For most of my adult life I’ve lived in Queens, the largest of New York City’s five boroughs. Nicknamed “The World’s Borough,” with half of its 2.4 million residents being foreign-born, it’s one of America’s most diverse urban areas—and one of the most exciting places on the planet to eat.
In my neighborhood of Jackson Heights, more than 160 languages are spoken, from Bengali to Thakali to Mixtec. Here I might spot a saffron-robed monk eating a Burmese tea leaf salad by the subway stairs or stumble on a church bazaar selling Salvadoran pupusas.
As I worked on my cookbooks and National Dish, about cuisines and identities, food has always been my entry point into the polyglot social mosaic around me. In the part of Jackson Heights dubbed Little India, the air practically throbs with the scents of masalas from every South Asian region. To the west, along a vibrant pan-Latin thoroughfare under the elevated 7 train rumbling above, Quechua-speakers munch on chochos (lupini beans) and Colombian teens clutch plastic cups of Technicolor raspados (crushed ice). East of here is the Little Manila of Woodside. South lies Elmhurst, an ever-expanding Asia-zone with some of the most vibrant Thai food in the country.
A far larger Asia-town awaits in Flushing where I can try noodles from Guangzhou or Chengdu or Lanzhou. Beyond it: Murray Hill’s massive Koreatown. And did I mention the Egyptian seafood and Balkan bureks and Greek pastries cheek by jowl with hip cocktail spots in fast-gentrifying
