NY Jewish Food (Regal Kosher Deli in Plainview and Russ & Daughters in NYC)

In my travels around the New York area, I ended up eating at two restaurants serving Jewish/Kosher style foods. One was Regal Kosher Deli on Long Island and the other was Russ & Daughters in Manhattan.

Regal Kosher Deli in Plainview, NY:

Regal Kosher Deli is located in Plainview, NY on Long Island. They are a kosher deli serving pretty standard jewish foods. I ended up eating here on two occasions.

Pickles are delivered to every table upon being seated. They serve half sour and full sour pickles. Being that the half sour pickles were devoured before I could take a picture, it's obvious what everyone's favorite type of pickle is.

Bowls of coleslaw were also served with the pickles.

I tried two different types of knish on my visits here. My first knish was a plain potato filled knish. This one was square with mashed potatoes filling the flaky crust. Pretty tasty.

The spinach knish was my favorite of the two. It was round (I'm assuming the different shapes are so they can tell different fillings apart easier?), filled with a potato/spinach mix. It had more going on in terms of flavor compared to the plain knish.

On one visit I tried a corned beef sandwich. This consisted of a whole lot of sliced meat between sliced rye bread. I have to admit that these jewish deli style sandwiches are a little boring for my liking. I know cheese can't be added because of the whole kosher thing, but they are too much of the same thing.

On another visit I tried what they called a stuffed sandwich. I ordered the Corned Beef, Tongue, and Hard Boiled Egg. When the sandwich was delivered, the waiter informed me that they were out of hard boiled egg. I'm also pretty sure the menu said there should have been coleslaw on here as well, but that was missing too. Without those components, this was basically a corned beef sandwich stacked on top of a tongue sandwich. I did enjoy the novelty of eating sliced tongue. That is not a cut of meat that I eat very often.

Regal Kosher Deli was enjoyable. They may have boring sandwiches, but that's expected in a jewish deli. That aside, I did like the rest of the dining experience in here...





Russ & Daughters in NYC:

I first heard about Russ & Daughters several years ago and they have been on my list of New York foods to try ever since. It took me several more visits to the city before I finally made it to Russ & Daughters. They've been around for 101 years, so the amount of time it took me to try the restaurant was probably nothing for them.

They specialize in smoked and cured fish. Their cases are filled with all sorts of lox, smoked salmon, mackerel, sable, and other seafoods. There's also a large selection of cream cheeses, bagels, desserts, and other jewish foods for sale. Russ & Daughters was a very busy place. I waited over a half hour to put in my order. People were buying quite a bit in here as well. Almost every order placed that I heard was at least $100. Russ & Daughters is a little gold mine...

I had an everything bagel with pastrami salmon with goat cream cheese. The salmon was thinly sliced with a peppery coating on the outside. The goat cream cheese was new to me. It still had the consistency of normal cream cheese, but with the distinctive earthy flavor that seems to be in all goat cheeses. The combination of it all was delicious...

I also tried a pickle. A customer in front of me was ordering gallons of these pickles, announcing that she takes the train from Vermont to replenish her pickles every time her supply gets low. With an endorsement like that, I decided I must try one. It was a very tasty pickle, although I don't know if I'd travel from out of state for a pickle. 

NY Food: Jekyll & Hyde Club

Someone recommended that I try the Jekyll & Hyde Club while in New York. The restaurant is advertised as the club founded by Dr. Jekyll for explorers, philosophers, biologists, and other men and women whose exploits into science and adventure was deemed too unorthodox by their colleagues in accepted society. They filled the club with artifacts and trophies from their adventures. Basically, it sounds like a restaurant for people who's favorite holiday is Halloween, which potentially could be awesome.

Jekyll & Hyde Club is located near Times Square. Its theme is spooky stuff. Think Rainforest Cafe themed to Halloween. There were skeletons playing organs. Busts came alive and talked. Mounted heads of werewolves and elephants started moving. A Frankenstein type monster was brought to life in an hourly show with a live actor.

I ordered the Cheese Tortellini. Way overpriced for what it was, this pasta consisted of a plate of tortellini topped with tomato sauce. It wasn't meat sauce, at least I don't think it was. Still, I occasionally got a bite of ground beef in the sauce. Either way, it means the vegetarian tomato sauce got cross contaminated with beef belonging to someone else or this was one of the most disappointing meat sauces I've ever been served.

In theory, this restaurant sounded like it could have been awesome. I unfortunately came away disappointed. I wanted to like Jekyll & Hyde, but something about it just seemed off. The effects seemed too in your face and annoying when they would have worked much better if they were more atmospheric. Rather than one thing happening at a time accompanied by an audio track played throughout the restaurant, I think it would have worked much better if everything was more subtle and happening all the time. Make it so you have to notice things happening in the building rather than making it obnoxiously obvious. Jekyll & Hyde has a second location and was recommended to me, so maybe I'm being overly critical since everyone else seems to like this touristy restaurant. Perhaps I've worked in one too many haunted houses and take the details in a place like this way too seriously. Perhaps living in Orlando has spoiled me with Disney and Universal quality attractions. Eating here did remind me a bit of Disney's old Adventurers Club in Pleasure Island and how a similar concept was executed much better there. As I finished my meal at Jekyll & Hyde, I couldn't help but think about how I could make a spooky themed restaurant so much better than this one. That is, except for the bathrooms. The bathrooms were the coolest thing about this place. I'm not giving any spoilers and will let you find them yourself...

NY Thai Food: Yum Yum Queens and Aceluck Thai Cuisine

In a continuation of the last post on the blog about New York foods, this post is about the Thai food which was eaten on my trip. I ended up at two Thai restaurants while in the area. The first was called Yum Yum Queens in Sunnyside.

