Sunday News: Chinese BBQ and bakery finally open in Amherst

Why Marble + Rye cheeseburger rules, immigrant cooks who shape Buffalo’s menu

At long last, a proper Chinese barbecue counter and bakery have opened in Buffalo.

Well, in Amherst. Asia Food Market, 2055 Niagara Falls Blvd., has started opening the Wal-Mart-sized commercial space next door.

Notably, with freshly roasted meats in the Chinese style. Bubbly, crackly skin on the roast pork, plus duck, chicken, and char siu.

Get barbecued meat by the pound, over rice, or in a variety of dishes. Yunnan-style rice noodle bowls are a new format for the area. Open 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, closed Monday.

Plus a Chinese bakery, serving a variety of grab-and go meals in dough, plus cream-filled sweets from the refrigerated case.

Asia Food Market owner Rocky Ren said he wanted to bring the full offerings of his other stores here. It has come to pass, and Buffalo’s long Chinese barbecue drought has finally ended.

While you’re there, take advantage of Asia Food Market’s vast and varied shelves. Vegetables by the case, a live seafood market, and Chinese, Korean, Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Filipino and Japanese groceries are among the draws.

Maybe you’d like some fresh mangosteen?

REVIEW: Brian Nagy was a professional pile-driver before he opened Yankee BBQ, so it’s no surprise that his Texas-plus-inspirations menu bangs home big flavors. Expanded into the extensively upgraded former Raphael’s space in Hamburg, Nagy and crew are drawing happy crowds with barbecue and all the fixings – and one of the best Buffalo wing refinements in recent memory. (For patrons, Tuesday)

RIDE-OR-DIE CHEESEBURGER: MARBLE + RYE

When Buffalo Spree gave me the chance to go deep on my favorite cheeseburger in Buffalo, I had this to say:

My earliest childhood crush was the cheeseburger. Tender, impressionable taste buds sang hosannas to its blessed union of beef, beef fat, and molten processed cheese food. Thus, this lifelong love affair was woven into my DNA. Today, when the need for a cheeseburger arises, my first choice honors the child within while satisfying the persnickety adult who has grown to appreciate the finer things in life like…

The Marble + Rye double smashburger of Plato Dale beef comes with crispy smashed potatoes, creme fraiche, chimichurri, and pickles, all housemade.

Grass-fed local beef: At Marble + Rye, chef and owner Michael Dimmer’s patties are made from cattle raised at Plato Dale Farm thirty-five miles away in Arcade. If you’ve never taste-tested grass-fed local beef against generic supermarket meat in the form of a smashburger, you’re in for a real treat.

Housemade ingredients: Even the mayonnaise and mustard on Marble + Rye’s burger are better because they’re fresh, made from recipes dialed-in at 112 Genesee Street and whipped up in small batches.

Fresh bread: That morning’s brioche rolls make the best bread-handles to squish your smashburger into fine hand-eating form. Texture, flavor, and engineering requirements have all been carefully considered for the eater’s benefit.

Simplicity: If you can’t pick up a cheeseburger and take a bite without needing to tarp off the area like a serial killer, that’s a different sport. Positioning the cheeseburger as a blank canvas on which to unload the contents of your walk-in does not imply the work of a burger master.

(You can read the rest here, and devour odes to five more cheeseburgers championed by Buffalo food writers here.)

The author’s mother, Phyllis Galarneau, not looking haggard whatsoever. Happy Mother’s Day to the woman who made me a writer.

THE CRITIC GETS HATE MAIL

When I decided to publish my mother’s photograph on the Internet yesterday, illustrating an appreciation of her favorite restaurants, I braced for hate mail.

Sure enough, only moments after I hit publish, it landed in my inbox.

I did not ask my mother before writing about her favorite restaurants and publishing her photograph. I knew voicing such a request would be unpleasant for both of us, so I went ahead and did it anyways.

Sometimes the people that deserve the most credit will do the most to avoid it. Do you know a mom like that?

Give her an extra big shout-out today, make some noise for mom, and then read her all the emails from strangers saying she’s adorable. That’s what I would do.

Niagara Cafe rotisserie chicken lunch special plus an order of maduros, caramelized plantains.

ASK THE CRITIC

Q: Saw the Buffalo News piece today about immigrants and food. Curious if you are writing it, who would you pick as the top five shaping the food scene here?

K. Ma, Tonawanda

A: A lovely story, and a thought-provoking question. I must say, Kevin Lin (Sun Cuisines) Oded Rauvenpoor (Falafel Bar), and Leonel Rosario (Maizal) would be three of my five. (This is not a brickbat. I’m a huge supporter of the piece’s author, Buffalo News food writer Francesca Bond, a former colleague and top-notch reporter.)

I would add Zelalem Gemmeda, who has maintained Abyssinian Ethiopian Cuisine, the only Ethiopian operation in Buffalo since 2015 and is back at the extensively remodeled International House (formerly Downtown Bazaar). Plus the Quintanas, who run the Puerto Rican standard Niagara Cafe.

More reading from Michael Chelus: