A Peach for a Peach

Last night's meal at EGB was a little different. On top of BYOB, we also BYOPP: we brought our own peach pie. The last of the peaches on our tree were picked by an artist named Meg Duguid, who does performance art with pies. She and her boyfriend came over about a month and a half ago and took the remaining peaches of the season. We were a little bummed that the peaches were no more, but when she told us that she would bake two pies, and one would be shipped to Chicago, and the other to us, we got excited.
Two nights ago, we ended up having dinner later than usual. It ended up kinda late since le porte-fenetre had to be installed. Slappy and Taco came to install it after their normal work day was over, so we wrapped up around 10:30pm. We rushed over to EGB before they closed and as usual, had the place all to ourselves. We noticed it was more quiet than usual, due to the fact the daughter wasn't there to wait on us. The mother told us that she was at the emergency room all day, for a sinus infection. She had gone to school earlier that day to take a test, and couldn't focus, so she left school with t high fever. We also found out that the family calls her Peach, because she is cute and sweet. So when the pie arrived in the mail, we thought it would only be appropriate to bring Peach a piece of pie as a get well gesture. The four of us returned last night, (this time PV instead of Slappy) with the crate in tow, weighing $60 worth of shipping and handling. After dinner, Paul, the owner-dad, heated the pie up for us in the oven and brought it back up. We had ordered a new appetizer called Golden Bag- a deep fried wanton skin filled with shrimp, water chestnut, and mushroom, served with a delicious sweet lime sauce that tasted like key lime pie. So we requested for more of that sauce and put a big dollop onto the peach pie. The crust was a bit undercooked, but the peaches had been soaked in ginger for a week, and were delicious! We ate half the pie and left the remaining half with the restaurant for Peach. I had noticed that the restaurant had a Junior's cheesecake sitting on the counter, when we walked in. Apparently we could have some of that tonight for dessert when we go back.

Our order: Golden Bag- excellent.
Golden Corn- ground chicken, corn, cilantro, red curry and Thai sauce- very good.
Fresh Roll aka Por pia (Chinese sausage, shrimp, eggs, bean sprout, tofu and cucumber with tamarined sauce)- good but kinda ho hum.
Everything Pad Thai- good but a bit too sweet.
PV got the Mustang burger-Louisiana spices and jack cheese- excellent according to him.
Taco got the Thai Burger-Thai curry and peanut sauce- excellent according to him.
total bill was $38.00 plus tip. WOW.

Food Review #4: The Free Pizza and others

We haven't had a good Chaim-cooked meal at home for some time, since the stove is not hooked up and a thick layer of plaster dust covers the kitchen. The other night, we decided to order in and get pizza. We had already tried a so-so pepperoni pizza from Pizza Boy II on Roosevelt Ave., and decided to try a different place.

So we looked in our menu folder and came across this place. (50-22 39th Ave)

The menu is one of those quintessential Italian 7 page documents, with every type of pasta, pizza and salads, with catering, just like Carmine's in Manhattan. They have a fresh Mozzarella Margarita pizza, so we decided this place was worth ordering from. The large is priced at $19.95, five dollars more than the rest of the pizzas. We thought it must be a tremendous pie! We called at 7pm, and they said it would take 30-45 minutes. An hour later, no pizza, so we called to see what was taking so long. Oh it's on it's way they said. Forty minutes later, still no pizza, and we are starving. The phone rings at this point, and Donato's is calling us apologizing profusely saying someone took our pizza. I said to forget it, we don't want the damn pizza, and the manager said, "It's on us, we will give it to you for free". Five minutes later a huge mediocre pizza arrived at our door. The crust was undercooked. (what can you expect with them rushing) and the mozzarella cheese was cut into 1 inch chunks. If we had paid $20 we would have been very upset.

It's hard to get a pizza as good as Grimaldi's in Queens.

There are however many other things we can get here that I couldn't get to eat in Brooklyn Heights. Like corn slathered with mayo, sprinkled with Mexican queso blanco and dusted with red chili peppers. Mmmmmmmm. When I was little, in St. Louis, I used to put mayo on my corn when everyone else was melting sticks of butter on theirs. They would look at me appalled, to see the mayo/corn combo hit my mouth. I was so excited when Chaim took me to Spanish Harlem years ago, and saw that corn on a stick with mayo was normal.

A little man was passing by our house with his shopping cart, with a cooler filled with steaming corn, and some large tupperware containers. He had about 50 layers of aluminum foil folded together as his hot mitt, so that he could hold onto the steaming corn as he put layers of mayo and cheese on it. It was delicious, and all for $2.




