BELOW CANAL
DUMPLING HOUSE
118A Eldridge Street, Lower East Side, 625-8008
Of the four northern Chinese dumpling stalls in Chinatown, this is my favorite, offering pork-and-chive pot stickers, boiled-beef sandwiches on wedges of homemade sesame bread, vegetable-filled hot and sour soup, and the legendary chive box—ask for “chives and egg pancake”—a half-moon pie filled with scallions, vermicelli, scrambled egg, and, sometimes, baby shrimp. The box is prepared on the spot and cooked to order. Also look for the jar of summer kimchi at the carryout window. Best of all: Most selections are $1, and there are bags of frozen dumplings to take home. Sietsema ¢
(new)YEAH SHANGHAI DELUXE
65 Bayard Street, Chinatown, 566-4884
It’s easy to get excited about a restaurant named Yeah. The Shanghai cooking stretches our ideas about that cuisine with dishes like northern Chinese chicken, a room-temperature bird shredded, mounded on the plate, drizzled with sweet dark sauce, then hidden under a dome of pieced-together skin, sort of Ed Gein-ish. Skip the juicy buns, but savor the Shanghai wonton soup—delicate, pork-filled envelopes that tickle the tongue with little bits of pickled cabbage. Vegetarians can have a field day with dishes like “preserved veg. w. soy bean & tofu sheets” and the mysterious-sounding thousand pieces cake. Sietsema $
CANAL TO 14TH
BRICK LANE CURRY HOUSE
342 East 6th Street, East Village, 979-2900
Named after a curry-crammed London street, this newcomer presents English-style Balti cooking, plus other regional Indian specialties. It offers what might be the city’s hottest dish: phaal—choose chicken, lamb, shrimp, or mixed vegetables. The thick brick-red sauce delivers an alarming and lingering burn. Though the menu brags, “We will require you to sign a disclaimer not holding us liable for any physical or emotional damage after eating this curry,” it’s a disappointing bluff. What they will do if you finish is give you a free bottle of beer and inscribe your name on a chalkboard over the bar. Sietsema $$
KATI ROLL COMPANY
99 MacDougal Street, 420-6517
One guy in the back warms flatbreads, and another grills chicken and beef brochettes, while a gal at the front counter assembles these raw materials into katis ($2.50 to $5)—tubular Indian concoctions that are Calcutta’s favorite street food. She places the brochette (vegetarian potato and paneer fillings are also available) into a paratha, adds chopped hot peppers and onions, squeezes lime, shakes on some masala, slaps on some chutney, then rolls the whole thing into a sandwich. To enrich this treat, you can also have it “unda”: The flatbread is heated with a coating of scrambled egg, rendering the kati richer and more proteinaceous. Sietsema ¢
UNITED NOODLES
359 East 12th Street, East Village, 614-0155
Noodles are the foodstuff of choice for many budget-conscious diners during this economically challenged era, and this new closet applies techniques of haute cuisine to inexpensive starches. Thus are sauces and aromatic oils squeezed from plastic bottles to perfume the plates and provide extra sensory diversion. We liked the mushroom-stuffed spring rolls; substantial salad of baby greens, sweet grapefruit, and yellow beets hosed with a salty citrus dressing; and the soupy soba noodles dotted with raw tuna and pickled ginger. The “tower of shrimp wontons,” however, was a big disappointment: no dumplings, but a stack of faux Doritos with a niggling schmear of chopped shrimp salad. Sietsema $
14TH TO 42ND
BOTTINO
246 Tenth Avenue, Chelsea, 206-6766
Frustrated in your attempt to get into Red Cat after that Chelsea gallery opening? Right across the street, Bottino is nearly as good. Go for the octopus salad, in which the rubbery fellow is upstaged by his tasty olive-oil dressing, and skip the boring salad of underdressed baby greens. Pastas make the best main courses, especially the giant green ravioli stuffed with cheese and herbs and bathed in sage butter, but also consider the baby chicken, splayed and crusty and served on a bed of sautéed peppers. And while the weather lasts, luxuriate in one of the city’s leafiest restaurant gardens. Sietsema $$
SUSHI SAMBA
245 Park Avenue South, Gramercy, 475-9377
