The Archives

• Leonia, Restaurants

  Korean Fast Food at Dok Ka Bi – Leonia

  06.03.12 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  When you’re Korean and you want to go all out, you go to a barbecue restaurant, but when you want simple, cheap Korean food, you go to a “boonshik jip” (분식집; boonshik literally meaning minute meal and jip meaning house), a casual restaurant specializing in Korean fast food. There’s many boonshik restaurants in New Jersey, but the place my family and I visit most often is Dok Ka Bi (독깨비; goblin in Korean). MORE »

• Brighton Beach, Restaurants

  Korean-Uzbek Cuisine at Elza Fancy Food – NYC

  09.22.11 | Permalink | 7 Comments

  What? Korean-Uzbek food? Yes, it does exist. How? Well, it turns out like most dictators, Stalin was an a**hole and forcibly relocated around 174,000 Korean people from Russia to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in the 1930s. One result of this devastating displacement was the creation of Korean-Uzbek cuisine, and since this is New York, you don’t have to go to Uzbekistan to try it. Elza Fancy Food, a.k.a. Cafe “At Your Mother-in-Law,” is a Korean-Uzbek restaurant in Brighton Beach, right off the boardwalk. MORE »

• Cliffside Park, Restaurants

  Petite Soo Chow & Turkeyless Thanksgiving – Cliffside Park

  11.27.10 | Permalink | 8 Comments

  

  For the longest time, my family didn’t have a go-to Chinese restaurant in New Jersey. In New York, yes, but in New Jersey, no. There was one place in Fort Lee we went to a good number of times for dim sum, but after several unwanted encounters of the creepy crawly variety, it was time to stop giving the restaurant a chance. Finally, about a year ago, my brother discovered Petite Soo Chow in Cliffside Park, and since then we’ve been slowly eating through the entire menu.

  We even ended up at Petite Soo Chow this Thursday. For the first time since I can remember, I did not have one bite of turkey this Thanksgiving. I’m not sure exactly how it happened. I know a few weeks prior there were a few rumblings in the family of not having turkey and only having ham, but never did I imagine a turkeyless Thanksgiving would happen. But it did, and although I b*tched and moaned a fair amount, I made do, and then some. MORE »