Our third visit to EGB or "Eat Great Burger: Thai and American" Restaurant.

Last night, we went back to our new favorite eating place across the street. Since our last visit, they had replaced the hand written sign saying "we have Thai desserts for sale" to a more professional looking ink jet printed sign taped to the front window. They had hooked up the television and had a bowl of silk flowers sitting on the bar. There was even one other table occupied, by a Thai family. It turned out that it was one of the chef and her family. We were greeted warmly like always, and sat at the window table for the first time.

We had brought an open bottle of wine from home so the daughter brought us some glasses right away. After filling our glasses, she says, "five minutes, I come back"

Three minutes later, she came back and seeing that we didn't have enough to drink (it was only a half bottle) she asks us,
"do you like beer?"
skeptically we answer back, "what kind of beer?"
"we have a beer in the refrigerator."
knowing they still don't have a liquor license, we ask again, "what kind of beer?"
"it's a small beer. it was left."
"can we see the beer?"
"ok." and she comes back with a bottle of non-alcoholic Coors lite.
"you don't like?"
Then we have to explain that it is not really beer, that it's basically beer flavored water.

We decided to order new things, and no repeats from other visits. The second visit, when we came with PV, we got the Buffalo chicken wings (excellent), fried calamari (very good), a repeat of the green papaya salad, a Pad Thai (excellent) and a Cesar salad. PV was amused at the site of the Cesar salad and papaya salad coming off of the same menu.

This time we ordered the Naked Shrimp salad (excellent), tabbouleh (which they didn't have yet), beef stewey noodle soup with a hint of cinnammon and anise (excellent but almost too rich) and a ground chicken salad that I can't remember the name of (very good). We also ordered some sticky rice, and got a mound of it wrapped in a banana leaf. This is the first time in all the hundreds of times I've been to Thai restaurants that I didn't get microwaved sticky rice wrapped in saran wrap inside a wood basket.

The daughter told us she is studying to better her English to get her MBA. She wants to become an accountant. I asked the High School son how school is going? and he said he had swimming that day. I thought he was on the swim team, but he told us that he was learning to swim, and it's a good thing that he can float. We didn't see the father but I guess he was in the basement cooking away.All in all, our third meal at EGB was excellent.

Food Review #3

We have been patiently anticipating the opening of a new restaurant on Roosevelt Avenue. When we first moved into the neighborhood, the already closed down restaurant was called Arca Noa Noa, another Latin Restaurant. We got a little excited when we saw that the workmen doing construction inside the new place was Chinese. This definitely signified that there would be a new Asian Restaurant opening soon. Yesterday we saw a guy in the doorway, and so we introduced ourselves and asked what type of food he would have. He said Thai. My next question was, "Are you from Thailand?" and when he said yes, we got really really excited.
Tonight Chaim and I went for our first meal at EGB Thai & American Restaurant. We learned that EGB stands for Eat Great Burgers. The two different owners couldn't decide on what type of food to serve, Thai food, or burgers, so that's the reason for the weird name.
The menu is a bit bizarre but the food...(drum roll) was very good. We ordered a little of everything so we could get the feel for the place. Half the menu is your Thai standards, and the other half of the menu is burgers with a strange combination of toppings with interesting names. There is a mixture of Louisiana Cajun, Italian and burger joint fare.

We ordered:
curry puffs- $3.75 two puffy deep fried puffs with an interesting orange juice base sauce.
Chaim ordered the Tom Yung Koong soup $2.95, spicy and good with shrimp.
U-don salad (som tom-or papaya salad) $6.00 very spicy and good.
Pad Se iew (flat broad noodle) $6.00 with beef and egg. very good.
that was the first course.
Then we finished off the dinner with:
green chicken curry- $6.00 very good.
and a U-don burger- $6.95 which was topped with sauteed garlic, onion basil and cherry peppers. very good...but couldn't eat it all so we took the rest home.

The whole family seemed to be working tonight. The father, Paul came and sat at our table and we talked food, baseball and Queens stuff. The mother would stop by the table and make sure we liked the food. The daughter was our waitress. But the classic move by the son made it really feel like a mom and pop restaurant. We asked for some hot chillies, and he brought over a ceramic spice set filled with different sauces and spices. He began to say "My mom said to be careful...." and we thought he would finish off the sentence with "...the spices can be very hot", but instead he said "my mom said be careful because these containers break very easily." I think when his mother told him that, she met for him to be careful, not to tell the customers that we could break them. When was the last time you've been told that in a restaurant??? Then he came back a few minutes later and said "my dad wants to know how you want the burger cooked." It was just like being a guest at their home.

