March 14, 2006
stuffed with carbs in Queens
I like Manhattan. It's kind of small (I'm from suburban NJ; it's spread out, yeah), but within its vicinity contains innumerable ways for you to blow your money on stuff you don't need. Sweet. And I don't have to drive a car, so that helps. Sometimes I forget that there are other boroughs. Like over there? [points east] That place is called "Brooklyn". Magical land. Has gnomes or something. Over there? [points north] Something else. Over there? [points south] Mexico.
On Saturday, Sarah and I had a bit of a dilemma. No, our pants didn't catch on fire; this was seeerrrious.
"Where do we eat?" (Yes, a common question.)
"I DUNNO, OH GOD." (And my common answer.)
That's serious, folks. Sarah consulted her Chowhound guide while I sat on the other end of the phone line in my chair being of no help whatsoever.
"Wanna go to Queens?"
Queens...ohh yeah, I had been meaning to go there. I think it's up there. [points north]
We safely arrived in Queens safely after having a bit of a scare with the nonexistent 7 train. (Hey, we weren't the only confused people. You should've seen the confused tourists asking us for direections. ...Actually, it's a good thing you didn't see that.) Set loose upon Roosevelt Avenue, we were drawn to any sign that said "BAKERY" (later, we learned to avoid the ones that also said "PIZZA"; places should stick with one or the other). It felt like Disneyland, but dirtier, sans-themed trash bins, or people in oxygen-restricting costumes, or rides, and with everything in Spanish...okay, maybe it wasn't like Disneyland, but there's some basis for comparison there.
Oh, there is a major Disneyland reference: babies. Strollers. Babies in strollers. Galore. Maybe it was a Saturday afternoon thing ("BABY DAY!!"), but I swear I hadn't seen that many stroller-pushing women in one place since going to a Disney theme park. What does that mean? People really like their kids, perhaps. Or there are a lot of fertile women in Disneyland and Queens. Heeey, that's cool with me...just as long as I don't have to give birth to anyone.
- tacolandia?
For some reason, I really liked the TACOLANDIA sign. So welcoming. So...odd.
We felt out of place. Who knew a subway ride was all it took to plop you in another country? Or what felt like another country full of bakeries, street food, and...I dunno, other less important things? It felt a lot like Chinatown, but with more space and things in Spanish.
- La Pequena Colombia
Moving on, we ate a late lunch at the Chowhound approved La Pequena Colombia. It took us probably too much time to figure out what to get, but in the end we setttled on two appetizers and a main dish.
- cappuccino, blackberry in milk
While I don't usually order a drink, I figured...hey, blackberries in milk! Tasty? I GUESS I BETTER TRY IT, FOR THE SAKE OF HUMANITY. They offer a few "[fruit] in milk" drinks, and for no reason in particular I went for blackberry. It's something like a milkshake and a smoothie with the consistency of a not-very-viscous yogurt. It's good. Sarah liked her whipped cream and cinnamon topped cappuccino.
And then came the food.
- salad and rice
Unbeknownst to us, as we've never eaten at a Colombian restaurant before, our meals came with free salads and a pile of rice. We were intrigued by the grilled rice ball since we had seen it in a bakery we went to before.
- rice ball innards
"This...doesn't taste like anything."
Doesn't taste like anything? How could something taste like nothing? Even water tastes like something: hydrogen and oxygen. I took a bite.
"...Whoa, this doesn't really taste like anything."
Actually, that's a lie; it tasted like grilled rice. But it almost had no taste! Someone back me up here.
- sweet plantains, arepa grande con queso
And then came the appetizers. Whoaaa, sweet golden plantain chunks! You've had bananas; it's kinda like that, but heartier. This stuff is good, unless you're like my friend Mary and have an aversion towards the sound of masticating bananas (the squishy sound gets to her, but she's fine if she can drown it out with something crunchy). The arepa (flat cornflour based bread) with cheese was also pretty good. I wish the cheese had been more melted so that it coagulated on the arepa instead of floating on top, but I still happily ate it. I'd describe what an arepa tastes like, but it has a grainy texture that doesn't really compare to other things I've eaten. Kinda chewy, kinda soft, but not too much of either.. BEHOLD, the most pointless food description everrr!
