Sripraphai - Possibly the city's best ethnic eatery. Recently renovated and doubled in size, the kitchen turns out top-notch Thai food with a freshness and quality that is atypical of NYC’s ethnic restaurant scene. There is a full Thai bakery on the premises as well. The banana sticky rice is a marvel, but you have to get there early before they run out. Friendly service. A
Banana Sticky Rice at Sripraphai
Don Pepe's Vesuvio - Old-school Southern Italian in the shadows of Kennedy Airport in South Ozone Park, Queens. They just don't make ’em like this anymore. Platters of sizzling baked clams, linguine with white clam sauce with more whole garlic cloves than you could possibly imagine, veal chops so thick they split them in half before broiling, lobster Fra Diavolo served with spaghetti cooked in the lobster sauce, steak pizzaiola made from a double New York strip steak, and last but not least, Chinese chicken (chicken cacciatore) with homemade sausage that is served in the single greatest red sauce known to mankind. And you get to dine with the ’dese, ’dem and ’dose crowd—a combination of Queens locals, stragglers to and from the Five Towns, and transients like me who have made it out from Manhattan. Plus there always seems to be a group of people who look like cast members from The Sopranos. Don Pepe's served as the inspiration for the Manhattan restaurant Carmine's, as well as Long Island's La Parma chain. A one-of-a-kind place. Wear your big hair and you will feel right at home. A
Katz's Pastrami - Hands down the best pastrami sandwich in NYC. Make that anywhere. After they hand you a ticket at the entrance, just make your way up to one of the countermen who is waiting to slice the meat for your sandwich and flash two singles at him. He will ask you how you like your pastrami (you can order it lean or juicy; I prefer juicy), and then he will slice you a little piece to see if it “meats” with your approval. Have him schmear a little kosher delicatessen–style “soufflé mustard” on your sandwich, and then ask him to slice up some whole sour pickles to go on the side. It's a classic New York lunch. The rest of the deli fare is unexceptional save for buying a chunk of knublewurst, kosher-style garlic sausage which is somewhere between a hot dog and a kielbasa. A-
Classic Pastrami Sandwich at Katz’s
Salut - Not as well known as some of the other top ethnic places in town, but this Rego Park kosher Uzbekistani turns out some great food. Their hummus and babaganoush are some of the best and creamiest dips in the city, and the grills are superb, especially the skewers of lula kebab and lamb ribs. But the specialty of the house is an absolutely scrumptious rice pilaf made with lamb neck, carrots, and onions, spiced with cumin and turmeric. A mountain of this delicious food will likely cost you no more than $20 a person. A-
Barney Greengrass - Ancient Upper West Side appetizing store with a next-door dining room. Feast on Formica while having platters of smoked fish or plates of lox, eggs, and onions. I think the quality of the fish has gone down a bit since Moe Greengrass died a few years ago. It seems like the fish just hasn’t been as fresh as it used to be. Still a classic New York Jewish breakfast where you can find many of the city's hoi polloi on Sunday morning. B+
Hampton Chutney Company - Dosa specialist with locations in Soho and Amagansett. The preparations go beyond Masala Dosa—they have dosas filled with goat cheese and roasted vegetables, or jack cheese and arugula, and even a breakfast dosa with scrambled eggs. The food has a nice organic feel to it. My go-to place for lunch on summer weekends. Good soups and sandwiches as well, and I'm a fan of the cardamom iced coffee. The antidote to fast food, and I wish that there were more places like it. B+
Sahara - New York City’s best Turkish is in Gravesend, Brooklyn. A gigantic place where a grill filled with adana kebabs is usually blazing away. They have a nice outdoor patio in the back of the restaurant, which is a good place for summer dining. Try and go when it isn’t too busy. When it’s jammed, the food can get a little sloppy. B+
Shake Shack - One of NYC’s brightest additions in 2004. Yummy burgers of the fast food–stand type, like they made them in the old days before the genre was co-opted by big chains like McDonald's and Wendy's. Simply the best in class (hamburger-stand burgers that is.) They make delicious thick shakes as well. The fries could use improving, as could the nonkosher style hot dogs. A favorite lunch spot of mine. Not cheap for what it is, but worth it. B+
Shopsin's - The world’s most eccentric restaurant is a fun place to have lunch. Where else could you get Thai, Mexican, and American diner food all on the same plate? I am personally fond of their Yin and Yang bowls, a soup bowl with a divider in the middle with a hearty soup on one side and some type of rice dish on the other. They serve everything imaginable from standard diner fare to Salvadoran pupusas, and there are literally hundreds of items to choose from. B