We will definitely be going back.

53-21 Roosevelt Ave.
718-205-6063
no liquor license yet.
grand opening still far into the future.

The Multi Ethnic Mart

On 58th Street where Roosevelt and Woodside Avenue intersect sits a small grocer called Big Boy's Farm. We assumed that it is Latin owned since it is packed with Mexican products, and an array of Goya products I've never seen. The first time we went in to inspect the produce, we were very impressed with all the fresh herbs

yerba buena

papalo

and greens we hadn't seen before. What was even better was that they are all labeled with hand written signs in English.

As with most immigrant run businesses, there are one or two humorous spelling errors in the store. We now call the store the Bong Juice Seller.


The other night, we stopped in to get some watercress and watermelon. As we stood on line, I noticed that the Asian man and customer were conducting the exchange speaking Japanese.

When I got up to the counter, I asked him
"anata wa nihonjin desu ka?".
(are you Japanese?)

And he answered back in Japanese that he is Kankoku jin (Korean.)
He asked me: "Furusato wa dokodesuka?" (where is your hometown?)
Then told me that he had lived in Kobe for a time.

As we were leaving, Chaim told the Korean man, who spoke Japanese, behind the counter at the Mexican Grocery store:
"Muchos Kamsahamnida", and I said "Oyasuminasai!"

Food Dynasty

We went to our neighborhood grocery store this evening. I was a bit skeptical about it since the outside is littered with not only garbage, but sketchy old men trying to recycle cans. It looks like any Key Food you'd find near any housing projects, but when we went inside, we were greeted by a nice surprise.

The store was VERY CLEAN, cleaner than the Gristedes in Brooklyn Heights. Every aisle was organized and everything on the shelves was straight and lined up neatly. The meat section was impressive, and they had items we would never see in Brooklyn Heights or the UES; such as a whole refrigerator case of packaged pupusas, bricks of Mexican cheese, turkey legs cross-cut into 1 inch chunks, halfway decent beers, and passing the bakery section, Chaim excitedly exclaims, "Look Challah! There must be Jews who come here!"

But the best part of our new grocery store is the service. The cute Asian check-out girl actually acknowledged us with a friendly hello, and after handing over the correct change, sorted the handles of the plastic bags together and gave them to us.

Food Review #2

Korean BBQ
I can't remember what the name of the restaurant is called, (and no mention of it in English on the business card) but it's three blocks from our house!!!!! They were both excellent.

We were famished, so I didn't think to take pictures of our food, but it was delicious! We sat down and were immediately served half a dozen or so small plates of panchan, (also called banchan). We were exhausted and had no interest in cooking our own food so we stuck to the standards. I had the dolsot bibimbap, and Chaim had OJingO BokUm (Squid and onions sautéed in spicy sauce). There were a few other tables of Korean business men drinking shochu, and they had dishes we had never seen before, that we will definitely try the next time.

Food Review 1

Last night my friend CT, Chaim and I went to a restaurant called Piola.
We went because Chaim had seen a flyer for an art show displaying photographs of mangled money by an artist named Anthony Savini that he wanted to see. So we decided to go have a quick drink and snacks there. The photos were ok.

As we entered, we were greeted by mobs of children running around and the restaurant had the atmosphere of Two Boots Pizza, with it's brightly colored Romper Room decor, but with a bit more of a suburban feel.

I started off with a KIWI CAIPIROSKA, which sounded refreshing but ended up so sweet with chunks of muddled kiwi, that it would have been better as a Popsicle instead of a drink.
My friend ordered a SGROPPINO AL LIMONE which was described on the menu as ice cream and vodka... interesting??? but in the end it tasted like a melted cheesecake. Chaim stayed on the safe side and ordered a beer.

It took us a while to order the pizza because they had too many combinations, and finally in the end, we got the MARGHERITA described on the menu as: Tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil. We thought the best way to see how good a pizza joint is, is by trying their basic staple. Just as Grimaldi's cheese pie needs nothing on top to make it amazing. Sadly, when our Piola pie was set down on our table, it paled in comparison to the Brooklyn pie, and had one sad little piece of basil in the center, acting as a fig leaf covering the center junction of the slices.

This would be a good place to take your tween age children for a birthday party. If you want great pizza, I'd go elsewhere...