No Substitution for the Original

Earlier this year, I reviewed the new Jackson Diner in Manhattan, which I was excited to try out.  Although this location is far more convenient, the original Jackson Diner in Jackson Heights is so much better, I just couldn't help talking about it a bit.

The original Jackson Diner is located at 3747 74th Street in Queens off the Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Ave stop for the 7/E/F/M/R trains - so there is no excuse as most New Yorkers can manage to get here.  Trust me, its worth the trip.

It's a weird looking restaurant with lots of room, high ceilings and gruff waiters.  They do their job, but I wouldn't necessarily call them friendly.

I came here with my dad, Mel and Adam on a Tuesday evening, about 7pm.  They weren't busy, so the food came very quickly.

We started with the Chat Papri, a mixture of crisps, potatoes, and chick peas in yogurt and tamarind sauce, something we usually order and enjoy.  It's a bit sweet, tangy and spicy - a really interesting mixture of flavors and textures. 

I don't usually eat dairy, but I had no issue avoiding the small drizzling of yogurt on this dish.  Our food came just as we were finishing off the last bite.

Perfect timing!


My dad ordered the Lamb Roganjosh, boneless juicy pices of lamb cooked in traditional kashmiri masala.  He's a huge fan of lamb and rarely eats it.  I loved the sauce and kept dipping the naan bread in it, but I'm not a fan of lamb so didn't really spend much time working on this. 


As long as dad was happy... 

Adam and I ordered two dishes to share, the first was Murg Tikka Palakwala, broiled chicken pieces cooked with spinach, tomato, and ginger tempered with cumin seeds. 

This was the first time trying this dish here. It was absolutely fantastic!!  It was very similar to sag but had that butter flavor from tikka masala.  I'm sure I shoudn't have been eating this since it most likely had dairy but I didn't care!  This is probably one of my fave Indian dishes of all time.  The chicken was so succulent, the spinach so flavorful that every bite was a dream come true.  The left overs were equally delicious.  

We also ordered the Chole Peshawari, chick peas and diced potatoes cooked in traditional punjabi style.  This is similar to Chana Masala which is a common dish seen on most Indian menus.  It was really good although I like my Indian food a little more spicy.  I think they were being gentle with us since my dad asked for his dish mild. Oh well! I like my food SPICY!  

Mel wasn't too hungry, so she ordered the Aloo Gobi, which is potatoes and cauliflower tossed with Indian spices, so that I could take it home and enjoy it for lunch the next day.  I like Indian leftovers almost as much as fresh at the restaurant.  They marinate and their flavors enhance - its just so freaking good!

This was the only "dry" entree we got, which complimented the other dishes nicely.  I'm a fan of the "wet' India dishes, but its nice to mix it up once in a while.  I took an Indian cooking class and learned how to make this, except it would never come out this good. 

 

It was an epic meal and we ended up taking home a ton of leftovers.  The naan was particularly greasy, but oh so good at soaking up the incredibly flavorful sauces.  I really love Indian food and Jackson Diner serves the best in NYC (or at least what I've discovered so far). It may not be the nicest restaurant with the best servers, but their food speaks for itself.   

So check it out if you have a chance, you won't regret it! 

Rule #1 of Midtown Lunch

Like most people who work in Midtown Manhattan, I'm subjected to expensive and mostly crappy food when I don't pack my own lunch.  There are tons of websites out there that certainly help identify "inexpensive" options, but is $10 or less really inexpensive?  That's $50 per week, about $250 a month or worse, $2600 a year.  That's terrifying.  I don't want to spend $2,600 on crappy food a year, I could go on a lovely vacation for that price.

So after working in Midtown East for over 2 years, I've narrowed down the food that I'm willing to spend money on and there are a few loose rules that I apply when selecting lunch.

Rule#1 of Buying Lunch in Midtown:
If its large enough for two meals then its a win!

Let's be real here, Americans overeat which is why we have an obesity epidemic, but I tend to win in these situations since I portion my meals.  A number of lunches I purchase are more than enough for two, sometimes three!  This brings down the overall lunch cost a great deal.

A very clear example of this rule is from one of my favorite meals for lunch from an Indian take-out place I discovered week 1 at my job called Joy.

I used to eat here about once every two weeks for months on end. That is how much I love my Indian food.  Recently I noticed that they received a B from the Dept of Health but I don't really care.  They're awesome and I will keep eating here.  The reason I don't frequent here as much is due to my diet, but I treat myself every so often and its worth the extra calories.

They have a steam table, which is nice so you can see what you're getting.  They're always adding fresh items throughout the day, so everything is super hot and tasty!

I usually go with their #2 special which is a meat and a vegetarian dish with rice and naan.  It is a TON of food, as you can see from the photo below. 

This is Chicken Karahi, which is mildly spicy (although sometimes its a little hotter than other days since its made fresh and can vary depending on the cook).  I LOVE sauce, so I ask them to drench my rice.  It has fresh ginger and tomatoes with big chunks of white meat chicken.  It is oh so delicious.  I noticed they had Chicken Sag, so I asked that they give me just the sag (spinach) as the veggie side.  They're super nice and know me well by now so they usually cave in to my ridiculous request.  They always have unique and fresh veggie sides.

Indian is one of the few cuisines I could honestly go entirely vegetarian for.  They make everything so good that you really don't care that an animal is missing from your plate.