Dotted with paintings of tropical fruit, the pleasantly garish interior suggests South America—but Sushi Samba is mainly a sushi bar with a wildly experimental approach. While the conventional sushi and sashimi is adequate, the ceviches really shine: one a massive salad of cooked octopus with a ginger-and-mustard dressing, another an assemblage of thick slabs of raw yellowtail moistened with garlic-soy oil—although neither is really “cooked” in acid. Call them sashimi salads. Another pleasant surprise is a Bahian-style fish chowder loaded with lobster and sporting a flavorful slick of dende oil on the surface. Sietsema $$
42ND TO 59TH
MARGON
136 West 46th Street, 354-5013
The persistence of this ancient and superb Cuban lunch counter—a stone’s throw from Times Square—is a testament to the excellence of the food and the fierce loyalty of its regulars. Made right in the front window, the Cuban sandwich is as streamlined as the ’50s finned Caddies that ply the streets of Havana, and Margon gets all the basics right, from the pungent red and black beans to the crisply fried tostones. The menu rotates by weekday, and my favorite entrées include the chocolate brown oxtails, mellow fricasseed chicken, and fried kingfish. And don’t miss the best octopus salad in town. Sietsema ¢
UPPER EAST SIDE
AL BARAKA
1613 Second Avenue, 396-9787
Penetrate deep into the interior and discover a perfect imitation of a restaurant in Marrakech hidden deep within the souk, with low-slung settees and fabric-strewn sofas. Ferried on ornate metal trays, the food duplicates the pungency and style of Moroccan cooking better than that of any other place in town. Notable appetizers include moist and violently red merguez, and zaalouk—an eggplant puree closer to Sicilian caponata than Middle Eastern baba ghanoush. And even though the b’stilla is available in the authentic pigeon formulation (farm raised says the menu), I’d rather have any of the intense tajines. Sietsema $$
CAFÉ SABARSKY
1048 Fifth Avenue, 288-0665
Ensconced inside the diverting Neue Galerie, Café Sabarsky is a Viennese café and konditerei, an offspring of the West Village’s Wallsé that outshines its parent. The short dishes make for perfect museum-hopping snacks, including a charcuterie platter (the most challenging feature: double-smoked raw bacon), a generous salad of jumbo asparagus in a slightly sweet lemon-dill sauce, and savory smoked-trout crepes with horseradish crème fraîche. The hungrier can move on to sandwiches, to entrées like boiled-beef tafelspitz, or to pastries, of which plum crumble sided with a cloud of whipped cream was a favorite on a recent visit. Sietsema $
ABOVE 110TH
EL MUNDO FRIED CHICKEN
4456 Broadway, 567-9325
Roll down the steep escarpment from the Cloisters, and you’ll find yourself at El Mundo. A neon sign in the window burns, “Fritura de Toda Clase,” and they’re not kidding. Chicharrón de cerdo are stunning pork-roast arcs, each piece artfully layered with paprika-dusted crispy skin, not-quite-rendered fat, and meat of concentrated flavor and intriguing density. The French would call it confit. This Dominican lunch counter also makes good chicken, either fried or rotisseried, but the more adventuresome will order sancocho, a rich chicken stew thickened with pumpkin and sporting all sorts of vegetables. Sietsema ¢
SOKOBOLIE L
2529 Eighth Avenue, Harlem, 491-3969
While most West African restaurants offer only three or four set meals at a time, this convivial Harlem establishment mounts a daily menu that features a dozen or so Guinean and Senegalese specialties. There’s always one leaf-based sauce (“sauce de feuilles,” the national dish of Guinea), made with either spinach or sweet-potato leaf, and often there’s a fricassee of chicken in palm sauce, and a peanut-laced stew of smoked fish that has the intriguing texture of driftwood. Less challenging Senegalese staples like grilled lamb chops (“diby”) and steak with onions are also available. Open 24 hours! Sietsema ¢
BROOKLYN
CAFÉ LULUC
214 Smith Street, Cobble Hill, 718-625-3815
