Shuls & Shpayz: Along The Silk Road

With entries about Algerian, Scandinavian, and Ethiopian out of the way, we journey further east both geographically and culinarily and surprisingly to the first Kosher food experience in this journey. As a resident of Queens, which is often perceived by others as a foreign land, and it may as well be given the great diversity within the borders, there are boundless eating opportunities. In my little section along Roosevelt Avenue, there is one that will twitch people's ears, everyone's favorite Thai restaurant with the encyclopedic menu, Sri Pra Phai. Other than that there is solidly reliable Stop Inn at which I just stopped in on Sunday for a great brunch of Challah French Toast and turkey bacon (yes, they actually advertise on their menu that they have both turkey bacon and turkey sausage. FTW!) Now back to the main attraction. The third weekend of May was my sister's college graduation so I went out there with my family and then decided to stay the night in New Jersey after we got back on Sunday night. I took the bus into Manhattan to work and my mom said she would drive in later with my bag and some food because it is virtually impossible for me to leave New Jersey without bringing some type of comestibles back to NYC. I got back to my apartment around 7:30 that Monday to find my mom chilling with my 2 roommates, all cool. After getting my stuff out of the car, the discussion turned to dinner and while they seem hesitant to go out, I take advantage of the situation and try to think of a restaurant to go to which I could chronicle here on Shuls & Shpayz though there are none within reasonable walking distance. The Thai place despite its endless menu is not as exciting anymore, the other Thai place is only so-so. We were going to go to the Mexican/Ecuadorian hybrid place next to the LIRR until I suggested the Jackson Diner in Jackson Heights. Since it is down on 74th Street, we would take the 7 line but my mom insisted we drive. Considering this area is basically Little India I wasn't sure exactly where we'd park but figured to give it a shot anyway. After sitting in traffic on 74th Street for about 10 minutes with my mom in awe of the sights and the people I mentioned that everywhere in Queens is some international colony. This area of Jackson Heights is Little India while Jews have the Queens Blvd corridor of Forest Hills, Rego Park, and Kew Gardens. At this thought, I remembered the several Bukhari restaurants that dot the area and after discussing it for a few seconds and the hopeless parking situation in Jackson Heights, rerouted and headed deeper into Queens on the way to have KOSHER Central Asian food. This part of Queens, sometimes referred to as Queensistan is not so much populated by Pakistanis as one may think but rather by Mizrahi Jews collectively known as Bukhari after a city in Uzbekistan called Bukhara. As a former Soviet state, there is an odd Russian imprint left. However, there is a significant difference from the Russian Jews of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, who are mostly of Ashkenazi extraction. A very traditional population, the Bukharim brought with them a cuisine as reflective of the region through which the Silk Road passed as Queens is today. There are probably around a half-dozen restaurants in the Rego Park vicinity which specialize in Bukharan food, all of which, of course, are certified kosher. Through one way or another, I settled on Cheburechnaya on 63rd Drive as the place to go. Cruising down Queens Boulevard, the scene shifts slightly from Argentine and Uruguayan steakhouses to a the strange circular Macy's at the Queens mall. Making a right off the main road, going a few blocks and parking across the street from a church and a diner. The menu on Cheburechnaya reflects its origins, there are staple Russian comfort foods including herring, borscht, and sour cabbage, Israeli and Middle Eastern delicacies like baba ghanoush, hummus, and dolma (stuffed grape leaves), and of course the hearty meat-based fare of the Central Asian steppes. When you walk in, it is a very open layout, large and horizontal, well-lit, very casual, with old wooden paneling on the walls, and a imposing deli case which lines the better part of the dining area. A young and thin waitress/hostess comes and tells us we can sit wherever. I pick a table in the middle along the half-wall separating the seating area from the main entrance. She brings the menus and although I've already remarked a few times, it is still like nothing I'd seen, especially knowing that all the food is kosher (lamb testicles, anyone?!?). My mom and I each order a soup to start, I the Lagman ("pasta with beef, mixed vegetables, and assorted spices) and her the Pelmeni ("boiled bite size dumplings with ground beef"). Eventually I come to realize that the great majority of this food consisted of various types of dumplings, sort of (like it is geographically) a cross between pierogis and kreplach with the type you'd expect to find in Chinese restaurants. The Lagman soup seemed to have so much going on, it was very good, but there were so many tastes! I had also heard about a particular style of bread which is unique to Bukhari cuisine. I looked for lepeshka on the menu to no avail. I asked the waitress if they have it, and she responds "oh you mean bread, yes, it's on the appetizers, do you want small or large?" Later I turn to the appetizers section of the menu and sure enough there is an item just called "bread." The lepeshka (described as "a short, round, crusty loaf of bread baked in a clay oven") I thought was supposed to be soft and warm but ended up being like sourdough bread, quite hard and room temperature. I used it mainly to scoop out the remnants of my soup, which was good because of all the noodles, both thick and thin along with the meat and veggies scattered around. As I wanted to sample and not be bound by one dish, I continued my orders of small dishes. After the soup and bread came the manty, which are giant, thin-dough dumplings, said to be like Russian pelmeni or more delicate than pierogies. The filling consisted of ground meat, either lamb or beef or both, with onion, and a bit of pepper, then steamed which result in slippery deliciousness with meat juices soaked within. These manty are so hearty that of the original 4 we ordered, 2 of them came home with me and became part of my dinner the next night. Though shish kebab can seem generic, as it is found all over the Middle East and Central Asia, it is commonly eaten here as well. Kebabs can be ordered a shish at a time so we ordered 2 boneless chicken and 2 vegetable. They came on large knives almost sword-like and were grilled to perfection. To drink, my mom had green tea, which is popular and traditional, as it is throughout Asia. Throughout the meal, my mom kept asking me if I thought the waitress was Jewish so when she came to bring our food my mom tried to engage her in conversation to find that she has been in the US for only 4 months and speaks only enough English to take food orders and she also speaks Uzbek and Russian. I asked my mom if she wanted to me to ask in Russian if she is Jewish (yevrey = Jew, yevreyskaya = Jewish) but she said no so we were left with the mystery. Before we left, a multi-generational family arrived in shifts, first a mother and her young children including a baby accompanied by an older woman donning a babushka. Later a man and a woman in business attire came as well and joined the table, 8 strong with 3 kids and 5 adults. We tried to figure out what language they were speaking; I assumed it was Uzbek or Bukhori. The business dressed woman came over when my mom inquired and spoke to us in accented English that it is her family, the kids are her grandchildren, and the first woman is her daughter. She motioned that the lady in the babushka does not speak English and also did not pay her much attention so she was probably a nanny. The woman said they are Jews and we said we are as well and my mom mentioned that we can speak Spanish (although not really) and the woman seemed amazed at this. She asked if we speak Hebrew to which I replied "kitzat" (a little). The language they were speaking was actually Russian but the family had lived in Israel for a number of years so that explained why it sounded different because it was accented by Hebrew. She seemed like she was going to continue telling us more when her husband gave her a look so we said goodbye and left the restaurant. My mom's main observation about Cheburechnaya (and Bukhari food in general) was that the food we ate was unlike any kosher food she'd ever had, it didn't seem kosher like kosher food so often does.

