More than half of New York City’s Asian American immigrants live in Queens. Many of the borough’s neighborhoods have become hubs of community and culture for immigrant groups seeking to uphold traditions in their day-to-day life. You’ll see awnings and menus in native languages, people in traditional garments and holidays celebrated with festivals in the streets.
Over time, communities expand and attune to the “melting pot” of the City. Because restaurants are a great indicator of how these communities grow and change within the five boroughs, we’re introducing you to three Queens neighborhoods—Woodside, Jamaica and Flushing—and showing how their immigrant communities continue to shape the story of their American identity through food.
Courtesy, Zhego NYC
The First Taste of Bhutan in Woodside
Possibly the only full-service Bhutanese restaurant in NYC, Zhego marks an exciting new chapter in Woodside’s culinary evolution, featuring specialties from the tiny landlocked kingdom on the eastern ridges of the Himalayas. Its chef-owner, Topten Jambay, found success during the pandemic selling his dishes via social media, leading him to become something of a culinary ambassador for Bhutan.
“To be honest, I thought a lot of Bhutanese people were going to come but it turned out the other way,” Jambay says, as he preps dinner service at Zhego: washing and chopping vegetables, stuffing and pinching momos, shredding the meats he’s curing himself.
As most of his diners are Tibetan, Nepali or just curious eaters, Jambay has shifted his focus from serving his local community to introducing others to Bhutan and its cuisine. After all, there are fewer than 30,000 Bhutanese Americans in the US, only a small fraction of whom live in New York City.
Jambay takes his self-appointed ambassadorship seriously, promoting Bhutanese cuisine every way he can. Zhego has been featured in The New Yorker, The Infatuation, ABC7, Righteous Eats and Eater, where he’d insert Bhutanese language like “ema datsi” (pepper cheese) into the foodie lexicon. He also makes it a point to answer questions his diners have, such as “Why is there so much cheese on the menu?” and “Why so much dried meat?”
Jambay grew up cooking for his siblings back in the Bhutanese capital of Thimphu; his family raised cattle, cooked over firewood and churned their own butter and cheese. His menu pulls from different regions of the mountainous country. Bhutan’s national dish, ema datsi, is a spicy, gooey stir-fry of green peppers and melty cheeses. For his shakam paa, he cooks cured beef with string beans and dried red chili peppers in a sauce of tomato, ginger and onion. Jambay has even found work-arounds for ingredient-sourcing challenges. His brother mails him red rice grains, and he’s substituted feta for datsi (traditionally made from yak milk), which is less salty and sour. For those with non-Himalayan palates, he’s learned to lower spice levels.
Jambay hopes for a future that includes more Bhutanese restaurants in NYC (after the recent closing of a food truck, the only place besides Zhego is the Weekender, a snooker hall with a kitchen). “Then we can expand the cultural exchange,” he says. “New York City has food from all over the world, except for Bhutanese—well, so little of it.”
Courtesy, Sagar Restaurant
A Community Prepares for Eid in Jamaica
Farther southeast, Little Bangladesh in Jamaica is a tight-knight community of Bangladeshi Americans, woven together by immigrant family dynamics and various social and cultural pillars that have cropped up to support the local residents.
Following Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladeshi immigrants settled in Jamaica and other Queens neighborhoods. The population has surged in the past few decades, helped by the 1995 Diversity Immigrant Visa lottery, and there are now multiple “Little Bangladeshes” in the City. In Queens, the longer-established community has built itself up, with nonprofits like Jamaica Bangladesh Friends Society and Chhaya as well as mosques and restaurants.
“There were so few Bangladeshi people back then,” says Moreom Perven, tenant leader of the Bangladeshi Tenant Union, who came to Jamaica in 1999.
This enclave of Bangladeshi immigrants comes alive in particular during the month of Ramadan, especially for iftar, or the breaking of the Ramadan fast with an evening meal. Along the main stretch of Bangladeshi restaurants on Hillside Avenue, aunties in marigold hijabs link arms; uncles in panjabis chat; and chains such as Ctown Supermarkets and IHOP display celebratory Ramadan signs.
