michelle picker cooks

Here are a few more New York foods served in a less formal setting. Definitely worth trying, though.

Barney Greengrass has been around since 1908 and since their window says ‘The Sturgeon King’, that’s what we decided to try. Absolutely delicious both with scrambled eggs and onions and served with a bagel, cream cheese, tomato, onion and pickle.

Russ and Daughters is celebrating it’s 109th year. Also specialising in a huge variety of fish, we opted for a classic bagel with lox (brined salmon) and cream cheese with onion and tomato. When you eat one of these you know what all the fuss is about – incredibly soft melt-in-the-mouth lox with just the right amount of ingredients and a perfect bagel.

Xi’an Famous Foods which was established by Jason Wang in 2005, began as a basement stall in the Golden Shopping Mall in Flushing and now has numerous popular locations in New York. They specialise in the unique cuisine of Xi’an which combines Chinese and Middle Eastern flavours. We chose hand-ripped noodles with spicy cumin lamb – a dry version as well as a soup – and a spicy cucumber salad. All delicious and spicy!

La Flor de Broadway, which was established in Harlem in 1968, is famous for it’s Cuban sandwich. It’s a busy little cafe where people line up for Central American fare and Spanish is heard more often than English. The Cuban sandwich lived up to it’s reputation and our second choice of chicken mofongo was also delicious. Mofongo is a Puerto Rican dish of fried green plantains mashed with salt, garlic, and oil then mixed with meat and served with a meat and chicken broth.

Katz’s Delicatessen, at 120 years, is the oldest. An enormous place that was incredibly busy even at 4 in the afternoon, Katz’s is famous for it’s meat. They have seven cutters working non-stop to fill sandwich orders. We opted for a pastrami on rye served with fresh and sour pickles as well as a matzo ball soup. Both excellent – the pastrami was wonderfully soft and peppery.

In my eagerness to taste, I forgot to photograph my lox bagel. The image of the bagel above is by JLR Interactive and is licensed under CC by 2.0