Just one short bus ride away from the bustling satellite Chinatown of Flushing, Queens is Bownie restaurant, a modest Sri Lankan eatery that has been owned and operated by Nanthini and Sri Kandharajah and their family for 11 years now.

While there are plenty of appetizing traditional Indian dishes on the menu, you’ll find that the Sri Lankan specialties really stand out. That night, dinner at Bownie was one in a continuing series of ambassador programs organized by Jeff Orlick, and Joseph Aranha of the Asian Arts and Cultural Alliance was our ambassador for the evening.  So, how exactly does an ambassador dinner work?  According to Jeff, this is what goes down: a guide (ambassador) “will order for the table and discuss what we are eating and why we are eating it. Not a classroom experience, but more of a familial gathering centered around the food.”

Just two weeks before, Joseph, Jeff and I set out to approach restaurants to participate in Asian Feastival, an event on Labor Day I helped produce. When Joseph brought us to Bownie, he first requested an order of their freshly steamed idiappams. Doused in hot mutton curry and flaky spiced desiccated coconut, these wheat noodle patties were a powerful trifecta of flavors and textures.  Spicy, nutty, and with varying textures coming from the noodles, curry and coconuts, everything worked.  Joseph instructed us to dip the idiappams into the curry like a tortilla chip into salsa, and then we were to finish them with a light sprinkling of coconut chutney. I somehow managed to inhale 5 idiappams even after a full day of eating.

I peeked into the kitchen just in time to catch Nanthini press out idiappams from a crazy-looking contraption.  The wheat dough mixture is squeezed through the press, somewhat reminiscent of play-doh spaghetti.

Then each patty is individually steamed in a little plastic mesh container.

Skip to two weeks later, and this was the menu for the ambassador dinner:

MENU

APPETIZERS
Medu Vadai and Dhal (Lentil) Vada

ENTREES
Idiappam with mutton curry
Uppumai with cocunut chutney
Egg Dosa

DESSERT
Puttu with coconut milk and sugar
Ceylon Tea

That’s Joseph. Ray and Sakiko, to Joseph’s left and right.

For our first dish, we were each given a plate with a medu vada and dhal vada with a side of coconut chutney.  Like salty, spiced donuts, the medu variety was made with rice and the dhal version with lentils.  We dipped both into the accompanying pale green chutney, flecked with coconut and what appeared to be coriander, which might be responsible for the green hue. The chutney also contained some other mysterious spices that, when eaten in spoonfuls, can give your mouth a real kick.  After a few bites, our tongues began to tingle and our eyes dashed towards of the drink cooler.

To ameliorate the spicy chutney situation, we ordered some Thums Up soda, the Indian equivalent to Coca-Cola (apparently acquired by the Coca Cola Company too). It is a fizzier, less sweetened version of its American cousin made with sugar instead of corn syrup.

Plates of idiappams were passed around, and they were just as delicious as I remembered.  This may have been the most popular and most well-spiced dish of the night.

Since Ray is a vegetarian, his plate of idiappams came with a side of sambhar, which is an earthy vegetable stew made with tamarind and other spices, instead of curry.

As soon as our idiappams disappeared, plates of uppumai arrived.  Uppumai may resemble mashed potatoes from afar, but they are actually made by mixing fluffy semolina flour with a mild medley of vegetables, herbs and spices. Eaten alone, they were a bit bland, but there again was the omnipresent coconut chutney. The uppumai served as the perfect carb vehicle to sop up the flavorful chutney.

The egg dosa had the density of a firm omelette and came with a dollop of flaky spiced coconut. Biting into the doughy dosa, I could taste the ever so delicate sour traces of the fermented rice flour.

Our dinner concluded with a plate of puttu, a compression of course ground rice, coconut and water.  By itself, the puttu had a flaky texture, like oat bran.  It wasn’t until a few bites in that I noticed the sweetened coconut milk, camouflaged against the white plate. When poured on top of the puttu, the sweet coconut milk added a welcomed flavor and moisture to the dessert. We washed it all down with a complimentary cup of hot milk tea.

