Eat the Iraqi before it eats you.

The hot dog is to Colombian street food as nachos are to U.S. sports bars and Tex Mex joints. For the most part Americans are content to gild the humble wiener with one or two toppings, but Colombians treat it as a canvas of sorts for wild culinary creations. The Chicago style hot dog and chili cheese dog pale in comparison to their Colombian cousins. Potato chips, sauces of various hues, and pineapple, among other fruits are all fair game for Colombian perros. And so it goes at Los Perros de Nico a shoebox of a spot that opened late last year in Elmhurst.

The Iraqi ($4) is showered in crushed potato chips and slathered with green, pink, and tomato sauces in  addition to mustard and mayo. Topped with a hardboiled egg sliced in two and dotted with ketchup it’s a googly-eyed creation guaranteed to bring out the inner five-year-old in any trencherman. Come to think of it the shop is named for the owner’s five-year-old son, Nico. The Iraqi is sloppy and tasty in its own over the top way. Eat it and all the perros here with care lest you wind up spilling the sauces on your shoes as I did.

Los Perros de Nico, 40-09 81st Street, 786-337-3689
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Cositas Ricas is best known as a casual steak house
and piqueteadoro, or Colombian snack shop.

Cositas Ricas, a Colombian steak house and piqueteadoro, in Jackson Heights is known for steaks, snacks, and Colombian breads. With all that bread I knew there was a sandwich to be had here, several in fact. They're found under the menu section called caprichitos ricos. That's delicious caprices. Neither the Cubano nor the steak sandwich struck me as particularly capricious. The Hawaiano ($9.50), on the other hand—with its promise of pernil de cerdo (pork loin), jamon and salsa Hawaina—sounded positively mercurial, a cross between a luau and Carnival in sandwich form.

A hefty sandwich Hawiano—note the pineapple peeking
out—with a coconut-milk enriched Hercules shake. 

Like its more staid  cousin the Cubano, the Hawaino is pressed on a length of pan frances. Pineapples, pork loin, ham, tomato, American cheese are layered into the crunchy bread. It's a salty, sweet, porky gutbomb. To drink I had something called a Hercules ($4.50).It's  a shake made with three kinds of milk, condensed, whole, and cream of coconut. Alternating bites of the sandwich and sips of the Hercules made for a carnivore's pina colada.

A peek at the Hawaina's festive interior.

I briefly considered eating the lettuce to feel virtuous, but decided that amount of vegetation could scarcely negate the pork on pork powerhouse. Eating Hawainas on the regular is a sure way to become one big kahuna.

Cositas Ricas, 79-19 Roosevelt Ave., Jackson Heights, 718-478-1500
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Tropika Grill: Surely Queens’ only Indonesian-Latino eatery.

Exotic as they sound Indian-Chinese, Guyanese-Chinese, and old-school Cuban-Chinese are fairly commonplace culinary mashups here in Queens. For a truly unusual hybrid I present Tropika Grill n’ Café, an Indonesian restaurant with a Latin flair. It sprung up in Jackson Heights four months ago in a space that once housed the sprawling Tierras Colombiana, which had downsized to Tierras Deliciosas thus explaining the current occupant’s slapdash signage.

The chef hails from Makassar, the largest city on Indonesia's Sulawesi Island. Dishes include favorites like satay skewers, beef rendang (rendered on a hand-lettered sign as carne de res de Indonesia). There are also some more unusual ones like swikee a Javanese frog leg stew seasoned with garlic, ginger, and tauco, or fermented soy. The little amphibian drumsticks served with a fiery sambal are wonderful. I’ll take a leap of faith and call them Roosevelt Avenue’s only frog legs.

Tropika’s bolas frita de maiz studded with corn and bits
of kaffir lime leaf are known as bakwan jagung in Indonesia.

Amid a roster of such decidedly Latino fried fare as yucca frita, and maduros find fried corn ball or bolas frita de maiz ($3.49). The golden fried corn fritters seasoned with kaffir lime leaf are known as bakwan jagung in their native Indonesia.

Soto ayam lamongan, a chicken soup topped with crunchy, garlicky koya.

The East Javanese chicken soup soto ayam lamongan ($6.39) aka sopa de pollo de Indonesia, comes with several wedges of lime; a small dish of koya, crunchy crumbs made from garlic and shrimp crackers; and a fiery bright orange sambal. Doctor up your soto with a bit of each and dig in.

Indonesia’s answer to Mexican grilled corn.

Elotes, or Mexican grilled corn slathered in crema and crumbled cotija cheese with a dusting of cayenne, are a popular snack at a nearby streetside stand. Tropika sells nine flavors of parrilla de maiz ($2.50), including chocolate, garlic, jalapeno cheese, and spicy. The latter packs a nice kick. I’ll leave the chocolate flavor to those with sweeter teeth than mine.

Es kopyor, is filled with tropical fruit, including strips of young jackfruit.

