FoodMayhem

We’ve been living in Long Island City for almost three years now and we love it! The restaurant scene has really grown, although we could still use more. Naturally, whenever friends visit the area, they ask me for restaurant recommendations, as well as neighbors so I’ve been working on this blog post about Long Island City restaurants for a while now. There’s enough here to cover various tastes and still several more. Please bookmark this page. I’ll keep updating as I try all the restaurants in Long Island City! Here’s The Long Island City Restaurant Guide in alphabetical order.

I love the staff at Alobar 46-42 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, NY 11101! They’ve always made me feel so welcome. They want kids and families along with everyone else in our hood. Plus the food is tasty too. Not quite yet a destination restaurant but definitely a must for any LIC-er. The only reason I don’t go more often is that the food is heavy American and I just can’t eat such heavy food so often.

We’ve only ordered-in from  BANY 10-57 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101 and they are consistently fast at delivery. It’s mostly what you’d expect from these kind of fusion-y Asian places. Nothing is amazing and nothing is that bad. All at reasonable prices. It’s as if these kind of places really intended on delivery business only. Order sushi sandwich and duck noodle soup.

We had a good Latin-inspired brunch at Blend way back but then we ordered food from there once and it was horrendous. We haven’t tried since.

Breadbox Cafe had pretty good bagels once upon a time. Then they decided to stop making their own bagels and save money by serving stale and old food. They also served Lon rotten butter. I used to really like this place. So sad…

Bricktown Bagel 51-06 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, NY 11101 is good enough if you’re local and need a bagel but don’t travel here just for a bagel. I would treat this as a to-go place. It’s eerily dark inside and has had bad sanitation ratings for a long time. (Currently, they have a “grade pending” status.)

Brooks 1890 24-28 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101 is a bar/restaurant with a menu split between American and Italian.  After one meal there, we will never go again. The service was terrible. The food was horrible. It was one of those places you’d expect to see on “Restaurant: Impossible”.

Cafe Henri 10-10 50th Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101 has some excellent crepes and eggs at reasonable prices. I’ve never tried dinner here. Weekend brunch is packed!

Casa Enrique 5-48 49th Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101 is not just “good for the neighborhood”. It’s a Pueblan Mexican restaurant actually worth traveling for. (It’s only one stop from Manhattan on the 7-train.) Read the full review on this place!

Chimney Cake is a unique Hungarian-Transylvanian Pastry only sold here in all of NYC, as far as I know. It’s made fresh while you wait so it’s pretty awesome as fresh pastry is! However, if you wait too long to eat it, it’s not as awesome anymore. It comes in several flavors and it’s definitely worth a try at least once.

Court Square Diner 45-30 23rd Street, Long Island City, NY 11101 is important to know in LIC because it’s open and delivering 24-hours. They didn’t even close during Hurricane Sandy! It’s an average NYC diner, at best, which isn’t saying much but hey when you need food at weird hours, go here.

Every neighborhood needs a casual, comfortable, and reliable place like Cranky’s Cafe 48-19 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, NY 11101. They serve some Cajun/Creole items and the rest seems like standard American fare. The prices are reasonable and the service is welcoming. Definitely try the Homemade S.O.S. (I’ve never had dinner here.)

Cyclo 5-51 47th Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101 is a welcome addition since we needed a Vietnamese spot and I can’t survive winter without several gallons of pho. It’s been hit (very good spring rolls bun-salad and chicken curry) or miss (awful papaya salad with shrimp) though and dining in has been better than delivery. It’s one of the cheaper options in the area.

ENC Deli 5 Court Square, Long Island City, NY 11101 is a corner deli and the closest one to me so I’m grateful for it’s existence. Do I eat there? Not really, but I’m not into corner deli food. It seems average though. They could have been interesting since they have some Korean food on the menu but the few times I tried, it has been inconsistent, varying between terrible and just ok.

Food Cellar & Co. is a gourmet food market that looks kinda like a Whole Foods knock-off. As a supermarket they are way over-priced and I try not to ever shop there. However, the pizza oven is rockin’ and they make some good pizzas and sandwiches in there. The prepared food buffet sold by weight is decent too. There’s a modest self-service seating area.

Gaw Gai Thai Express is possibly one of the worst Thai food places I’ve tried. Full review here.

John Brown Smokehouse 10-43 44th Drive, Long Island City, NY 11101 just moved closer to us. Yes! This is our favorite BBQ joint in all of NYC! Read the full review here.

