Tag: tongue

Categories
chinese

Yi Lan Halal Restaurant

Sam has a car and decided we needed to drive to Flushing to eat Chinese food. Cool with me. We looked at the Village Voice 10 Best Chinese Restaurants in NYC (…which coincidentally, Sam had just shot the cover for the Voice). We picked #1 Yi Lan Halal Restaurant. Why not? Go for the best on the list.

We picked the Lamb Dumplings (20 for $6), Beef Tongue and Tail with Brown Sauce ($16.95) and Sea Cucumber with Scallions ($17.95). The Lamb Dumplings were amazing and a good deal. The other two dishes, I don’t know. Maybe overpriced for what I thought it would be looking at the restaurant. The tongue and tail meat were tender. I just didn’t like the thick browns sauce too much. And the Sea Cucumbers were so difficult to pick up with chopsticks. So slippery, gelatinous and swirmy.

If I go back, I’d stick with the cheaper options like the dumplings and noodles. I just didn’t realize Sea Cucumbers would cost that much. But when we went to the Chinese supermarket across the street, they were expensive. So were the bullfrogs surprisingly.

Yi Lan Halal Restaurant - 42-79A Main St. Flushing, NY 11355

Sam had also shot my headshot this weekend. I’m available for private events.

Categories
interesting lunch

M. Wells – French Canadian Diner in Long Island City

On the way back from the DC Rally for Sanity/Fear, Albertina was telling me about this newish French-Canadian (Québec) diner that had rabbit hearts and foie gras tamales on the menu. Right up my alley. We met up for lunch with her friend, Justin. There were no rabbit hearts this time, but we got everything else just as adventurous –Pickled Pork Tongue, Sweetbreads Sandwich, Escargots & Bone Marrow, Pollock Cobbler and a doughnut for appetizer.

When I become super rich, I’m going to throw a party with catering trays full of those Roasted Escargots & Bone Marrows. So decadent. The Sweetbreads Sandwich was a crowd favorite too. The menu says the sweetbreads are “General Tso Style.” That sounds tragic, but it was beautifully crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, tasty all over.

Decent prices for these type of things. I was thinking how cheap the Pickled Pork Tongue was at $6. I don’t know. Is that cheap? Anyway, we got a great sampler of something different for about $19 plus tip each.

Only opened for lunch 10am-4pm Tuesday through Sunday. Dinner service coming soon. It only took me 30 minutes on the train to get there from the Flatiron district. Not too bad if you have the time.

M. Wells – 21-17 49th Ave. Long Island City, Queens NY 11101

Categories
mexican

Yola’s Beef Tongue Texan Nachos

I think we had too many Miller Lites with the new Vortex Bottle at Sam Jayne’s show. It’s dangerous because the beer funnels out faster. We stumbled our way to Yola’s Cafe into the newly expanded side of the Mexican restaurant. I opened the menu and picked the grossest sounding dish right in the middle of the page —Beef Tongue Texan Nachos.

The chips were stale, but the big chunks of beef tongue were some of the best I’ve ever had. Very tender and the fibrous muscle peeled apart from itself so easily. It was almost like slow-cooked pulled pork. There was a lot of food and a lot of tongue there. I could only eat about a third before I got sick of it. Rusty had gone back to Good Co. bar to get his windbreaker jacket. When he got back, he forgot what I ordered. I knew I had to get food inside him like Hasselhoff, so I kept my mouth shut and told him it was just beef. I can’t tell if that makes me a good or bad friend.

Yola’s Cafe – 524 Metropolitan Ave (btwn Lorimer & Union Ave) Brooklyn, NY 11211
…The tacos are solid if you don’t want to chance it.