fabulously unforeign

Blue - Eaten at a restaurant in New York from that country
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Please suggest restaurants and foods at justcookny@gmail.com.

It will sound crazy to the many Manhattan-centric New Yorkers, but one of my favorite parts of the whole city to walk around is Jackson Heights, Queens. It’s unplanned, unpretentious and totally void of tourists. A number of the restaurants I’ve written about here are in or very close to this area, like this Pakistani one or this Salvadoran one. Adding another, we have Colombian food…

Arepa - a thin, flat cornmeal cake with slightly charred white farmers cheese on top; the pita-like dish didn’t have too much flavor but added an interesting element to the meal. Not to be confused with the Venezuelan food of the same name.

The waiter brought the tri-colored chips to our table with an unspicy, chunky tomato salsa and two condiments: simple not-too-hot hot sauce that tasted like it was made of just vinegar and chillies and ketchup. Oh! And the chips were the color of the Colombian flag.

1/2 pollo, costillas de cerdo, arroz y frijoles - a huge amount of really juicy chicken with the somewhat charred skin still on; lightly sauced, chewy but really meaty barbecue pork ribs (that’s the costillas de cerdo); and an undressed mini salad on my main plate. Plain white rice and a soupy bean dish on a large side plate; the bean concoction wasn’t as thin as broth nor as thick as Mexican refried beans, but somewhere in between, with soft, whole kidney beans studding the liquid.

Bandeja con pollo, arroz y frijoles - a smaller amount of the same chicken, beans and rice, but with fried pork skin (chicharron): basically really crisp fried fat with hunks of soft meat; a not too sweet sweet fried plantain (maduro); an unexpected white rice cake without any flavor; and a poached egg to top it off.

Outside Meson Colombiano, which is located here:

Outside Tripoli and a mural above a staircase inside the restaurant

None of the pictures I took inside the dining area came out well, but the restaurant has a nautical theme. I’m not sure why, but the second floor of the dining room is designed to be the top of a boat.

Lebanese Maza - a combination plate of really creamy hummus; mushy but chunky babaghanouj with a dominant eggplant flavor; fried crisp falafel with a soft inside that were very flavorful without being spicy; pickled turnip with a hint of beet and horseradish that had clearly been sitting in vinegar but were not yet stringent; a strong, crumbly feta; a mix of different colored olives dressed with olive oil and vinegar; and a small green salad topped with a lot of balsamic vinegar. Both the hummus and babaghanouj had extra olive oil and chopped fresh herbs at their center.

Warm, fresh, soft, white flour pitas came on the side - to be dipped in or filled with the goodies above.

Mjudra - soft, unflavored lentils cooked with cracked wheat, which obtained a rice-like consistency. Fattoush, a small salad of large parsley leaves, tomato and onion with a light pomegranate vinaigrette came on the side.

Bamia - a thin, meaty tomato stew with soft, stringy lamb chunks. Soft yet not mushy okra, which was almost flavorless, and pomegranate nectar added layers to the dish. A side of plain, different colored rice came with the dish.

Sheik Al M’Ehshi - a tangy garlic mint yogurt sauce/soup with really soft eggplant, onion strings and pine nuts topped with spicy, really tiny ground lamb. A drizzle of olive oil finished the dish.

 Dry, pureed nuts surrounded by a really flaky filo dough crust with a sweet glaze.

Wahei Al Janneh - a flan-like milk pudding with a very strong rose water flavor topped with honey, cinnamon and nut dust.

I clearly took the wrong person, WJ, to eat at this fusion small-plates restaurant. He doesn’t like spicy food. Everything we ordered was somewhat spicy, and several dishes were really hot. Much of that heat came from a Southeast Asian chili-based sauce called sambal; the Malay version, sambal belacan, comes from pounding a variety of chilis with toasted shrimp paste, lime juice, sugar and salt.

Chicken Satay - lightly fried chicken with a citrus ginger flavor on a thin stick. The soft, moist chicken had a sweet kick followed by a lasting hot spiciness. It was served with homemade, thick-cut pickles and very salty, deep-fried rice squares. My friend noted that the rice squares had almost the exact consistency and flavor of tater tots. A chunky but soft peanut sauce came on the side; this too had a light spiciness.

Nasi Ulam - spicy white rice mixed with tiny dried fish, barely cooked red onions and large cilantro leaves. The rice was just a bit sticky.

Watermelon Pickle and Crispy Pork - juicy watermelon cubes, strips of green onions, large cilantro leaves in a citrusy ginger vinaigrette sauce with the fattiest pork I’ve ever seen. At least two-thirds of each piece was just fat; the remaining meat was soft and juicy.

Malay Fish Fry - tempura-style deep fried catfish pieces on top of white rice and cilantro in a really spicy curry broth. The green broth actually had a whole cooked green chili still in it.

Complementary Mochi - soft, chewy, lightly sweet rice squares to finish the meal.

It took until we were almost done eating for me to realize that almost every table around us was speaking the same foreign language. A man walked by on the street and started animatedly taking to one and then another outdoor table of customers - and then the waitress excitedly joined in. Guess I was too focused on the food at this Alphabet City (East Village) restaurant to notice.

Lepinja Sa Kajmakom (left) - a soft creamy cheese spread in the middle of two pieces of warm, very soft pressed white bread. My sister noted the dish’s similarity to a grilled cheese sandwich, but I thought the cheese was more like cream cheese than pieces of solid cheese.

On the right there’s the roasted red pepper spread that was placed on our table along with the complementary bread. The creamy but not totally smooth spread was not hot (spicy) but had the bitter kick of a raw bell pepper.

Kupus - lightly pickled red cabbage tossed with a small amount of oil and vinegar. The cabbage was slightly wet but not sitting in liquid, crunchy and a bit sour.

Prebranac Sa Seljackom Kobasicom - large white beans served with Serbian peasant sausage. The large pork sausage had a thick casing and was cooked until very well done; it was a bit fatty yet still dry.

Some of the super soft beans (which looked like great white northern beans) were still whole while others were mashed, achieving a starchy, sweet potato-like consistency. Like the other dishes, there were no excess flavors, spices or details to this dish. The beans were simply tasty and smoky.

Because the beans had such a great mashed consistency, I asked the Serbian waiter if there was potato in them. No, he told me, they are just cooked for a long time the Serbian way.

Kafana, I found out afterward, is the Serbian word for a pub that serves drinks and light snacks.