I visited the restaurant at lunchtime and had one of their lunch specials. The meal started with a dumpling appetizer.

I had the Chicken Pad Kie Mao, or Basil Noodles according to the English translation on the menu for my main course. This dish consisted of rice noodles with broccoli, onion, bell pepper, basil, and egg. The huge bowl made the portion look a bit small, but this was plenty to eat.

Next up on my food adventure was Aceluck Thai Cuisine in Hell's Kitchen.

The inside of Aceluck was very green.

We started out by ordering a Duck Wrap appetizer. This consisted of roasted duck, scallion, cucucmbers, and hoisen wrapped in a pancake. I liked the presentation with this appetizer. The wrap was cut and arranged vertically, served next to pools of swirly hoisen/peanut sauce. The duck in the wraps was very tender and was balanced nicely with the rest of the fillings.

I didn't realize it at the time of ordering, but I think I had the same thing at Aceluck as Yum Yum. I ordered the Pad Kee Mao. Rather than Basil Noodles, this dish was subtitled Drunk Man Noodles here. The two dishes at both restaurants were similar but had their differences. The noodles were spicier here. There was more peppers and onions in this version of the dish. The presentation was also very nice with strings of shredded beets and carrots topping the noodles.

One More Thai in Manhattan, NY

I made my way up to New York. One of my meals in the city was Thai food in the Lower East Side at a restaurant called One More Thai.

I ordered the Drunken Noodles. This consisted of wide noodles mixed with chicken, egg peanuts, peppers, and basil. The noodles were tasty, although the spiciness noted on the menu was hardly present even with all the peppers. I'm not an expert on Thai food, but each time I've had drunken noodles seems to be very different. The only consistency between my experiences with this dish seems to be with the shape of the noodles. Interesting...

Oliviero Café in New York, NY

I was wandering around Manhattan near Times Square late one evening when it was decided that everyone was hungry and food was required. Without venturing too close to the overpriced chains that dwell in Times Square, we decided to try a deli/supermarket/convenience store that was open called Oliviero Cafe.

 

They had a much bigger selection of foods than I was expecting. There was a salad bar. There was a sandwich counter. They had sushi and a pasta bar. It seemed like they were in over their heads in trying to do everything, but it seemed to be working.

 

I ordered from the Korean section of the menu and had the vegetarian bibimbop. Not being well rounded in my Korean foods, I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting but it was described as a rice bowl. The bibimbop turned out to be a large bowl of steamed rice topped with a fried egg, mushrooms, onions, squash, carrots, and broccoli in what tasted like a teriyaki-like sauce.

Korean food was the last thing I was expecting when I walked into Oliviero Cafe, but I enjoyed my meal. It is hard to go wrong with a bowl of rice, vegetables, and an egg...

Istanbul Grill in Manhattan, NY

To continue my recent New York dining experience, I had dinner at a Turkish restaurant called Istanbul Grill in Chelsea. I ordered the Gyro Doner, consisting of lamb, lettuce, and tomato in a pita. While the gyro wasn't bad, it did lack flavor. The gyro meat was unusually bland and the three sauces that were brought to the table didn't help much either.

Istanbul Grill was okay, but don't think I'd return with their flavorless gyros. Perhaps I caught them on a bad day because they have good reviews on Urbanspoon and Yelp, but I think I would have enjoyed a gyro from the halal cart at the end of the block more than what I had at this restaurant based on smell alone...

Mini Thai Cafe in NY

In Manhattan's East Village, there is a restaurant called Mini Thai Cafe. It had been a really long time since the last time I had Thai food, plus they had some good dinner specials that brought me into the restaurant.

The meal started with a Spring Roll appetizer.  These were typical spring rolls, but the presentation was nice, served in a big glass on a bed of vegetables with duck sauce on the side.

I had the Vegetable and Tofu Thai Noodle Soup for my main course.  The big bowl of soup was filled with tofu, cabbage, carrots, broccoli, and lots of noodles. The soup was good on it's own, but it got even better with the addition of some of the chili paste that was brought to the table!

My bowl of soup was under $10, so I can't complain. It was plenty to eat and was very tasty.

Spice Cove in NY

Back in July of 2007, I visited Manhattan's Curry Row for some Indian food. This neighborhood is lined with Indian restaurants, each one with someone standing outside, competing with one another for you to come eat at their store. It sounded like walking down a carnival midway past the games, only dealing with food. On this visit, a restaurant called Spice Cove won my business.

Spice Cove offered a dinner special that included an appetizer, soup, and a main course for a really good price, so I went with that. Red Lentil soup was served first. It was really good, and the deep red color of the soup was great. I've never come across another lentil soup that color.

Next, the vegetable samosa appetizer was served. Yummy!

For the main course, I ordered Chicken Vindaloo. While I love spicy food, this dish was a bit extreme. The chicken seemed to be a variation on curry chicken, served over rice, but I could not handle the heat of the dish. I probably drank more water during the meal than what I actually ate. I did enjoy it, but after the meal wasn't as fun when I had to find a bathroom in the city at midnight to get rid of all of the liquid I drank to counter the spicy. Thank goodness there are Starbucks on every corner...

Il Porto

I ate at a restaurant called Il Porto in Manhattan's South Street Seaport. Since it was a very hot summer day, we were lucky to sit near an open door to the nearby Dead People exhibit, which blasted us with nice air conditioning. Soon enough, the meal started out with a loaf of bread.

I ordered the Pizza alla Pesto which consisted of mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese, pesto, and basil leaves, all on a crispy pizza crust. It was very tasty. It wasn't what I would think of as the typical New York Style pizza, but it was still delicious...

After eating, the next stop was to walk over to the Playing the Building exhibit up the road. On the way there, I explored the South Street Seaport for a bit:

And then I finally reached my destination and enjoyed Playing the Building: