the confined nomad

Earlier this week we reflected back on the Chinese food we’d eaten, in an attempt to determine if we can in fact say we are “done” with this country. It’s hard to say yes or no. Yes, we’ve been to all the Chinatowns (Flushing, Manhattan, and Brooklyn) and we’ve tried food from across the land (Uighur to Fujianese). But we hadn’t yet hit some of the more popular cuisines (from Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Beijing). So we decided to spend a little more time sampling some of the diverse regional offerings in these boroughs.

Our latest effort led us to a very rare treat indeed: squirmy, slimy, and yummy things from the Qingdao region on the north-central coast.  That’s pronounced “Tsingtao” (and yes, it is where the beer comes from!). M&T Restaurant (44-09 Kissena Blvd, Flushing, Queens) has been generating buzz on the interwebz since it opened in mid-2009. Robert Sietsema, an early fan, gushed over the restaurant’s unique offerings in the Village Voice last year.  Yelpers and folks active on Chowhound have been singing its praises as well.  We figured we couldn’t skip this one. read more »

The sensitive artist who captured the joy on Little Pepper’s face clearly must have caught him just after his first bite of the lamb in spicy sauce (with cumin).   It came out first along with the delicious cold cucumber with mashed garlic, and both served as a good indication of the quality that was to follow.  The lamb was cut in thin, tender strips and was flavored much as the name would suggest. Definitely a highlight.  A pair of solid, but average dumpling dishes followed.  The dumplings with spicy sauce were steamed and pork filled, covered in a sweet, mild soy-based dipping sauce.  They were good, but there wasn’t much to distinguish them from your everyday steamed pork dumpling.  The dumplings in soup were basically the same but floating in bland thin clear broth.  Not bad at all, but not worth going for over the wealth of great flavors elsewhere on the menu. The chicken with cashew nuts was a favorite of the table, but also wasn’t unlike what you might find at a lot of good Chinese places. read more »

Our mission to try foods from the far-flung regions of China brought us to Cafe Kashkar in Brighton Beach (1141 Brighton Beach Ave, Brooklyn 11235), a cozy restaurant that sits at the easternmost end of the Brighton Beach Avenue commercial strip.  Cafe Kashkar serves Uighur food, the cuisine of the Uighurs, Turkic-speaking Muslims of central Asia.  Historically, Uighurs, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, and others have called East Turkmenestan in northwest China their homeland.  Since being invaded by the People’s Liberation Army in 1949, East Turkmenestan has been governed as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.  Uighur gripes with Chinese rule include exploitation of mineral resources and economic opportunities, the exclusion of native languages from public schools, and suppression of dissent.  If you’re interested, further reading can be done here. read more »

Since We have lived in New York, I’ve seen one food trend repeat itself over and over.  Chefs and eaters take something iconic and attempt to improve it.  We’ve seen reworkings of the cheeseburger, the Vietnamese banh mi, the cupcake.  I read somewhere that you can get kim chi on hot dogs someplace in the City, and while I’m sure that exotic (or locally sourced) ingredients justify remaking a classic and jacking up the price, most of the time we just want simple food in a simple spot for a simple price. read more »

You should get yourself some Lanzhou Hand Pulled Noodles.  You can get ‘em in Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Flushing Chinatowns.  I’m sure they are all different owners, but they all make some tasty noodles. read more »

For first timers to Chinese Flushing, the NYTimes interactive graphic “Great Eating in Flushing” is a good place to start.  It is updated every few months, features photos, video, and a pronunciation guide.  The day we went to Flushing for our first Queens Chinatown Confined Nomad adventure, we had with us the printable version, which was a handy guide, although I don’t think we actually ate anything featured here.  Our original intention was to try as many things on this list as we could in one afternoon.  The reality was that everywhere we went, everything we ate was so good, we ate too much.  So we didn’t get very far.  But no matter, what we had was fabulously face-stuffing goodness. read more »

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Quick rundown of a recent Confined Nomad restaurant visit.  A test drive sneak peak of some of the stuff we’re going to cram into our gutz as we rev up for eating a China-sized crater through the soul of New York City during the next few weeks.

We went to a family style place at 22 Elizabeth Street in Manhattan Chinatown that served really big family-style entrees.  I didn’t know anything about this restaurant but the Chowhound people seemed to like it.  We got some of the things they recommended.  Apparently the place restaurant used to be called Cantoon Garden, but the name must have changed sometime in the last year to South China Garden.  The name really isn’t important, just check out our handy new Confined Nomad restaurant finder map! read more »

Restaurants come and go so quickly in New York City. If you visit an area that you used to live or work in and haven’t been to in a while, you’ll always be struck by how much has changed since the last time you were there (even if that was just a few months back). New restaurants have popped up, old favorites are gone. That’s one reason we think it will be hard to write a book about this project once we finish: by then a good chunk of the restaurants we’re writing about will have closed (in fact, I noticed today that Jhinuk, where we ate for our Bangladesh mission, is gone).  Chilean restaurants of course are not immune to this trend.  In Robert Sietsema’s 2004 edition of The Food Lover’s Guide to the Best Ethnic Eating in New York City, he describes 4 Chilean restaurants in the city.  Today only 1 of the 4 remains.  And from our research, only 1 new place has opened since.  Happily, those two Chilean places are now Confined Nomad favorites. read more »

We were once again stumped by a central African nation.  Chad, a landlocked country with one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world, has not apparently blessed the City of New York or any of its  surrounding counties with a restaurant that proudly represents its cuisine. read more »

I like peanut butter.  It’s my favorite butter hands down, so I might have gotten a little overexcited when I saw that the fine folks of the Central African Republic also enjoy crushing peanuts into a paste and using it in their cuisine.  Peanuts are actually a pretty common component of a lot of west and central African food, and in hindsight, I probably should have sought a little more diversity in deciding what C.A.R. dishes to cook.  Instead, I prepared what certainly goes down as the most monochrome of the Nomad meals so far. read more »