- tamal, tamal innards
This may not look appetizing, but trust me when I say IT WAS DELICIOUSLY AWESOME. The menu described it as, "Homemade using yellow corn masa, stuffed with potatoes, pork, peas and carrots and wrapped in a banana leaf. Delicious!" The menu said delicious! THE MENU DOESN'T LIE! It looks kinda jello-ish, but the texture was like...well, something with potatoes and corn masa. Starchy, perhaps? And the pork...man, I love this kind of pork. Moist, tender, and falls apart at the touch of your fork. Hell, maybe it falls apart just at the anticipation of being forked. It's telepathic meat.
- Colombian coffee
We also got free coffee at the end of the meal. The waiter said that it helped digestion. Instead of waving my hands around and screaming, "ME NO LIKE COFEEE", I accepted the small cup and took an un-sugared sip.
"Hm...I still don't like coffee, but this isn't that bad."
Sarah said it was good, so I'll trust her coffee-drinking expertise. To me, the coffee had a very earthy and, I daresay, robust (I don't even know what that means) taste. While it didn't hit your mouth with bitterness right away, the aftertaste did leave that bitterness behind, which is my least favorite part of eating anything bitter (you know, the...um, bitter flavor, hence why I rarely eat bitter things). After dumping in a few streams of sugar to up the sucrose level to proper Robyn levels, I found that the coffee actually tasted good. And by that, I mean it tasted 50% like sugar. I ended up drinking the whole thing without screwing up my face in disgust too much. Gotta love that sucrose.
- bill
Do you see this bill? THIS CRAZY BILL? Dammit, I could easily spend this much on one meal. (Uh, I think I did that yesterday.) How could I live here for so long and not know of such delicious, inexpensive Colombian fare? WHY DO I SUCK?
Sarah and I would recommend this restaurant. We had an uber-friendly waiter and the busboy was nice too. He asked us if it was our first time there since he hadn't recognized us; I guess most people are repeat-customers, which is a good sign. The only weird thing that happened was when the cashier asked us why we were taking photos.
"You usually need a permit to do that. These won't end up on the Internet or anything, right?"
"Um...nooo, these are just for ourselves."
[whistles]
- an assortment of sugary delights
Since I'm too lazy to actually write stuff, I'm just going to gastroporn-you. All the above photos were taken at Buenos Aires Bakery. Never before had I seen so many cakey desserts oozing with thick, brown caramel (or dulce de leche, I guess?). While I could compare the proliferation of bakeries in this area to those in Chinatown, these Argentinean bakeries know what they're doing with the sugar content. As in, high sugar content. Ooooh yeeeaaah. Sarah and I bought two chocolate covered caramel tarts, a cream filled donut-type thing, and a cream covered bread stick type thing. The grand total came to $4.10.
- lots of baked goods!
We later went to La Nueva Bakery, which besides baked goods also has craploads of perfectly formed, shiny loaves of bread, and giant scary sandwiches that I don't think I could ever eat, unless I planned on dying from being over-sandwiched. Maybe that's not such a bad way to die.
- caramel tart
That's the last of the porn; I promise. The chocolate tart was recommended to us by the young woman working at the Buenos Aires Bakery. It wasn't my favorite thing in the world, but it was a good choice and unlike anything I ever had before. It was basically a sweet, hard cookie-type tart crust filled with thick caramel covered in chocolate. Whoa. You'd have to be crazy to not enjoy that just a little.
Conclusion: Roosevelt Avenue is awesome.
Posted by roboppy at 12:28 PM
Comments (13)
Columbian food is great in jackson heights, but I'm particularly fond of the peruvian chicken joints--incredible!!!
The 7 train has been absolutely horrible to ride on during the weekends. It took me over an hour and a quarter to get from Flushing to Times Square.
Ah you came to my borough. So many good eats and lots of baby carts too. I love Hispanic food! My mother inlaw for Christmas always serves Tamale's even though she is Puerto Rican. And I looove Plantains. There is a good Dominican restaurant by her house. We always order rice with beans, Plantains, chicken fried steak, Mufongo, and pork. So unhealthy yet sooo freaking good that I don't care!!!!! You only live once right?
looks like real homestyle columian... had a Nicaraguan homestyle tamale once, very similar description and you're right the pork was fabulous... like your blog, keep it up!
