Momos, fuchka, haneeth, manakish, tortas, lacy buns, and more delicious curiosities of WNY
A recent Buffalo Reddit thread asked for the “best unknown places to eat in Buffalo.” The answers identify lots of worthwhile eating opportunities.
Before offering my patrons the Four Bites version, let me pause to explain how your support makes a Four Bites report better eating intel.
As an agent of my readers, I check out tips and sightings, plus intel from other sources, every week. Your $.97 a week buys you information analyzed and verified by a professional journalist.
Every week, I collate reports, consult schedules, make a travel plan, coordinate with native cuisine experts, and get in my car to see what’s what. Any cook can write a menu. The proof is on the plate.
If the chow is meh, you’ll never hear about it from me. Drilling dry holes comes with the territory.
So what follows is the distillation of hundreds of hours of work. Conversations with scores of people, followed up with site visits, and revisits, to taste the truth. That’s the Four Bites difference.
These are the 10 dishes or places with the biggest gap between their fame and the marvelousness of their work. If you’ve read every Four Bites missive, some will be familiar, but are still included because most people remain tragically unaware of their existence.
Nepali peanut salad and momos
Taste of Nepal, 431 3rd St., Niagara Falls, offers a menu three-quarters Indian with a Nepalese accent, and a dozen Nepalese specialties. Peanut masala ($14.51) combines peanuts, cucumber, tomato, and onion in lively mustard oil dressing. Momos, the Nepalese-Tibetan dumplings, here stuffed with spiced chicken, are available as is, with rousing roasted tomato sauce ($12.37), in creamy tomato-chile broth (jhol momo, $13.78), and other settings. This is a seasonal place, mothballed during the winter.
Special dolphin kothu
Colombo Spice, 265 Kenmore Ave., the former JJ’s Cafe spot, is Sri Lankan now. If you told me that cheese, chicken, and bread would serve as the foundation for a remarkable dish, Sri Lankan would not have been my first guess of cuisines. But that’s what makes discovering what other peoples have been up to in the kitchen so much fun. Fiery chile at near-volcanic levels makes this dish inaccessible to sensitive palates, but if you like getting lit up like a Christmas tree, dig in ($19.95). By the way, the dolphin is not an ingredient, it’s just a name.
Fuchka
Buffalo Tea Chat, 2235 Fillmore Ave., is a cozy tearoom with a light menu and Bengali pop on the sound system. A Bengali friend turned me on to fuchka, the Bengali version of Indian snack champ pani puri. Chef-owner Sanjana Ahmad makes her own golfball-sized puffs, filling each with a mixture of potato, herbs, chickpeas, green bell pepper, and chopped hardboiled egg. Served by the half-dozen, they come with a spicy-sweet-sour tamarind sauce meant to be drizzled into each bite before popping.
Fava cauldron and bread
Yemen Star, 754 Sycamore St., was recommended by Yemeni friends who prefer its cooking over Almandi’s. A recent visit made clear that they’re rivals, at least. The aroma of the rice, the melting tenderness of the lamb haneeth ($20.99), and the absolutely beguiling cauldron of mashed fava beans with garlic and spices ($9.99), with a hubcap-sized piece of made-just-for-you bread ($1.50), offers a sublime moment on Sycamore Street. I’ll return to explore more of the menu.
Papaya salad and fried meatballs
Unity Island, in the Buffalo River, accessible via a one-lane bridge off Niagara Street, is where some people park to walk south on the breakwater path underneath the Peace Bridge. In summertime, others turn north, to find a diverse crowd of immigrant families enjoying the park. On weekends, in good weather, cooks sell boxes of snacks, like papaya salad, grilled meats and noodles, samosas, and meatballs. Without permits, police occasionally come and roust them, but they return.
Lacy fried dumplings
China Taste, 1280 Sweet Home Road, Amherst, offers dumplings made that morning, fried and steamed in a covered kettle, yielding a lacy, crispy skirt. (It’s $12, a $4 upcharge over $8 steamed dumplings for a reason.) This is a move I’d only seen in distant Chinatowns, but now it’s right across the street from University at Buffalo’s Amherst campus. It’s a variation on sheng-jian bao, pan-fried dumplings on the juicy side.
Sheep’s-milk-butter baklava
Fresh Arabic Sweets, 560 Amherst St., remains unknown to many Buffalonians who say they love baklava. If they only knew they could choose from six kinds baked fresh daily by Syrian baklava artists, with a touch of sheep milk butter for $10 a pound, while the Wegmans across the street sells months-old stuff from a New Jersey factory for $13 a pound. Plus, the $7 chicken shawarma sandwich is a neighborhood favorite.
Sheep’s milk cheese manakish
Buffalo Fresh, 284 Ontario St., is a multicultural supermarket with a bakery and prepared food counter in the rear. You might have gotten wise to the fact that you can buy still-warm samoon loaves, four for $5, or close. But shoppers looking for a cheesy snack can also order a manakish ($7) at the prepared food counter. Fresh dough is stretched, topped with sheep’s milk cheese, and fired to golden brown and melty. A restorative nosh to give you strength to explore.
Tea leaf salad
Kati Za, 139 Grant St., was pointed out to me by neighbors. The array of cultures on its menu was eye-opening, from Burmese to Indonesian to Malaysian, including dosas. Only been once so far, but the place needs further exploration. That’s because the Burmese tea leaf salad at Kati Za is my favorite since Lin Restaurant closed. The fried tofu salad was also delightful for its balance and freshness.
Beef milanesa torta
WNY Empanadas, 27 Chandler St., offers empanadas of savory and sweet fillings in flaky, buttery baked crust, Saturdays starting at 8 a.m. at the North Tonawanda City Market. Check events calendar for other appearances. Plus, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, tortas for pickup at 27 Chandler St. These are double-sized sandwiches, feeding two or more, on housemade telera bread. Order a half for the usual torta payload. Beef milanesa, cutlets panfried to order ($13.50/$25) and smoky chicken tinga ($12.75-$23.50) are the current styles.
Chili chicken
Bengali Restura, 687 Kenmore Ave., took over the space that once held Balkan Dining, serving Pakistani, Indian, Moroccan, and related dishes, with a strong hand in Indian-Chinese dishes like chow mein, garlic shrimp, fried rice, and chili chicken.
Indian Chinese is a thing, and you can find it on the side at a lot of Indian restaurants in the area these days. But when I tried the Scheduling sizzling skillet Manchurian at this place, it caught my attention and leaked to the top of my Indo-Chinese rankings.
#30#
