I often tell people that the town I live in, Rego Park, Queens, is the worst place in the world. It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but that’s the way I feel about it, especially where restaurants are concerned. There are numerous joints in the neighborhood that function as de facto social clubs for the dominant ethnic group, the Bukharian Jews from Uzbekistan. The cooking smells amazing (spicy and meaty), but I’ve never set foot in one of these places because every dinner service looks like an off-limits private party. Very “whatta you looking at, pal?” Being bum-rushed by Uzbeks is not my idea of a relaxing evening. Unfortunately, all of the other restaurants in town are shockingly, brazenly bad. One violation from being shut down from health department bad. Rego Park seems to specialize in one type of restaurant: hole in the wall. We’ve got hole the the wall Chinese, Mexican-Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Turkish, Indian, you name it. Lots of different cuisines, one nasty standard. Foodie despair sets in.
But there’s actually one place where you can get an interesting and decent meal in Rego Park: Ben’s Best deli on Queens Boulevard at 63rd Drive. Ben’s is a traditional Jewish deli, serving hearty helpings of New York deli standards like pastrami/corned beef/tongue/brisket sandwiches, matzoh ball soup, kreplach, and chopped liver. The pastrami is great, not quite Katz’s or 2nd Ave. Deli great, but worth the trip. For brunch today, I wolfed down Ben’s pastrami and eggs, which is one of those “heart attack on a plate” dishes that just works so well on Sundays. A ream of peppery pastrami mixed into a fluffy, three-egg, pancake-style omelette. The accompanying fries were wonders of the spud world – one was as big as my thumb (starting at the base of my wrist)! After that prodigious infusion of protein, fat, and starch, I walked home in a seriously aggressive mood. I kept wanting to pop passers-by in the jaw and see if I could “take them.” Well, I didn’t act on these feelings, and instead channeled my surplus energy into helping my two-year old fill bucketful after bucketful of lightly melted snow.
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Eating the East Village « Eatist // December 28, 2008 at 1:25 pm |
[...] and cheese helped round out the subversive, breakfast-as-dinner feeling of eating this dog. Another protein rush, but no aggression this time. The waffle fries were forgettable but the RC cola, dark, lush, co-la [...]
Po’ boy virgin no longer « Eatist // February 1, 2009 at 3:26 am |
[...] chomping (like a lion savaging a fresh kill) , but there was NO way that I was waiting to get home to eat that bad boy. I was so blissed out after my meal, I didn’t even react to the hare [...]