), and pulled out my Momo Crawl.

The idea is to have one (1) momo from every Himalayan restaurant in the neighborhood. It wasn’t until I counted that I realized that this was an incredible task! In the last 4 years, the size of the Nepalese and Tibetan population has ballooned. As of June 2012, there were FIFTEEN Himalayan restaurants serving momos. – And if you don’t know what momos are, CHECK OUT THIS!

These cultures are very important to me. Most of the people have been wonderful at any of our interactions, and what I’ve seen are nothing but peaceful, hard working, and creative people. I expect big things from these new immigrants, but they need your help and support. First, however,let me tell you something: Whenever I do tours, EVERYONE loves Nepalese food. It’s like Indian food, but kinder. And as for ordering, it’s sooooo simple. Let me introduce you again to the THALI PLATE. You can eat like a local by simply ordering momos or a thali plate. Over half of all customers order this. It is too easy to fit in.

Our great turnout yielded 3 groups of 8 to do the Momo Crawl. Each group would traverse the neighborhood and get ONE order of momos from each purveyor – figuring that the standard for an order is 8 momos, everyone in the group would eat ONE single momo from each place.  I did not tell any of the restaurants we were doing this because I figured one plate of momos shouldn’t overwhelm anyone. It didn’t, but that didn’t mean there weren’t some translation troubles (like when Group 2 mistakenly ordered 8 separate orders of momos from Himalayan Yak!) — just another day in Jackson Heights…

Below is my map. The goal was to get all the info on paper and get a general path going.  Here I drew 2 plates of 8 dumplings each, with each restaurant and address written on a dumpling, in the order of our route going clockwise. I knew the directions were totally awry, so I made sure someone in the group knew where each place actually was.

Congrats to Chris, Peter, this girl below, and myself from Group 3 and 7 of the members of Group 1 including Erika, Jenn, Richard and Loren who completed the entire 15 momo Momo Crawl. I knew it would be tough, and even I had moments of potential breaking down where I questioned if I could make it, realizing that this was an incredibly stupid idea… I’m not sure how Group 1 did it, but for our Group 3, it was after a genius idea (by me) to do the 2nd half of orders by walking in a giant circle twice: First to order the momos at all the restaurants, and then again to pick them up and eat them. This worked much better than ordering and waiting at each spot. We ended up doing the last 6 in 30 minutes.

Group 3 winners (excluding me) at Bhim’s Cafe:


I learned that momos are generally simple forms, but the Nepalese versions are more likely to have some sort of curry spice inside. I also learned that everyone likes momos.

Favorite momos? I think Woodside Cafe, Tawa Foods, Tibetan Mobile, Laliguras, Bhims, and Peace Cafe showed the best. At least that narrows it down for you.

What’s next? How about every time there is a new entrant to the momo mix, we do another crawl?

Check out these other wrap-ups at Serious Eats and City Spoonful (which includes a link to download the complete map!). Thanks everyone for the support. We’re not done yet!

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Posted in Adventures, Events, Himalayan, Nepalese, Queens, Tibetan | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by: Jeffsayyes | August 5, 2012

On Scott’s Pizza Tour

I’ve been going on food tours in the city so I can get more awesome at doing my own. There are a million more ways to engage people and have a good time, so I’m trying to learn from the best. Since the emergence of Vayable, I’ve become a big fan of hiring guides lately too – because I realized the real value is not necessarily in what they say, but their connections and the access you get to the most bad-ass stuff in the area.

If your tour guide just points to stuff, you need to prod that mother more and get him to let you inside. At our first stop on Scott’s Pizza Tour, Scott got us close enough to literally sniff the coal dust off the coal at Lombardi’s famous oven. That’s awesome.

Scott Weiner is the king of NYC food tours and everyone knows it. Numerous times, on the subject of Scott, friends have told me that there is not one human being who knows as much about a subject, any subject, than Scott does about pizza. It’s my guess that Steven Hawking is not a contentious man (or a foodie blog reader), so Scott shouldn’t receive much argument for a bit. In fact, Scott’s pizza prowess gets so much respect, he’s the only non-pizzeria listed on my pizza app.

To my surprise, Scott has only been doing these tours for around 4 and a half years. I always felt like from the time I first heard about it, around 2009 I guess, it was already a premier tour. If you look at his reviews, they are spotless. He obviously has always had this down pat.

But as of Summer 2012, I hadn’t been on one of his tours… and that had to change. 

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Scott’s tours start outside Lombardi’s Pizza, right before they open up. When he introduces himself to his guests – some locals, some from across the country, and others across the globe – he talks them up about pizzas in their hometowns. Scott’s been across the world searching for pizza, so he’s able to talk cogently about the local spots all over, but this also serves to break the ice and learn from it. I thought it was great!  I don’t know why I hadn’t done this before on my own tours, but I will employ this for now on: For me, talk about ethnic groups, street food availability, problems, and solutions for where my guests come from. Break the ice and learn from it. 

When you go on Scott’s tour, you’ll notice how fast paced the tour is and quick Scott is to answer nearly any question you have.  With start times at 11am sharp, he must have timed his coffee intake at exactly 10:30am to maximize caffeine efficiency. And even if he doesn’t have an answer, you’ll get something smart and laugh-worthy out of him. It only gets better the more comfortable everyone gets with each other by the end.

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On the deluxe tours, Scott takes the crew on the Pizza Bus.  With an already developed fun rapport with the group, the school bus adds to the camaraderie. It feels like middle school again, and for me it’s hard not to commit mischief during the ride (I think I held back from throwing stuff out the window and writing on the seats though, out of respect).

Along with the bus, Scott brings along a huge backpack full of stuff containing goodies, give-aways, and pizza oddities.

Here is Scott holding up an empty flour bag. As he pulled it out,  the realization that he hath obtained this kind of remind me of Moses and the ten commandments. It was just such a surprise and a seeming moment of triumph for him to capture this artifact – Or maybe it was just my camera angle.

Not only in his backpack and not just as a tour guide, Scott has all sorts of pizza paraphernalia in his ownership. I can’t even imagine what his apartment looks like. I’m sure what he brought along for the tour was just a small sampling of his pizza possessions.

Our tour lasted about 3 hours and 4 pizzerias in Manhattan and the Bronx. For just the bus alone, it was outing of adventure – and then the pizza gives it purpose and intrigue.

Scott’s tour was awesome. His knowledge is unending, and the subject matter is completely New York. The tour is fun, and I recommend it to anyone interested in NYC and wants travel and eat like a local.

And how was the pizza? It was great!

Scott’s Pizza Tours run every day but Tuesday, with walking, bus-ed, and specialty tours. Click this sentence to find out more about Scott and Scott’s Pizza Tours.

And look forward to Scott’s annual Slice Out Hunger in the early Fall. By eating $1 slices from many of the best pizzerias from all over the city, you will help Scott and City Harvest beat hunger! Follow Scott on Twitter for the latest info.

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Posted in Manhattan, NYC, Pizza, The Bronx | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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