 

Chiara, my fabulous coworker and usual lunch buddy, ordered the same dish but with a side of mixed vegetables.  There is always so much food that neither of us can ever come close to finishing our lunch.  So we pack it up and save the rest for the next day.  What's wonderful about Indian food is that it usually tastes just as good the next day reheated.  Curry is magical?

I really don't know how people can sit and finish this much food, but I guess power to you if you can?

This meal costs a little under $10 (I think its $9.17) including tax and yes it comes with that giant fluffy amazing nan.  It's hard to find anything in Midtown that feeds a person this well for less than $5.  

This concludes Rule #1 of Midtown Lunch.  

Stayed tuned for Rule #2 Supporting the Food Trucks!

Venturing to the New Jackson Diner

While I was taking an Indian Cooking Class at Brooklyn Kitchen, mention of a new Jackson Diner in the city brought music to my ears.  I love Indian food, obviously since I was at an India cooking class, and Jackson Heights is the number one place to get some amazing cuisine.  I've tried a few places in Jackson Heights with mixed reviews.  I usually like going to Jackson Diner, since the food is always hot, fresh and there are tons of leftovers to enjoy afterwards.


I'm not a huge fan of all-you-can-eat-buffets since I usually can't eat that much and I love having leftovers to enjoy the next day.  Indian food is one of those special cuisines that actually tastes better the next day.


With a little online searching, I discovered it opened a few months ago and has a fairly warm reception (based on Yelp of course) so far.  The new expansion is located at 72 University Place between East 10th and 11th.  A quick ride on the L and I was there in no time.


The decor was cute, a little more modern and upscale compared to the one in Jackson Heights.  We were seated right away and was excited to discover that the back wall was a window that overlooked the kitchen where they had a tandoori oven.  It's so cool to see them skewer the meat raw, put it in the over and then later pull out perfectly baked chicken.


Their menu is much smaller than their main restaurant, but it has everything one could possibly want.

Taste of Three

We ordered an appetizer, Taste of Three, to start.  It out quickly and offered us more than we could eat.  It had one samosa cut in half, which was by far the best I've ever had.  Not that I've had all that many since I'm not a huge fan of peas, but it was damn good.  It had a few juicy piece of chicken tikka, straight from that fabulous oven I was watching the entire time I was there.  It also had 3 well sized fried fish filets called Machi Amritsari.  This was exciting for us since we've never tried seafood at an Indian restaurant.  It was a flaky white fish, perfectly cooked and seasoned with Indian spices.  You could definitely taste unique spices blended into the batter.  It was really interesting!!  Honestly, this appetizer was so large, it could have easily been shared with four people.  I was already full by the time our main course came out.  Apparently this was Adam's plan all along since he wanted to take home lots of delicious left overs.  He is a sneaky fellow.

For our main course, we did what we always do, ordered a meat and a vegetarian option.  I was SUPER excited to discover that they offered lots of Sag options including Aloo and Chana (potatoes and chickpeas).  I ordered the Chana Sag and Adam went for the Chicken Curry, since it seemed like the healthier option.  It was a showdown between curry and masala, but masala has cream - hence not as healthy and would probably give me hives.  Although I would gladly take the hives for some delicious, creamy masala!


It took a while for the entrees to come out, but I wasn't hungry and enjoyed the wait.

Chicken Curry and Chana Sag

Both were brought out in the traditional metal bowls they use at the original Jackson Diner.  The portions are generous and the food was really good.  

Chana Sag

I loved the Chana Sag, it was absolutely delicious.  I know this looks gross, but its just not a photogenic dish.  Its just sloppy green glop, but its so tasty!!!  The chickpeas were cooked perfectly and practically melted in your mouth.  The greens, because I can't tell what type of greens they used, were creamy and flavorful.  It was spiced perfectly with just enough kick to keep things interesting. 

The Chicken Curry was also really good.  It wasn't the best curry we've ever had, but it was spiced well and had lots of juicy chunks of white meat chicken.  It was a hearty portion that left Adam very satisfied.  I liked that they kept it at a medium heat, per our request.  Although Adam and I can take a bit of heat, Indian food can be quite a challenge if spiced too much.  

I have a great deal of respect for cultures that can handle their spice, and let me tell you - Indians can bring it. 

Overall, the meal was well worth the small price.  The Chana Sag was only $10, the Chicken Curry was $12 and the Taste of Three was $10.  It's really an affordable restaurant that packs a lot of flavor. The service isn't that great, but you're not really going here for that - now are you??  I still think the original Jackson Diner is FAR BETTER than this.  But let's give it some time. So I'll give the new Jackson Diner 4 stars, since it is hard to find some good Indian food up to my snobbish standards in NYC.  I would have said 3.5 stars, but they had Chana Sag, which isn't all that easy to find! 


After a spicy meal, we needed something sweet.  We stopped by Whole Foods at Union Square, since they have a really nice dessert section with many local and in-house treats to choose from.  I LOVE carrot cake, and thank goodness my partner in crime feels the same as I do about it.  I don't think I could love a man who didn't love carrot cake.  We also tried the dark chocolate honeymoon, which was this chocolate caramel pecan treat that was mighty expensive, but really good.

Isn't this just about the cutest carrot cake you've ever seen.  It had real cream cheese frosting, which is the key factor in distinguishing good carrot cake from the bad. 

There was a ton of frosting, which was both good and bad.  Good in that it tasted delicious, bad in that it was not good for my waistline.  

Definitely check out the desserts available at Whole Foods, specifically the one at Union Square.  It's a nice alternative to Max Brenner around the corner that had an hour wait just to get in on a Saturday night.