Posted by: dietchilicheesefries at March 14, 2006 11:53 PM [#]
Albany Jane: SEMI-NEIGHBORHOOD, yahoo! I guess all the Chinese people moved...to Flushing? I still haven't been there, but it's on my list of things to do.
As for having highly developed tastebuds: HAHAHAHAHA HAHAH HA *choke* *gurgle*. I heard something like that too--if my taste buds weren't sensitive, then supposedly I'd like everything. But I do like most things. Unless it's bitter. I LIKE SUGAR, HOOYA.
Rose: Ooo, do I need to put Puruvian chicken joints on my list? THE LIST WILL NEVER END. Or I'll become a blimp before I finish it.
Poop on the 7 train. ...Not literally. Um. Yeah.
Antti: Don't you love it when stuff like that happens? I guess there's no connection between the Scandinavian stuff and the Colombian stuff. ;D To me, some Mexican buns look a lot like Chinese buns...or vice versa. Maybe those are connected. Anyhoo, now I know what I want when I visit Scandinavia; BRING ON DA MILKSHAKE.
Ani: Food and babies! WOO! I haven't been raised on the awesome combo of rice and beans and plantains and other starchy goods, *sniff*. So good! So deathly!
Nerissa: God knows what other tasty things are lurking around. I think I've been to all the good bakeries by now. EXCEPT NOT IN OTHER BOROUGHS! AHH! My god, there must be so many more. (pokes stomach)...I dunno if I can handle it all.
dietchilicheesefries: Pork is fabulous! I want to put that on a t-shirt. Hehe. Hehehe...um, I'm not joking.
Thanks for checking out my blog! I will keep it up. And eat the fabulous pork.
omz, you are so busted if you go in there again. they've probably already found this post, seen the photos, looked you up and marked you. that waiter won't be so nice next time you go in!!!!
eh. i'm sure they don't care. i have been making a load of stuff that taste exactly like nothing, despite how much delicious stuff goes in. i'm totally backing you up here.
Cathy: Yes, you DO need to frequent bakeries more often! Unless you're diabetic. But even then...hm.
Mm, fruit coated in sugar...made into pie...
santos: I KNOW, BUSTED! "You promoted our restaurant! For shame!"
I doubt you've been making stuff that tastes like NOTHING. That's my job.
I live in Buenos Aires and as I was rolling down the page (Ok, I'm lazy, many times I just look at the pictures, though you write beautifully) and I thought: hey! she's been in my town! these looks just like they're from a bakery around the corner here... I mean, "alfajores de maicena"!!! (the yellow discs stuffed with dulce de leche and coated in coconut). Weird.
Love the blog, by the way.
Posted by: Maria at March 18, 2006 8:21 PM [#]
And those thing filled with cream that you don't know what they are? here they're called "pañuelitos" (little handkerchiefs) and the filling is usually whipped cream or dulce de leche.
Posted by: Maria at March 20, 2006 12:18 PM [#]
What is address for the bakery, with the little fruit tarts, I want to visit that bakery. La Nueva. I google the name and I got four different bakeries. One in bklyn, bx, and two in queens.
Posted by: Shells at March 22, 2006 2:31 AM [#]
Post a comment
I'll probably reply to your comment on this page. If you have something to ask me that's unrelated to this entry, please email me instead.
: This is the 
Hey, you went to my semi neighborhood. Whenever I go to the city to visit family, that is. Roosevelt St is pretty close to where I visit, but maybe it's a different end of the street.
Oh! The reason it felt kind of like chinatown is probably because queens used to have a pretty big chinese population, but then more spanish people moved in and ... voila. Atleast that's what my grandfather who's been living there forever has told me...
I'm with you on the coffee thing too. I actually read somewhere about people with higly developed tastebuds not liking bitter things and prefering sweet things. So maybe that's why.
Posted by: Albany Jane at March 14, 2006 1:10 PM [#]