At the end of the dinner, I collected our dues and finished with a group shot of the diners.

And one of the Kandharajah family too.

Thanks to Joseph, Jeff, and the Kandharajahs for this introduction to Sri Lankan cuisine.

Bownie Restaurant
143-05 45th Avenue
Flushing, NY 11355

Shanghainese soup dumplings are a culinary phenomenon: a bite of pork and a spoonful of soup all within a neatly pleated wheat wrapper.  You’re probably curious: how does the soup get in there?  Over the years, I’ve come up with a fair share of outlandish theories – at one point I was convinced the dumplings were injected with a soup-filled syringe. But all my conspiracy theories were finally laid to rest two weeks ago when the high priestess of Nan Xiang Dumpling House, Chef Huang Jian Ping (黃建萍), came over to make soup dumplings from scratch.  In anticipation for Asian Feastival, an epic culinary event in Queens on September 6th Labor Day Monday (check out asianfeastival.com for the complete rundown), we decided to put her off-site dumpling-making capabilities to the test and invited some friends over to witness her pork and dough sorcery.

A special thanks to Roboppy for taking photos!

Pulling up to the curb, Chef Huang arrived by car with Nan Xiang’s owner, Tai Viem Ma, and Asian Feastival advisor and guru, Alex Peng, with a bag of dough, a bowl of pork filling, a rolling pin, and a stack of bamboo steamers packed into the trunk.  Once we carted all the materials to the roof, she began to set up her dumpling operation.

Chef Huang’s rooftop dumpling corner. Yep, that’s me creeping behind her shoulder.

Hailing from the town of Wu Shi (無錫) in the Jiang Su (江蘇) province located in the northeast area of China, Chef Huang has been pinching, twisting, kneading and pleating dough and pork filling into bundles of soup dumpling perfection since she was 18 years old.  Nowadays, she can practically make them with a blindfold and a hand tied behind her back.  According to Mr. Ma, he was able to recruit her from China because she was just one notch below the very best in China; top-tier dumpling makers are barred from leaving the country, since their skills are considered a national treasure.

Now, here’s a breakdown of how to make soup dumplings, from soup to nuts:

First, roll out a long snake of dough and pinch into little pieces.

Roll the dough nubs into round little orbs — Chef Huang does so by shaking them in a plastic bag like so.

Using a thin rolling pin, roll out the little dough orbs into a thin pancake shape, thicker towards the middle and thinner towards the outer edges.

With a butter knife, fill the wrapper with the filling. The secret of the soup lies in the paste-like pork filling, which consists of a secret mixture of pork, seasoning and its jus in gelatin form, the last of which melts into a liquidy soup when the dumpling is steamed. Then comes the hard part: cup your hand to make a pouch, then using your other hand, apply nimble pinching and twisting movements to seal off the top.  Chef Huang emphasizes that as a food safety measure, your finger should not touch and contaminate the pork filling, only the wrapper.

A metal circular plate resembling a big, thin metal washer is placed on top of a big stockpot of hot boiling water, funneling the steam through the small hole and upwards through the bamboo steamer to cook the dumplings.  It took a few tries to get the correct time it required to steam the dumplings — 12 minutes was just enough time to steam a bamboo steamer filled with 6 dumplings, but the stove temperature varies so adjust accordingly.

Before.

After!!

And there you go, the secrets of the soup dumpling, thanks to Chef Huang, Mr. Ma and Alex Peng, who made this all possible.  Come taste Chef Huang’s masterpieces for yourself at the Asian Feastival in September.  If you just can’t wait, pay Chef Huang a visit at Nan Xiang Dumpling House for a steamer full of some of the best soup dumplings outside of China.