New York Magazine's review of Cheburechnaya:

"This one-off spot draws Soviet expats and motivated chowhounds seeking outer-borough exotica. Post-Shabbat on Saturday nights, Cheburechnaya’s cafeteria-like room percolates with groups of guys in open-necked shirts, gal-pals gossiping in Russian, multigenerational Uzbeki clans complete with racing preschoolers, and a hipster or two on a mission. Like its patient, English-competent waitresses, Cheburechnaya’s vast appetizer-strong, photo-laden menu aims to please. The kosher chow, served per piece, is priced remarkably low, so diners can assemble meze-style meals for relatively few rubles. There’s Ukranian comfort food like borscht, stuffed cabbage, and piroshki dumplings called manty, along with a smattering of Middle Eastern familiars, like hummus (decent) and baklava (dry). But Cheburechnaya’s menu extols the rugged, meaty Bukharan fare of Tashkent and Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, where windswept steppes meet Marco Polo’s spice route. The house specialty is chebureki, empanada-like fried tarts stuffed with the likes of fennel-sparked cabbage or rich, gamy mutton. Shish kebabs of ground or sliced mutton or beef and various organs (don’t think too much about which) are deftly flamed on swashbuckling skewers. Cheburechnaya may extend familiar comfort to Uzbek diners, but for born-here, done-that New Yorkers, it’s a MetroCard adventure down the Great Silk Road." — Karen Tina Harrison

Cheburechnaya menu