NEW YORK — When eating in New York City, breaking out of the Manhattan mindset is tough, at least for visitors.
Because when you mostly are here on business the glut of great eats in Manhattan makes it easy to ignore the wealth of awesome restaurants and bars in what locals call “the outer boroughs.” Shortsighted, I know.
Which is why a native New Yorker friend recently helped me push my boundaries — and my appetite. It was painless, fun and easy, mostly thanks to the No. 7 subway line.
The 7 line is an easy way for visitors to explore funky and authentic Queens neighborhoods on the rise. It already has multiple Michelin-starred restaurants, including Casa Enrique, M. Wells Steakhouse and Zabb Elee.
So on a Tuesday afternoon, for $2.75,we caught a 7 express train and in 35 minutes we were in Flushing, Queens.
Emerging on Flushing’s Main Street, we found ourselves in a swirl of Chinatown: a woman making fresh tofu on the street here, a window of barbecue-bronzed poultry and ribs there. You could spend a day on Main Street alone, poking through the warrens of shops and eateries. But we headed across the street to the New World Mall, a place with enough hard-core foodie cred to have once earned Anthony Bourdain’s attention.
The mall basement is where you’ll find a food court like nothing you’ve seen in the suburbs. A couple dozen stalls offer everything from freshly pulled ramen to delicate filled dumplings to — and here’s the money shot — freshly filled rice rolls (balls). Start at Lan Zhou Hand Made Noodle for ramen that will be pulled and shaped and tossed as you watch. You can get the noodles with nearly anything; we went with lamb.
Just don’t eat too much. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
Now head across the hall to Tao Rice Rolls, where you select your fillings, then watch as the chef masterfully encases them in a ball of lightly seasoned sticky rice. We chose mushrooms, sausage, nori seaweed and dried pork. The result — for a mere $3.50 — was crunchy, sweet, warm and meaty.
Jump back on a Manhattan-bound 7, and get off at 69th Street. At 71-28 Roosevelt Ave., in the working-class, multi-ethnic Jackson Heights neighborhood, you’ll find one of the Michelin stars — Zabb Elee, which specializes in northern Thai cuisine and also has a Manhattan outpost. The decor is simple, the food is not. Get the beef larb, minced meat salad potent with scallions, chilies and lime. This is what they are known for.
Hop back on the 7 train at the Woodside-61st Street station. Head to the Vernon Boulevard-Jackson Avenue stop for another star-worthy meal, this time at Casa Enrique, 5-48 49th Ave. Up to now, everything has been deliciously down market. Casa Enrique, in the gentrifying Hunters Point-Long Island City area, scales up.
My friend got a mango caipirinha, I went with a chili-spiked margarita. Both were delicious and a great complement to our ceviche and skirt steak tacos. We wanted to order more, but we were stuffed.
It was enough to make me think maybe there is a food world beyond Manhattan, and it really does deserve a visit. Or 10.
