A few weeks ago, I ate a perfectly lovely meal at Gazala Place, one of the very few restaurants in the United States specializing in Druze cuisine. To be precise, it’s one of exactly two Druze restaurants in the United States: the other is Gazala’s, also owned by Israel-born Druze chef Halabi Gazala. Apparently, Chef […]

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As a longtime fan of hole-in-the-wall ethnic restaurants (a friendly reminder: if the term “hole-in-the-wall” gives you happy memories of toilet stalls in truck stop restrooms, you might need help), I always have low expectations of everything besides the food itself. If the tables are dirty, the menus are tattered, and the service is clunky, […]

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At first, I worried that I’d picked the worst possible moment to visit Duzan, a Palestinian restaurant in Astoria: the entryway to the restaurant was littered with a small pile of lumber and construction tools, and I approached the place just as one of the owners was about to light up a cigarette outside. He […]

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I have a theory: pretty much anything tastes damned good when you dip it in batter and deep-fry it. A deep-fried hot dog surrounded in cornmeal? Delicious. A deep-fried Oreo cookie or Twinkie? Gooey and scrumptious, if you’re into that sort of thing. Deep-fried shoe leather? I haven’t tried it, but I’m pretty sure it […]

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