Tom Finkelpearl, executive director of the Queens
Museum of Art is a big fan of Flushing's Spicy and Tasty.

Today Seven Questions turns its attention to Tom Finkelpearl, the executive director of the Queens Museum of Art. QMA's one of my favorite nonfood related places in Queens, plus they have the best Queens T-shirts besides mine that is.

What are some of your favorite places to eat in Queens?
I love Sripraphai in Woodside, Taverna Kyclades in Astoria, Spicy and Tasty in Flushing, Rockaway Taco in Seaside, 5 Star Punjabi in Long Island City, and of course here in Corona, the most excellent Tortilleria Nixtamal.

The cool thing about Queens cuisine is that when you go to a place like Sripraphai, you can hang out a bit with Sripraphai Tipmanee herself who is right there running the register. She is happy to chat if she is not too busy, which she usually is.

Where do you currently call home?
 I have a place in  Lower Manhattan and one on boardwalk in Rockaway–which has become something of a Queens food hotspot this summer!   

I remember the shaved ice themed Pimp My Piragua exhibit. Any other food-themed projects in the works?
 Our next big food endeavor is to figure out what to do with the café in the museum once our expansion is complete. We have formed a food committee and it will be kicking into gear in the next month or so. 

If you could spend a weekend eating your way through one Queens neighborhood, which one would you pick?
Flushing. There is just such an array of Asian food options there–Chinese (Cantonese, Szechuan, Shanghainese, Beijing), Taiwanese, Korean, North Indian, South Indian, and so on. Honestly, though I am of the belief that variety is not the spice of life.  I have been to Spicy and Tasty at least 50 times, and expect to go there at least 50 more. 

Which has better food Brooklyn or Queens?
 My wife is a curator at the Brooklyn Museum, so I need to be careful on this one.  I would say that Brooklyn has different strengths, and wins on the high end.  For my taste, there is nowhere in America where you can buy a better meal for $20 than Queens, and for the most part these meals cannot be beat at any price.

What's the strangest thing you've ever eaten?
 I am a vegetarian, so nothing too exotic on the ingredients side. I think it is interesting to eat food that is a hybrid–like Mirch (Indian Chinese) or Junghwa yori, (Korean Chinese) because it creates such unexpected combinations in the attempt to domesticate foreign tastes. I don’t care for Americanized Chinese food, but Koreanized of Indianized Chinese is excellent.

It's snack time. Salty or sweet?
Salty!

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Sikhs preparing hundreds upon hundreds of roti at a
langar in Richmond Hill. Note the Goya Masarepa dough.

Queens has its fair share of hybrid cuisines: Indian-Chinese, Korean-Chinese, Guyanese-Chinese, and Peruvian-Chinese. At one time there was even an Indonesian-Latino restaurant. One combination I've been hoping for is Indian-Latino, can you imagine a dosa packed with guacamole, or curry-scented al pastor tacos? To the best of my knowledge Indian-Latino doesn't exist yet. I did however witness a crew of Sikhs making hundreds of roti with Goya Masarepa dough at a langar in Richmond Hill for Diwali this past winter.

Langars are communal kitchens that churn out vegetarian food for hundreds and in some case thousands of worshippers. While making the grub the workers chant “Sat naam wahe guru,”or, “only his name is true.” Witnessing the preparation of these communal meals is truly a window into another culture.

Pakora man was tasked with frying up loads of crunchy veggie fritters.

As you read this  dozens of volunteers are hard at work at the langar in Richmond Hill in preparation for New York City's largest free vegetarian buffet. It will take place this Saturday in Madison Square Park. It's held in celebration of Vaisakhi, a holiday that commemorates the founding of Sikhism.There will also be a parade, that kicks off at 11:30 a.m. For more information check out Sikh Day Parade. Don't expect any Indian-Latino food though.

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Mangals’ falafel sandwich packed into a wedge of sesame-studded ekmek.

Mother always told me to eat my vegetables. Perhaps that’s why I found myself eating a falafel at Mangal Kebab House, instead of an adana sandwich. More likely I was in the mood for this Sunnyside stalwart’s Turkish take on falafel. Instead of ordering it in a pita ($4.50) I opted for what I like to call the megafalafel, which comes stuffed into a wedge of what the menu calls “home bread.” (In Turkish homes the sesame-studded round is better known as eskender.)

Six dollars buys one of Queens’ more formidable falafel. Eating it requires two hands and no small amount of dexterity. No matter how careful you are, an errant smear of hummus will likely land on your cheek. What the waiter called hot sauce and white sauce, blow away their street cart cousins. Biber salçası, is a deep red paste made from chilis and salt, while cacik is a cooling cucumber yogurt concoction. I applied both liberally to great effect. 

Uludağ, one of several Turkish soft drinks available at Mangal.

To wash down the gigantic falafel I grabbed an Uludağ from the case. The “fruits flavored fizzy soft drink” takes its name from a Turkish mountain. As best as I can tell it's an old-timey Turkish soda. Like most fruit-flavored ethnic soft drinks (I’m looking at you Inca Kola) it tastes vaguely like tutti-frutti bubble gum. Next time I down a sandwich the size of my head at Mangal I’m going to opt for a bottle of digestive Sarikiz mineral water instead. Lord knows I’ll need it.

Mangal Kebab House, 46-20 Queens Boulevard, Sunnyside, 718-706-0605

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Lama Tendi (second from back right) enjoys
some veggie fare with his followers at Himalayan Hut.

“These are not the first monks to dine here,” manager Wu “Pinky” Ying told me Tuesday night at Himalayan Hut as I snapped photos. Nor will they likely be the last. Lama Tendi a Buddhist monk from Nepal and a multigenerational group of about a dozen of his Sherpa followers had come to honor Guru Padmasambhava, who is said to have brought Buddhism to Tibet, Bhutan and Nepal. According to Wikipedia, Guru Padmasambhava once said, “I consume concepts of duality as my diet.”

Chili Gobi, veggie nirvana for spice freaks.

I don’t know if duality was on the group’s all veggie bill of fare that night. Veggie momo, hakka noodle and a killer gobi Manchurian were though. Fried gobi or cauliflower were coated with a deliciouss gravy made from cooked down onions, ginger, chili, garlic, and soy sauce.

Somehow I’m not surprised that a group of monks from the rooftop of the world chose to dine at Himalayan Hut. I’ll wager that it’s the only Chinese takeout in Queens to ever host such a gathering. I kind of wish I stuck around long enough to see if they ordered anything from the restaurant’s American Chinese menu.

Himalayan Hut, 75-18 37th Ave., Jackson Heights, 718-426-6888

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