This newish Smith Street bistro flaunts the usual French-leaning style and decor, but the scarf is tastier and cheaper than what is usually found on this stale and generally overpriced strip of restaurants. The pressed sandwiches are a delight—whether you order their version of the Cuban, sporting big hunks of pork, melting fontana cheese, and shellacked with a powerful aioli, or the roast-vegetable sandwich, which is deliciously moist and herby. Both are sided with a salad and both are under $10. The space is airy and friendly—a triumph of architecture over a dull piece of real estate. Sietsema $
CAROLINA CREEK
87 Utica Avenue, Bedford-Stuyvesant, 718-493-5907
After touring the Weeksville Houses, a miraculously preserved African American village founded after the abolition of slavery in New York in 1827, we dropped in at Carolina Creek for refreshment. This fish-and-chips shop specializes in fried whiting, by filet or whole fish, matched with some of the best french fries in Brooklyn, made from fresh potatoes with little bits of skin adhering. As an additional fillip, the pork ribs are also excellent, mantled with a thick sauce that’s not too sweet. The extensive menu is delivered with real Southern hospitality at this mainly carryout establishment—where you can also dine in at the lone table. Sietsema ¢
CASTRO’S V
511 Myrtle Avenue, Clinton Hill, 718-398-1459
Serving the dining needs of Pratt students for the last decade, Castro’s conveys cheap Mexican meals of a rib-sticking sort. The tacos are oversize and dividable, made with two soft corn tortillas, and the vegetarian cheese enchiladas are not only stuffed with cured cheese, but have planks of fresh cheese on top as a bonus. Skip the appetizers, because all platos come with guacamole, salad (bring your own dressing), and a pile of warm tortillas. For some real heat, select puntas de res en chile chipotle—strips of beef in a brown sauce spiked with incendiary smoked chiles. Sietsema ¢
(new)DESI VILLAGE
2812 Ocean Avenue, Coney Island, 718-648-3200
Into the dry gulch of Brooklyn Indian food falls this obscurely located institution. If they offer, skip the free Russian-leaning appetizer salads, which are uniformly awful, and dive into a menu that includes excellent chicken methi and the tangy stewed mustard greens called sarson ka saag. Instead of white rice, order any of the carefully cooked biryanis, especially gosht dum, filled with tender lamb chunks and flavored with acerbic citrus pickle. The bread list is one of the best in the city, including a couple of surprises: Afghan Kabuli naan, chock-full of fruit and nuts, and “village naan,” topped with garlic, onions, and hot chiles. Sietsema $
LA BRUNETTE V
300 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, 718-384-5800
Williamsburg’s best bistro offers French-Caribbean cuisine with some exciting and unmodified Haitian elements thrown in. Succulent pork “ribletts”—delicious by themselves—come sided with a blistering Scotch bonnet sauce called ti-malice, and spice-massaged pork loin is regaled with a dark gravy spiked with Guinness. Compulsory at every bistro, steak frites has here been enlivened with an au poivre coating, and there’s also a whole grilled fish of the day for those who like their food more straightforward. Sit in the relaxing front room, or better yet, pick the rear room for its dramatic views of the BQE. Sietsema $$
(new)LA MAISON DU COUSCOUS V
484 77th Street, Bay Ridge, 718-921-2400
This gem replaces the late lamented Casablanca as the city’s premier working-class Moroccan restaurant. As the brown ceramic cone is doffed, the inexpensive tajines explode with flavor, and the choices are breathtaking, too: lamb with peas and artichokes, chicken with raisins and caramelized onions, and the vegetable-heavy tajine tafrawatt, featuring chicken or lamb matched with a bounty of summer squashes, pumpkins, eggplant, carrots, and potatoes. Don’t miss the North African pastries displayed on the glass counter; wash them down with a pot of sugary mint tea. Sietsema $
RICO’S TAMALES
Southeast corner 46th Street and Fifth Avenue, Sunset Park, no phone
Just south of the park called Sunset Park is a hopping new Mexican neighborhood, and at the corner mentioned above, two opposing sheds selling snacks have recently appeared. Bright red Rico’s is emblazoned with the come-on “Tamales Oaxaqueños,” offering a changing selection. Foremost is the chicken mole tamale, wrapped in a corn husk and rife with poultry and thick inky sauce, while chicken with rajas—roasted green-chile strips—is another triumph. Wash them down with arroz con leche, a sort of liquid rice pudding, or champurrado, a chocolate-flavored corn beverage. Sietsema ¢
