Our Queens Culinary Crawl might have been our most hedonistic outing to date! Jo, Nelson, Erin, Jake, and I made our way out to the end of the 7 line to meet Jen and Adam in Flushing. We began our gluttonous trek at Imperial Seafood, known for it’s peeky-toe crab and sticky rice.
We greedily decided that 4 dishes would suit the 6 of us. We ordered the spicy bean curd, peeking duck, something, and the requisite sticky rice crab. Though we are generally big drinkers, we thought it best to save our stomach space for food. Only Nelson had the gaul to order a beer with the first feast!
Luke regailed us with stories about his friend and founder of chowhound and the site’s adventurous beginnings while we waited for the dishes to come out of the kitchen.
The Peaking duck was fantastic. It was served with steamed buns, scallions and hoisen sauce. The skin was perfectly crisp and the meat tender and moist. What it may have lacked in seasoning, the hoisen took care of. Being a carboholic myself, it was a winner in my book! The surprise favorite of the Hunan tasting was the bean curd. It packed a delightful spicy punch and the creamy tofu played off of the ground meat. The “star attraction” was met with mixed reviews. It was fine, but not spectacular. The crab was flavorful and the sticky rice was good, it lacked any kind of wow factor. Nonetheless, it was devoured in it’s entirety!
We pushed back from the table, feeling much more full than we had intended for our first stop, and happily paid our meager bill of roughly $15 per person.
Up next was Dim Sum down the street. We congregated around the typical round table in the middle of a vast Dim Sum hall and ordered a few staples to share. We had steamed pork buns, bacon wrapped scallops, shrimp noodles, sesame balls and pumpkin sesame balls. It was all good if not a bit average. The pork buns were a bit dry, but the rest was perfectly adequate. It took a great deal of effort to get it all down considering the feast we had just come from, but we prevailed! EWI leaves no bite behind! The hands down favorite at this spot were the sesame balls, though that may just be because we were craving a little sweet! Our bill here totaled about $5 per person, we paid and stumbled out into the heat, holding our bellies in pain. Off to Corona!
I wanted to walk to Corona, thinking the jaunt might clear room in my overstuffed belly; I was informed that it was more than a jaunt and we shuffled back onto the 7 train. I’m lucky I had Jen to reel me in; even the walk from the train to our next restaurant was trying in that sweltering heat! It was well worth the sweaty walk though.
We arrived at Tortilleria Nixtamal and proceeded to order a half pound of the Carne Al Pastor and a half pound of the Carnitas. On the weekends these specials (along with any of their usual meats) are served by the pound with fresh, made on site, Corn tortillas. They even make their own masa. We also decided to get a tamale, despite Jen’s recommendation against it. For $1.75, it was a risk worth taking. Jen was right, the tamale was not only simultaneously slimy and dry, and it also lacked the CORN masa flavor inherent to a tamale. The tacos, on the other hand, were brilliant! The Pastor was insanely juicy and flavorful, with the chunks of pineapple cutting the fat and giving it a perfect balance under a splash of cooly spicy tomatillo salsa. The carnitas were also quite good, though, to me at least, they could not stand up to the pastor. It was incredible and we just kept stuffing it in, along with “real Mexican coke” (made with actual sugar) and beer. The bill? You will not believe the bill. We ended-up spending about $3 per person. Yeah, I know. It was at this point I decided that I may need to start venturing to Queens for my meals more often!
There was still one more stop to be made, so we waddled back out into the humidity and on to Tommy-O’s Frozen Custard. Prior to arriving we all decided that we would just get one scoop and all take tastes of it. There was just no way we could eat anymore food. Yeah, famous last words.
Timmy-O himself was there to greet us with samples and stories about his beloved custard. We tried the fresh churned banana, Horchata (a Mexican drink made of rice, almonds, cinnamon, lime zest and sugar), Coffee, Vanilla, and Chocolate.
The custard was so creamy and flavorful without being cloying like gelato can be at times. I was crazy about the coffee, but couldn’t resist the idea of a rootbeer float with the classic vanilla. We then all ended-up with combo cups of the stuff. Nelson and I shared the best Rootbeer float I have ever tasted, the group prompting us to pose “Lady and the Tramp Style” with the double straws. (Clearly I couldn’t keep a straight face when he gave me the crazy eye!)
We happily paid about $2.50 per person, said goodbye to Timmy, and started crawling back to the 7 train.
I didn’t realize one could get “food drunk”, but I suppose 4 restaurants + 98 degree heat equals just such a phenomenon! For around $25 we were able to eat our way through two vastly different neighborhoods and put ourselves into a near comatose state!
A big thanks to Jen and Adam for sharing their amazing neighborhood gems with us! Eating With Impunity has proved once again that no borough is too far and no weather too extreme to keep us from a great meal. This was our last culinary adventure for year 1; I look forward to more adventures as we move into our second year, eating with impunity.
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