Tropika offers shave ice (hielo raspado) as well as several Indonesian dessert drinks like es kopyor ($3.50). It’s as sweet as it is pink, flavored with pandan syrup and filled with bits of tropical fruit like jackfruit and coconut.

Unsual as it is to find an Indonesian-Latino restaurant the really neat thing about Tropika is that the owner has a Subway franchise in Rego Park not far from World’s Fare headquarters. I’m going to work on getting him to serve Indonesian grub. It shouldn’t take much.

Tropika Grill n' Cafe, 82-18 Roosevelt Avenue, Jackson Heights, 718-803-0500

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Tortilleria Nixtamal's owners Shauna Page and Fernando Ruiz have even more
to smile about after receiving a Snail of Approval from Slow Food NYC.

Four months ago I lambasted Slow Food NYC for having awarded its Snail of Approval to just two deserving Queens food establishments: the Greenmarket system and Astoria's Vesta Trattoria and Wine Bar. At the time I nominated two artisanal food producers in Corona—Timmy O’s Frozen Custard and  Tortilleria Nixtamal—for the honor. I am proud to say that the snail has landed at both shops, which are now displaying the Snail of Approval decal in their windows. 

“I love the Snails given to Nixtamal and Timmy O's for a number of reasons: First, because they extend the reach of the Snail directory way out into a neighborhood of Queens that few Manhattan and Brooklyn foodies would otherwise know,” David Berman, co-chair of Slow Food NYC's Snail of Approval subcommittee said via e-mail.

The group's heart and stomach are in the right place, but surely Berman can’t believe folks in Manhattan and Brooklyn haven’t heard of the neighborhood that’s been home to the Lemon Ice King of Corona for 65 years. Never mind the fact that both  Tortilleria Nixtamal and Timmy O’s have been covered in both mainstream daily newspapers as well as lauded by numerous food blogs. For the record, the ladies serving delicious Ecuadorean specialties out of shopping carts on Roosevelt Avenue do work way out in Corona and are probably unknown by Manhattan and Brooklyn foodies who are obsessed with the Central American food wonderland that is the Red Hook Ballfields.

Berman continues: “second,  because of what they say about "authenticity," and what it means in a country like the USA and a city like New York; third, because both places have a complicated relationship with "sustainability," which is as it should be, because sustainability is complicated.”

Will Hugue Dufour's M. Wells get a Snail of Approval?

Once I was done marveling at the communiqué from Slow Food NYC I placed congratulatory phone calls to custard king Timothy O’Leary and tortilla queen Shauna Page. Then I tried to think of who else in Queens deserves a Snail of Approval. The first place that came to mind was M. Wells, the new self-styled Québéco-American diner in Long Island City. (If making your own English muffins from freshly milled flour and grinding heritage breed pork into sausage patties for breakfast sandwiches doesn’t qualify as “slow food” then I don’t know what does.) The restaurant’s owners, Hugue Dufour and Sarah Obraitis also happen to be big fans of both Tortilleria Nixtamal and Timmy O’s.

“Hugue and I’d be delighted, but we’d also be slightly shy about accepting a Snail,” said Obraitis who was raised in Queens. “There are thousands of other more well–seasoned establishments in Queens that deserve it,” she pointed out saying that she’d rather see a lesser known ethnic place get some love from Slow Food NYC.

After consulting with the restaurant’s staff, largely made up of other Queens natives with the notable exception of Québécois farm boy Dufour, Obraitis shared three places she’d like to see receive recognition from Slow Food NYC: Spicy Mina, Dosa Place, and Buen Sabor. The first is a wonderful Indian eatery that’s a favorite of Edible Queens’ publisher Leah McLaughlin. The second is a top-notchspot for Indian crepes know as dosai, and will be sampling its food at next Monday's Asian Feastival. Obraitis’ third pick is a new one on me, but she vouches for its Colombian tamales.

Perhaps I was a bit hasty in my judgment of Berman’s statement as he did go on to say: “‘Authenticity’ in NYC doesn't just mean “native” and “local”—it refers to dozens, maybe hundreds of microcultures that maintain their identities with some creative combination of transplantation, importation and adaptation.” I can only hope that Slow Food NYC comes to embrace more of these microcultures, many of which are represented here in Queens.

As I did four months ago I encourage readers to go here to nominate establishments that engender Slow Food’s ideal of  food that is “good, clean, and fair.” Be sure to comment saying who you picked and why.

Timmy O’s Frozen Custard, 49-07 104 St., Corona, 516-242-1843

Tortilleria Nixtamal, 104-05 47 Ave., Corona, 718-699-2434

M. Wells Diner, 21-17 49th Ave., Long Island City, 718-425-6917

Spicy Mina, 64-23 Broadway, Woodside, 718-205-2340

Dosa Place, 35-66 73rd St., Jackson Heights, 718-397-1000

El Buen Sabor Bakery,  45-07 Queens Boulevard, Sunnyside, 718-361-8714

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