As the majority of Bangladeshis are Muslim, halal preparation—requiring a specific method of slaughtering the meat and an adherence to no pork, alcohol or cross-contamination—is pivotal to the community. Because the food purveyors are from the community, there’s trust that the food is halal. They work with mosques to donate iftar meals to those who come to break their fast. Iftar boxes—a dinner kit that helps people break their fast in an easy way—are priced affordably, so that anyone, particularly students, taxi drivers, health care workers and the elderly, can purchase them, explains Perven.
Restaurants here are de facto cultural spaces, and during Ramadan, they fill up before anyone can eat. From restaurateurs to customers, people prepare for sundown, when they can break their fast. Around 2pm, restaurant staff at Khalil Biryani House start setting up the buffet table, positioning a long row of aluminum trays over chafing fuel cans. Vegetable fritters gleam with a golden just-out-of-the-fryer sheen.
At Premium Sweets on Hillside Avenue near 168th Street, a long line forms for their signature jilapi (jalebi in India and Pakistan). These glistening coils of crunchy, fried fermented dough dripping with syrup come in variations using saffron, molasses or ghee. At Sagar Chinese on Homelawn Street, the line is also out the door. Opened in 2008, it’s one of the City’s first Indo-Chinese restaurants, beloved by the community for expanding the neighborhood's halal options. Four blocks east along Hillside Avenue, the contemporary Premium Sweets Dal and Chal (no relation to the above shop) showcases trays of iftar dishes: beguni (golden eggplant fritters), creative cheese-stuffed pakoras, stir-fried chickpeas and chicken leg quarters, bright red from Kashmiri chile powder.
Whether you’re visiting next Ramadan for iftar or on a regular Tuesday, stroll down Hillside for a taste of what the Bangladeshi Muslim community has to offer.
Kura Revolving Sushi Bar. Courtesy, Tangram
Sleek Renovations Change Dining in Downtown Flushing
On any given weekend evening in downtown Flushing, Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao lures a crowd large enough for the line to snake up the stairs and out the door of One Fulton Square outdoor mall. The property sits alongside a collection of recently erected luxury residential high-rises and restaurants catering to those residents, often featuring fantastical displays made to be shared on social media.
Change is happening across downtown Flushing’s Chinese community, the largest in NYC. The transformation includes OG players like the Golden Mall and New World Mall as well as newer establishments like global chains PappaRich and Ju Qi and home-grown Chong Qing Lao Zao.
Courtesy, Tangram
But long-time residents and locals remember that things used to look very different. Most restaurants were mom-and-pop affairs, including Nan Xiang’s former location on Prince Street—a no-frills, gray-beige spot where senior Chinese immigrants would get their breakfast of youtiao (fried dough) and hot soy milk or signature soup dumplings. As for mainstays like the recently renovated Golden Mall, the original food court is recalled fondly for its underground labyrinth of shops with pull-down metal gates and hand-written posters taped to the walls.
The demographics of downtown Flushing began to shift with the entry of younger, wealthier students from China. Nan Xiang, like many other businesses, had trouble keeping up with the influx and competition. In 2019, it shut down, reopening later in the year under new management and a new landlord: F&T Group at One Fulton Square. F&T Group has been the dominant player in constructing the new skyline in this pocket of Queens, which includes mixed-use developments Queens Crossing, Flushing Commons and Tangram—and the sleek restaurants inside them.
If you manage to brave the weekend line and step into Nan Xiang’s modern 5,000-square-foot space, you’ll encounter trees adorning the entrance, a bilingual staff and a slew of colorfully dyed soup dumplings that have made it to the menu. While the ambiance might be different, your taste buds won’t notice.
When it comes to the borough of Queens, these neighborhoods aren’t just destinations; they are residential communities where culture and identity are preserved, becoming part of the fabric of the City.