Nan Xiang Dumpling House
38-12 Prince St
Flushing, NY 11354

Back from London and tired from bland British food, Hope had only one request when I asked her where she wanted to go out for lunch.  “I need some SPICE!”, she pleaded.  Somehow I managed to convince Hope and Davis to wake up early on a cold day and venture into the inner depths of Queens for a taste of Sichuan cuisine.

I wanted to ensure a good meal for their inaugural visit to Flushing, so I consulted with our friend Gary for some recommendations.  “What should I order?” I texted him.  An hour later, I got an email listing with instructions on what to order, divided into “cold apps” and “main dishes”.  One of the main dishes included one that was mysteriously called “enhanced pork”, which we sadly didn’t order.  I guess that’s for next time.  Just as I was closing the email, my eyes caught a glimpse of the last sentence — a few words of caution indicated by an asterisk:

*beware of the stinky tofu!  smells like someone stepped in dog shit

Taking Gary’s suggestions — and warning — into consideration, we picked out a bunch of dishes to try and share.  We started out with some cold appetizers, which were laid out in the display case towards the front of the restaurant.  This part of the ordering process was easy. I simply pointed and said “this one” with my limited Mandarin vocabulary.

Shredded fried bean curd with celery drizzled with garlicky sesame oil.

Having grown up eating beef ligaments with hot chili oil, a staple at restaurants serving Northern Chinese cuisine, I am accustomed to the texture and taste of them.  Served cold with a dense but chewy texture, the beef tendon accompanied by chili oil is not immediately spicy, although if you start eating mouthfuls of tendon the spiciness can start to creep up on you.  Although I’ve grown to like this taste and texture, Hope and Davis were not as fond of it, admitting that this was their least favorite dish.

Bamboo shoots with chili oil had a crunchy texture and nutty flavor.

Tea smoked duck with Hoisin sauce came with a crunchy skin and a beautifully smoky taste that was complimented by the hoisin sauce and scallion shreds.

The dry sauteed stringbeans were stir-fried in super high heat from wok cooking, (in Chinese the term is literally translated into “wok air”) browning the garlic and creating had a crisp crunchy exterior while maintaining the beans’ juiciness.

Submerged in a healthy amount of chili oil and fresh chilies, the fish fillet in fresh hot pepper was perfectly cooked and spiced with plenty of Sichuan peppers and spices.  Most of the hot chilies were hidden in the middle of the dish, which were intended to be stirred in.  Instead, we just worked our way towards the middle, each piece getting hotter and hotter.

Sichuan spiciness is different from that of salsa or curry, so even the spicier middle parts of the dish were not painfully spicy. Rather, these dishes are mildly hot and flavorfully spicy, which will at most make you feel a bit flushed and produce a few drops of perspiration but not dole out a full, mouth-on-fire sensation like that of strong Indian curries such as Vindaloo.

Last but not least were the peanut butter sweet sticky rice balls — a special request by Hope, who immediately was drawn to the peanut butter component (this came as no surprise; some of our favorite snacks freshman year consisted of bananas smothered with spoonfuls of peanut butter. Yes, I had a wholesale-sized jar of Skippy peanut butter from Costco).

These black sesame-filled glutinous rice balls were powdered with sugar and drizzled with a peanut butter sauce. Though I did find that they were not as hot (temperature-wise) as I’d like them to be.

Davis contemplatively ate his sticky rice ball..

Across the table, Hope took an unorthodox approach — eating it on an upside down spoon while simultaneously texting on her Blackberry.

Slurp

Although I am a seasoned eater of sticky rice balls and a self-professed lover of all things made from glutinous rice, I somehow encountered more difficulty eating them than both Hope and Davis.  Simply put, laughing and eating is a lethal combination. In this case, it resulted in a black sesame explosion that spilled into my spoon and onto my face.

Meanwhile, amidst all the sticky rice ball commotion, the staff sat at the table next to us, calmly unpacking and prepping a mountain of Chinese celery straight from the crate.

Spicy & Tasty
37-09 Prince Street, 1H
Flushing, NY 11354
718-359-1601