I’m convinced that baseball is the kind of sport that you don’t need to know much about to enjoy it. Long before the Atlanta Braves were the 2021 World Series champions, my Georgia-born friends and I would spend $10 to watch them play the Mets at Citi Field in Queens. (Most of that time was spent chatting and occasionally watching the action.)
Mets games are a relatively affordable form of entertainment in New York City, but that affordability doesn’t always extend to the food sold at Citi Field. As much as I love consuming beer and chicken tenders in bulk, some of the best and most enriching dishes are just one stop away on the No. 7 express line at the Junction Boulevard stop.
Beneath those worn-out subway tracks is a world of bountiful food, no reservations required, that you’ll miss unless you disembark and walk to Roosevelt Avenue. A real market – mostly with food from the Latin diaspora – is teeming with options.
Street Vendors Before Concessions
For about $12 – bring cash! – you can get four of the best tamales of your life from Evelia’s Tamales on the northwest corner of Junction Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue. You can order the bright salsa verde tamale, with generously shredded chicken tucked into the cooked masa, or the heartier adobo that includes spicy guajillo peppers and pork. Or do what I did and ask about the dealer’s choice. It’s impossible to go wrong.
At another cart, I tried some of the crispest and fluffiest cheese empanadas I’ll ever come across. They came out hot from the cooking oil, perfectly crispy with a bit of salty, melted white cheese in them. I only bought one and immediately regretted it. I could have eaten a thousand. My regret about chicken tenders.
When I returned last weekend, the woman selling those empanadas was nowhere to be found, but that’s the nature of Junction Boulevard: it’s always changing. So instead I grabbed a piping hot chicharrón quesadilla from Homemade Taqueria on the corner of 40th Road and Junction where you can watch the staff making tortillas in real time.
Further down Roosevelt Avenue at the corner of 78th Street you will find Birria-Landia, which hopefully will never go away. There they serve the kind of birria de res you find in Tijuana, Mexico. In 2019, the food truck ushered in an obsession, now shared by TikTok users and the street food scene, with consomé soaked birria tacos.
“The meat, a mix of brisket, shank and round top, is rich and seems to soften as you eat it, like a piece of chocolate,” wrote Pete Wells in his two-star review of the truck, which now has a second location near the stop. Lorimer on the L line.
These businesses are part of a rich network of ambulantes, or street vendors, some of whom only started selling food after the pandemic began to offset the loss of work or housing. At the end of 2020, my colleagues Juan Arredondo and David Gonzalez published a moving interactive article about these sellers, many of whom are undocumented. They all have to do with the city’s limited number of permits available, and unlicensed sellers can face crippling fines. Take the time to read their stories — they share these experiences with thousands of others.
That stretch of Roosevelt Avenue is as much a part of the New York City fabric as seeing the Mets go to play. There’s no reason we can’t enjoy and honor each one. After all, it is only a train stop away.
In other news…
Reviewed this week by Pete Wells Inga’s Bar in Brooklyn Heights, where comfort food, including a really good celery salad, takes center stage.
Openings: File Gumbo Bar brings Creole and Cajun cooking to TriBeCa; a nine-course $320 kaiseki menu is now offered in the Flatiron at . neighborhood Nikutei Futago† Roberta’s Pizza opens this Saturday in Montauk; and more.
Angel’s Sharethe beloved Japanese speakeasy that closed in March is making a temporary return, popping up at Hotel Eventi near Herald Square from June 1 to early September, reports Robert Simonson.
Matt Flegenheimer Profiled Guy Fiericexploring how the chef and TV personality pushed his way into the heart of America with sheer willpower.
Julia Carmel reported on the condition of the city’s karaoke sceneand included 14 recommendations.
participants of nomas Dinner sets of $700 per person in Brooklyn received full refunds, as well as the promised multi-course meal, after American Express, a sponsor, announced that chef René Redzepi had tested positive for Covid and would not attend, Florence Fabricant reports.
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