I'm a little late in posting this, but here's my round-up of the secret restaurants of Jackson Heights, Flushing and Elmhurst from last month's New York Post. (My colleague --and fellow Queens inhabitant -- Kirsten Matthew did L.I.C., Astoria and Woodside.)I went on this high caloric expedition with Vikas Khanna (of Junoon), Danielle Chang (of Lucky Rice) and Zak Pelaccio (of Fatty 'Cue, Fatty Crab -- and many other Fatty enterprises.)
My fellow Queens readers will notice that a number of the classic Chinese restaurants of Flushing were sort of ignored. I told Danielle that we could not go to either Hunan Kitchen of Grand Sichuan or Spicy and Tasty. (Once a restaurant has been reviewed by the Times food critic -- as both of those great restaurants have -- it's no longer such a secret, in my view.) But nevertheless, she picked some excellent spots. (You should definitely try the Taiwanese shaved ice spot.)
But my favorites had to be the Elmhurst restaurants (if for no other reason that they were the biggest surprise.)
In fact, we didn't even have space for all the places we visited. We went with Joe DiStefano, author of any serious Queens' resident's go-to blog, World's Fare. (Joe's recent coverage of the new Flushing mall might have made my "secret restaurants of Flushing" list had I been choosing instead of Danielle.) One of the restaurants that we visited (which didn't make the cut) was Java Village -- an Indonisian place that Joe thinks is the best restaurant in Elmhurst.
I was sorry we weren't able to include it. It was awesome.
Happy hunting.