Lhawan2 is reliable and cheap Filipino food, perfect for casual occasions and ordering in. The restaurant is much less ghetto than you’d expect. For a very safe bet, order the barbeque pork.

LIC Market 21-52 44th Drive, Long Island City, NY 11101 is a great neighborhood spot, small, cute, and homey. For those that miss the days of living in Manhattan, here you can pay Manhattan prices for Manhattan portions (with a few exceptions), with quality up to par. The menu is short and simple, seasonal, where rustic meets chic. The Halibut Sandwich was the best thing I ever ate there and would make this a destination if it were permanently on the menu but alas, that was a special. I can only speak for breakfast and lunch since I haven’t had dinner here yet. Be warned, this place gets packed and there could be a long wait.

I love the true neighborhood vibe of Malu 12-09 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101, an ice cream shop opened by a husband and wife that live in the area. They have an ever-changing menu of ice cream flavors, some inspired or developed by other Long Island City businesses. I remember a very good strawberry ice cream and a nice huge affogato.

With only one very mediocre brunch at Masso 4725 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, NY 11101, I can’t really form an opinion yet since it seems to be an Italian restaurant and we didn’t have any of what they specialize in.

Manducatis 13-27 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101 is so much bigger than you can imagine from the outside with several different rooms. This is an old-school family run place so there is a warm casual friendliness but also a slowness that makes it feel less like a business. The Italian menu is hit-or-miss varying from soggy oily green beans to an excellently fried veal chop. I’m not really itching to go back but it’s a good-to-know place because they can accommodate very large groups and there’s no plating charge for birthday cake. *added 3/21/13

Manducatis Rustica 46-35 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, NY 11101 seems pretty popular among LIC-ers, especially those with kids. It’s casual Italian with enough space for bigger groups. The one time I went, the food was so mediocre. It’s one of those things where it kind of depends how often you need to eat out. If you live in LIC and eat out a lot, you’re going to need to rotate through the not-quite-enough restaurants in the area and this is barely pass-able. For us, we don’t eat out that much so we only return to the ones that are really good and this one doesn’t make the cut.

We picked up pizza and fried calamari to-go from  Manetta’s 10-76 Jacksome Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101 once and the food showed some strong potential. We plan on going back to try a sit-down meal. Stay tuned for an update.

When Breadbox (see above) went downhill, I was so excited to see that Pumpernickel 23-10 44th Drive, Long Island City, NY 11101, a bagel store, was opening very close to my apartment. Alas, the bagels are dense without chewiness. If this business survives, it will be purely because it is right under the Citicorp building.

Sage General Store 24-20 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101 was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and like the other four places we’ve been to from triple-D, this one also kind of stinks.  The southern-style food is served from a steam table on their counter and tastes like such. However, the coffee (hot and iced) is good and they offer organic milk/cream. The raspberry iced tea and lemonade are also nice so think of this as a place for beverages only.

Sweetleaf 10-93 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101 is a true coffee shop and though they’ve expanded, I still don’t recommend trying to bring a stroller in there. Pathways are very narrow. For a while, I was making it a regular stop for Iced Americanos but had to nip my habit. The baked goods are pretty good too.

I really wanted to like  Testaccio 47-30 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, NY 11101 because it’s a nice looking restaurant serving Roman Italian cuisine. It looks like a place you could take guests and the menu has some enticing dishes. Alas, the food is hit or miss, and all of it is drastically over-priced.

The burgers at The Burger Garage 25-36 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101 are fine, not bad, but not note-worthy either. I prefer to make my own burgers. However, I do really like their crispy sweet potato fries and thick shakes. That used to mean I’d stop by for snacks but not meals but recently, my friend Rita told me about their veggie burgers. I’m not a veggie burger person but this chickpea patty with a Bangladeshi spin (just a bit spicy) really rocks. Ask for extra pickles on it!

The Creek & The Cave 10-93 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101 is a comedy club and Mexican cafe. I’ve heard good things about the shows here. We’ve only ordered delivery from them and that we’re unlikely not do again.

Tournesol is an awful little French place. It’s dirty and needs to be closed by the health department! Full review here.

I’m not going to bother reviewing the chain restaurants that are in the area but I will list them so you know they are here and where they exist in LIC: Dominos, Dunkin Donuts, Spice, Subway, Tozt, Quiznos

Here’s a few places that we hope to try in the near future: Aanchal, Alewife, The Inkan,

 

posted by jessica at 06:53 PM Filed under Restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.