Back to Bayside
To paraphrase Eddie Murphy, where you can you find a staycation fit for a king? Queens! Bayside may not be an iconic tourist destination, but it seemed to have the best combination of walkable scenery and access to unusual food delivery options unavailable at home.
Sevan Armenian Restaurant & Catering inspired the whole thing. I liked it some years ago but they were out of basturma. Worth the wait!
With Yelp reviews praising the salad and the lahmajun/Armenian pizza, I veered into a non-entree direction, also adding the beef-filled kufta appetizer. They don’t go into much detail about the “secret spices” in the salad, yet it was spectacular. When tomatoes are this good I’m confused; like, there are certain
culinary skills that require magical elements and ancient recipes and years of hard work, but why should some restaurants do so much better than other in the simple act of buying tomatoes?
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Time and weather didn’t encourage a trip to an obvious sunset destination like Fort Totten, but Oakland Lake in Alley Pond Park had some western-facing scenery.
The second dinner of the night was from Mama Philo’s African Cuisine in Elmont. The peppered snail may be an acquired texture, but the sauce was outstanding. The egusi was excellent but don’t ask me the ingredients; I got the assorted meat option but there’s also a fish version.
It comes with yam, eba or amala. The menu doesn’t go into detail about these so I turned to Wikipedia, but they’re generally carb options to lap up the sauce. Jollof rice turned up in the reviews but I’m glad something newer to me.
I hit the Tulip Tree Trail at Alley Pond Park bright and early, around 3pm. I never went on this excursion in the 70s when I actually lived a mile from here, but I reckon urban hiking wasn’t as much of a thing back then.
Upon entering the park I enjoyed the trees, some swamps and the bucolic honking of the Cross Island Parkway, but then it started to feel Blair Witchy. Turns out that wasn’t the actual trail.
I glimpsed the “Alley Pond Giant” which was tough to find, perhaps intentionally, then checked out part of the red trail on the south side of the LIE. My plans to circle back through the marshy areas on the east side of the park weren’t plausible, so I exited near 73rd Ave. We’re not talking Yellowstone, but this an excellent scenic payoff for something within the boundaries of New York City.