Grand Sichuan International (East Side at Second Avenue and 55th Street) - You can get some excellent Sichuan cuisine here. One of the better soups in the city is the sliced live fish soup which is doused with Sichuan oil and then emulsified in a fast boil à la bouillabaisse. Tea-smoked duck and steamed spareribs with a rice crust are other dishes of note. B
Grand Sichuan International (Ninth Avenue and 51st Street) - I think I prefer the East Side restaurant. Though you can eat really well here, especially from the menu of chicken dishes that use the “fresh kill chicken,” the East Side menu is more diverse. B
Second Avenue Deli - I always find dining here an enjoyable experience. The cooked foods, like the cabbage soup with flanken meat or the chicken in the pot, are authentic. Too bad they use generic, commercially supplied deli meats. The pastrami is particularly disappointing though the brisket isn't bad. The atmosphere is classic New York deli, and the waitresses are a throwback to another era. B-
Spicy and Tasty - This Prince Street, Flushing Sichuan is patronized by an upscale crowd of locals. They have a nice lunch buffet that included cold hacked chicken in a pepper sauce, fish fillets in a chili sauce, and sweet pea with minced shrimp soup. The food, while not quite up to Grand Sichuan in Manhattan, can be very good. B-
Hummus Place - How do you open a restaurant and have a low inventory cost and no waste? Easy, only serve hummus. In fact, that is the only thing this kosher Israeli on St. Mark's Place serves. They serve it with tahini or with lemon or with foul. That's it. They are now opening other branches—and a MacDougall Street location has recently opened. If you get there when the hummus is still warm, you are in for a treat. B-
Sip Sak - Yet another offering from Ohan, New York's most famous Turkish restaurateur. At this new Second Avenue and 49th Street location he serves what might be the best doner kebab in the city and an excellent Turkish moussaka, which is nothing but layers of eggplant and ground lamb. B-
'wichcraft - Tom Colicchio of Craft and Gramercy Tavern fame does designer sandwiches. They aren't cheap but they are tasty. I'm surprised they haven't opened up other locations around the city as this concept is perfect for it. B-
Big Wong - My go-to noodle restaurant in Chinatown. Superb Chinese barbecued roast meats with roast duck being their specialty. Good noodle soups and an honest congee. The regular dishes are ordinary, but if you stick to soup and barbecue you will eat well and for very little money. C+
Chao Zhou - The place on Main Street in Flushing with the big rice bowl on the roof. The quality here belies the exceptionally cheap price point. Good dim sum with especially good sticky rice wrapped in a lotus leaf that is chock-full of surprises when you dig into it. Delicious Chao Zhou–style rice soups, and the regional version of roast duck is delicious. C+
Main Street Imperial Taiwanese Gourmet - Just off the Long Island Expressway, this restaurant is always crowded with locals for dinner. Try the interesting pu-dz dishes, which are small Chinese olives served with meats or fowl in a lemony sauce. There's an awareness of fresh ingredients—the night we were there they recommended cod with garlic and ginger (in my experience an unusual fish for a Chinese restaurant), and they brought us a tranch of fish that was delicately steamed and beautifully moist. C+
Bright Food Shop - This Mexican-Asian fusion restaurant (surprisingly, not such an unusual combination) serves up some pretty interesting food. They recently served me an excellent version of Huevos Rancheros. And Bobby Flay (he knows Mexican food) was eating there, so how bad could it be? Good Mexican hot chocolate with a hint of cinnamon. C+
La Lampeira - The best of a number of inexpensive Argentinean steakhouses in town. The parillada for $18 a person can't be beat, especially for the excellent short ribs, crispy sweetbreads, and the well-spiced blood sausage. They also have a menu of pastas and other Italian dishes, but I always stick with the mixed grill. Good cheap-eats dining. C+
Mamoun's - The top falafel in town. Always a long line both day and night. My favorite thing to order is the falafel, hummus, and shwarma platter that comes with a small salad. C+
Yatagan - New York's number one gyro sandwich. Stand in line with some of the city's most elite diners and get yourself a pita that is packed with slices of gyro meat and salad. At $4.50 per sandwich, it is one of the great values in the city. C+
DiFara's - I have to confess that I don't eat pizza. But I have snuck a few bites from a slice made by DiFara's, and I can attest that it's one of the best slices in town. Now that almost every pizzeria in New York City gets their ingredients from the same distributors, most people who live here do not know what classic NYC pizzeria pizza tasted like. But the style of '60s and '70s pizza lives on at DiFara's, a nondescript pizzeria on the almost exclusively kosher shopping street of Avenue J in Flatbush. C+
