Shuls & Shpayz: Caribbean South America

Sybil's Bakery
128-12 Liberty Avenue, South Richmond Hill

Presidents' Day was a brisk one in New York in 2013. However, this did not stop Jon and I from heading to South Richmond Hill in Queens in search of food from one of the only non-Spanish speaking countries in South America. After dropping our friend off at Grand Central, we circled around, and headed into the Midtown Tunnel and then the L.I.E. to the Van Wyck to the exit for Liberty Avenue. At number 128-12, I was hoping to find Warung Kario, a halal Surinamese restaurant run by sisters of Javanese Indonesian descent ("warung" translates literally from Indonesian as "shop" or "cafe"). After driving by the block a couple times, I realized it was a shuttered storefront with a security gate down and no awning. Having studied abroad in the Netherlands in 2010, I've since been interested in anything I can find in the USA related to Dutch culture. While New York was originally New Amsterdam, the Dutch influences live on basically only in name at this point (towns in the Hudson Valley, the 8th President Van Buren, Brooklyn/Breukelen etc.) Trader Joe's sells mini stroopwafels, but I wanted the regular-sized ones, for which Holland American Bakery in Sussex County, NJ filled that void as well with their delicious speculaas cookies. Danku was a Dutch-style "fast food" place in Midtown for a few years that closed before I learned about it, and Vandaag was an artsy East Village spot, that aside from its obvious name, served a couple Dutch snacks like croquettes and pancakes, which also closed too soon. Anyway, we pulled up in front of 128-12 Liberty Avenue to read a sign in the window that said "Coming Soon Caribbean Suriname Restaurant" which I can only hope is true. Thankfully, not all was to be lost as there are other good things in the neighborhood, and I'd done my homework. I told Jon we could go for Portuguese, but I thought it wasn't unique enough for the destination we had set out for this day, so I then proposed Liberian, but after eating Cote D'Ivoirean the night before, we decided otherwise. That left the food of one of the more visible populations of South Richmond Hill: Guyanese. Located in northeastern South America bordering Brazil, Venezuela, and Suriname, Guyana is a true melting pot, with significant presence of Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese. (In my lunch/dinner, the East Indian flavor could definitely be found.) After rounding the block a few down from 128-12, we pulled in front of Sybil's Bakery, a small chain with other locations in Jamaica and East Flatbush. After debating about whether they check parking meters on a holiday (the sign said the only exception was Sunday), we threw in some quarters and walked into the flamboyantly-designed eatery. From the outside, it appears to be very large as the logo and colors consume almost the entirety of the block and full 2-story building. However, when we walk in, the steam table behind glass is right in front of us despite 3 separate entrances to the place. The only seats inside are stool chairs for a window counter. We have no idea what to order right away because of course the time I spent looking at the menu of Warung Kario proved to be a waste and didn't bother looking at this one. It was a busy scene with people going in and out with orders and the kitchen seemingly cooking up a storm. When were up to order, I told the girl behind the counter we had never had Guyanese food and asked her to recommend some things. We ended up first with a boneless fish filet over spinach rice (called banga or banga mary, apparently a very popular fish in Guyanese cuisine, which I later researched to find is commonly known as a king weakfish), and I had a chicken curry also over the spinach rice. Feeling as though something was missing, I asked about the roti, which the girl showed me and then I asked for an order so we could try it. It turned out to be a heavy kind of pita. Roti is also common in South Asian cuisine, which is where it originated, evidential among the East Indians who came to the Caribbean, but the styles vary greatly from one side of the world to the other. While Indian roti is usually flat and unleavened, Caribbean-style roti is soft, moist, and flaky, almost like a doughy blanket. Since they seem to run mostly a to-go operation, we got our meals in disposable containers: aluminum pans in plastic and paper bags with plastic fork and paper plate. The tray was packed with the curry and rice and was not stable so I thought it would spill all over the bag. Finally, I was able to take some out and put it onto the plate, but the chicken in the curry must have had extra bones in it because every bite I took had bones in it. After a short while, since it was heavy with spicy sauce, the place was getting busy, we were sitting directly under the heating ducts, and the sun was shining right through the window, I'd had enough so we packed everything up to go and left. I figured I'd eat the rest (pretty much all of it) for dinner anyway. Since we were already in southern Queens, I decided to show Jon a strange area out in the Rockaways that is undeveloped waterfront property with direct public transit access (the A train goes the length of the street). It is truly the final frontier within New York City confines: Edgemere and Arverne. A completely desolate beach (boardwalk damaged by Hurricane Sandy) with just the sounds of waves and birds, with Long Beach and the 5 Towns out in the distance one direction and public housing projects in the other. It's what Asbury Park was like before gentrification, a pristine and undisturbed white sand beach with a boardwalk in an area that had seen better days. Of course, just like Asbury Park today, in the Rockaways, there is Arverne-by-the-Sea, a brand new real estate development attempting to pitch the area as a beach town; there is even huge a new Stop N Shop and a surfing store down the block. I'm curious to know if this beach is popular in the summer at all. We did not see any parking restriction signs on the pothole-pocked streets. Later, after being home for a while, I took the food from Sybil's out of the refrigerator and warmed it up in a bowl, using the roti as a cover to retain the heat. After sitting in the fridge for some time, the curry and rice and formed to the shape of the aluminum container and was somewhat more enjoyable than the saucy sop it was when we were at Sybil's. The spinach rice was very good, with the chickpeas being one of the best parts.