Chicken & rice atop a chess table in Benniger Playground
Food Cart Month continues! Today we checked out Bakhtar, the Afghan-owned halal cart in front of Rite Aid on Fresh Pond Road. The cart offers the same fare as its flagship Wyckoff Heights Hospital location: chicken over rice, pitas and gyros, falafel, biriyani, and, most uniquely, chapli and shami kebabs (flat minced-meat patties, the latter of which also contain chickpea or lentil flour). Continue reading
Roasted coconut
In case you missed it, awhile back we quietly tweeted that May is FOOD CART MONTH here at Ridgefood. We will attempt, weather and energy permitting, to visit every food cart in Ridgewood. There aren’t very many, so this isn’t really very impressive, but hey!
Previously we’ve told you about several borderland carts: Tacos La Carcachita, where the cemitas are big and meaty, and an eponymous Sundays-only Ecuadorian cart that serves salchipapas (french fries and hotdogs, basically) and whole fried fish to voleibol players in Evergreen Park. Continue reading
Don’t forget! The second Ridgewood Bar Crawl, brought to you by the Ridgewood Social (née Ridgewood Meetup) folks, takes place this Saturday night. New stops on the crawl include Eros Cafe and Polish German Club House, as well as Parlay (aka the former Hi-5, so it’s not NEW new). We seldom make it out to bars in the ‘wood, so the crawl is a good excuse to go totally wild. Just kidding (?).
RSVP here, or just show up! Scroll down for a map of the crawl route.
The crepe & wafflerie is adjacent to a bustling stop on the Q58 bus
Last week we attended the Taste of Ridgewood, the first-ever food fest benefiting the Ridgewood YMCA‘s Strong Kids Campaign. We ate, we drank, we chatted with local Ridgefolk. Here’s our photo recap:
Clockwise from top left: Vietnamese iced coffee over crushed ice, coconut tapioca pudding, and a summer roll from Bunker (we forgot peanut sauce – oops); vegetable samosa and cilantro dipping sauce from Nepalese Indian; and foufou & okra (foufou are like dumplings) and grilled fish & attieke (fermented cassava that resembles couscous) from Bed-Stuy’s Abidjan. Continue reading
Stuffed bass and fixins from Aneta Deli. Also pictured: potato pancakes ($1 each when they have ’em).
A typical low-key sunny day for us involves a trip to Rosemary’s Playground and a food stop somewhere nearby. Aneta Deli, situated a block from the playground on Woodward and Palmetto, stands out among Ridgewood’s Polish steam-table joints for a few reasons.
The first thing you’ll notice as you approach the deli is the amazing window art, like the singing, dancing lipstick- and heels-wearing trio of ham, turkey, and cheese — it’s part of a zone we’ve dubbed “Whimsical Window Row” (see below for more photos of WWR). Inside, Aneta is a standard Polish deli, selling staples like jars of pickled beets and celery root, berry syrups, interesting pretzels and cookies and puffs, and frozen pierogies. Near the back of the long deli counter you’ll see the steam table where they keep the hot food. Go here. Continue reading
Vibrant shrimp biriyani at Nepalese Indian
Nepalese Indian, the matter-of-factly named restaurant on Seneca just off the Myrtle Ave strip, has been open for 100 days. Congrats on this milestone, neighbors! We stopped by for an early-bird dinner to see how they’re doing — and, naturally, to check up on the issues (good and bad) that we originally reported.
We said: “Our first choice, lobster tikka masala, wasn’t available”
After 100 days: The lobster tikka masala still wasn’t available during our recent visit — sad, because it sounds delicious.
Happy Spring! The Ridgewood YMCA gave us the final list of 20 restaurants participating in the Taste of Ridgewood on April 11th. Cuisines represented include West African, Indian, American, Bosnian, Vietnamese, American, Fitness, Tex-Mex, Nepalese, Pastries, Japanese, and German! We think … Continue reading
We recently stopped by Morscher’s Pork Store on Catalpa to procure some ground pork for Vietnamese BBQ pork meatballs (details in a future post entitled “Turning Vietnamese: How We Suddenly Started Eating Vietnamese Food Pretty Much All the Time”). Feeling especially piggy, we also picked up two different types of prosciutto, both of which were excellent. Prosciutto is sort of an entry-level charcuterie in that you might find it on a panini in your local coffeeshop, but it gets way better than that*. Enter Morscher’s prosciutto. Continue reading
We just told you about the Taste of Ridgewood, a benefit for the Ridgewood YMCA’s Strong Kids Campaign, so we thought we’d share our favorite smoothie recipe! It’s great for all ages, but especially kids since it’s packed with nutritional powerhouses … Continue reading
There’s just one day left to RSVP for the Taste of Ridgewood, a food-fest fundraiser for the Ridgewood Y’s Strong Kids Campaign. The complete list of participating restaurants hasn’t been revealed yet, but so far they’ve confirmed: California Pizza Kitchen, a pizza … Continue reading