(new)ST. JOHN’S CAFÉ AND RESTAURANT
1173 St. Johns Place, Crown Heights, 718-773-0701
OK, this place isn’t big enough to be a café and a restaurant, but it’s pretty comfortable nonetheless, with its handful of neat tables offering panoramic views of the sunny Crown Heights neighborhood. The jerk chicken, with its thick sauce, is one of the best in Brooklyn, drum-cooked over real charcoal and charred here and there. Also don’t miss the goat roti, crammed with meat without a speck of filler like shredded cabbage or steamed vegetables. My only caveat—skip the dull mac and cheese, here called macaroni pie. Sietsema ¢
TAQUERÍA LA ASUNCIÓN
206 Knickerbocker Avenue, Bushwick, no phone
Bushwick hosts quite a few micro taco spots—places that make it seem like you’re sitting in the cook’s home kitchen. At Asunción, a baby crawls on the floor, and apart from the deep red walls and a shrine to the Virgin up near the ceiling, there’s no attention paid to decor. Known to the locals simply as “mole,” The chile-and-chocolate sauce is fabulous: slightly coarse-textured and a little oily, so that a bright umbra forms around the edges, and thin enough to moisten a plate of soft corn tortillas and a big serving of rice—after you’ve eaten the tender poached chicken. Weekends only. Sietsema ¢
QUEENS
EDDIE’S SWEET SHOP V
105-29 Metropolitan Avenue, Forest Hills, 718-520-8514
One of the chief summer pleasures of Queens lies in discovering and investigating antiquarian ice cream parlors. Founded in 1909, Eddie’s seems untouched by modernity. The hardwood stools at the long counter were not designed to accommodate the adult butt—kids won’t mind. In several flavors, the Cokes are concocted from syrup and soda, the 22 flavors of ice cream are made on the premises, and the soda jerk is well versed in the arcana of freezes, floats, sundaes, and malts. Very highly recommended. Sietsema ¢
O’NEILL’S VL
64-21 53rd Drive, Maspeth, 718-672-9696
Irish pizza may sound oxymoronic, or just plain moronic, but this Irish steak pub with an implanted OTB inside turns out some of the city’s best pizza. We’re not talking 900-degree, coal-fired pies like Lombardi’s, but pizza turned out in a conventional oven with a roster of exemplary optional ingredients by an artisanal pizza maker who knows how to coax maximum performance out of his equipment. You can watch the nags run and even blow a Hamilton or two as you down perfect slices. Finding this Maspeth institution—which I sought after seeing Mario Batali eating there in an OTB commercial—is half the fun. Sietsema $
VILLA RUSSO
118-16 101st Avenue, Richmond Hill, 718-849-0990
Queens’ favorite banquet hall is a stone cave decorated with cherubs and other Roman statuary, making you feel like you’re an extra in a kitschy movie. Thursdays the doors swing open to the general public, and a $24.95 fixed-price meal is provided that includes a belt-busting five courses, each with several choices. While the food quality is uneven, who cares? Eat the stuff that’s good and pick at the stuff that isn’t. In the solidly good category find a rigatoni vodka rich with cheese, and a substantial swordfish fillet heaped, in the Sicilian style, with toasted bread crumbs. The best dessert is the selection of fresh fruit. Sietsema $$
ELSEWHERE
THE POLISH PLACE
19 Corson Avenue, St. George, Staten Island, 718-442-8909
In a rundown and topographically spectacular section of St. George, this establishment looks like a grocery store until you penetrate into the interior and find a trim dining room and a large open kitchen, where a talented family of cooks toils ceaselessly over their expansive menu. Blintzes (called “creps”) are fresher than you’ve ever had them, and neither do the chunky soups disappoint, including a thick lima bean tomato with little islands of sausage and ham. Offered with three sides, beef stuffed with bacon and a well-browned chicken roll jammed with cheese and vegetables are two of the more interesting entrées. Sietsema ¢