A Pie Straight Out of the Oven at DiFara's
La Poblanita (97th Street Taco Cart) - I’ve been eating tacos and gorditas from this same woman since 1994. In that time she has moved her cart from Eighth Avenue and 38th Street to the current location across the street from Metropolitan Hospital at Second Avenue. Good tacos, especially the carnitas, but a warm gordita that just came out of the deep fryer is classic street food. She will be happy to make you any type of taco filling or deep-fried masa treat if you are willing to wait while she prepares it. The other day she made me fresh sopes with an assortment of meats and it was sublime. C+
Sopes with Crema Red Sauce, Carne Asada, Carnita, Pollo, and Cotija Cheese from La Poblanita
Sarajevo Cebabdzinica - You will overdose on cevapi at this Astoria Bosnian. They come in orders of five pieces for $5 and ten pieces for $9. And if you like your ground meat flat and not round, try the Bosnian hamburger which is the same meat in the shape of a burger the size of a Domino's Pizza. They serve the meat with agvar, a vegetable paste which acts as a condiment. Unfortunately, the agvar comes from a jar. If it was homemade, I would love to promote this place to a higher rating. C
Blue Smoke - The hamburger that everyone raved about turned out to be a dud. But the St. Louis ribs turned out to be pretty good. Unfortunately, none of the other things I ate were special enough to make me want to return anytime soon. Even worse is the fact that the place feels like it's off in some faraway college town and not like it's in New York City. C-
El Comal - These were the best pupusas I have found in the city, but that isn't really saying very much. There is more to this place than the usual pupusa/taco/tamale array, and they have a steam table with chickens cooked à la brassa and other Salvadorean fare. C-
Cheburechnaya - Inexpensive Uzbekistani on Rego Park’s “stylish” 63rd Drive. Aside from a good lula kebab, the food here was generally disappointing and the quality of the meats wasn't very good. It pales next to Salut, which is only a twenty-minute walk away. D+
Daisy Mae's- Stick with the brisket. On two visits I found it to be very good, although on the second visit the barbecue sauce it was in was a bit cloying. But the rest of the fare was less than what I consider acceptable. D
Corner Bistro - The people who call this the best burger in New York must be smoking something. Granted it's thick, but the meat isn't very good and has very little flavor of beef. And they cook it in a salamander, which means it never forms the right type of crust. Poor. D
Dinosaur BBQ - I'm a fan of the Syracuse location, so I was looking forward to the opening of their new Harlem branch. But the difference in quality between the two locations was like day and night. Whatever method they use to smoke the meats in upstate New York does not seem to have traveled to the city. A grave disappointment as I was hoping that Dinosaur would finally bring authentic barbecue to New York City. D
Taverna Kyclades - If you want to see how far Queens Greek has fallen, wait in line for a table at this Lefferts Boulevard restaurant. I was shocked at the truly bad food and the poor ingredients. You can easily eat better at home if you buy a piece of fish from almost any fish store in the city and take it home and cook it. D-
Caracas Arepa Bar - I love a good arepa. Warm masa with a soft center—how could it be bad? But the arepas at Caracas Arepa Bar were dreadful. Hard as rocks and without any flavor. One wonders how they can go so wrong. It's just masa harina and water. F
Restaurants Reviewed in Prior Years
Kebab Cafe - Astoria hole-in-the-wall Egyptian where Ali, the charming chef, cooks up a storm. B+
Sunrise 23 - Good mid-price Chinatown seafood restaurant. B-
Fernando's Foccaceria - Columbia Heights Sicilian cafe. Rice balls and panelle (chickpea fritters) with fresh ricotta are classic. C+
Havana Chelsea - Excellent Cuban sandwiches. The rest of the fare is ordinary. C+
Manducati's - Long Island City Italian with a great wine list and mediocre food. C
Beyoglu - Upper East Side Turkish heavy on mezze. Not great quality. C-
Roberto's - Overrated Arthur Avenue Italian. Second-rate ingredients. C-
Tomasso's - Great wine list but food is weak. Tommy's a great host. C-
Chimichurri Grill - They need better meat at this Clinton Argentinean. C-
El Paso Taqueria - Upper East Side Mexican with nice Al Pastor platter. C-
J.G. Melon - Go for the burger. Everything else is pub food. C-
Burger Joint at Parker Meridian - A funny place in an even funnier space. Okay for a quick lunch and not more. C-
Carnegie Deli - Pastrami hasn't been the same since Leo Steiner died. Big portions of tasteless food. D+
F & J Pine Restaurant - Morris Park old-school Italian. It was better before the swanky renovation. D+
Island Burgers - Just awful. They push the toppings because the burgers are mediocre. D
Bamonte's - 100 year old Williamsburg Italian that has seen better days. D-
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