A&A Bake & Doubles Shop, Bedford-Stuyvesant
When I lived in Bed-Stuy in the 2010s, I would line up there early, because the star attraction was sold out by 9 a.m. That would be the doubles — sublime, every time. The baras are more chewy than crisp, but that’s all the better to hold the channa, which is beautifully soft and slightly sloppy (a good thing!). Then there’s the pepper sauce. It’s the perfect topping, fiery and sweet. Food apart, there’s also the community that somehow forms when Indo-Carribbean aunties and uncles, students, bipsters, hipsters and whoever else has found their way to Bed-Stuy and A&A. They jostle, sigh and yet wait patiently until one of the servers says, “What you gettin’, darlin’?”
— Bix Gabriel, Jackson Heights
Kashkar Cafe, Brighton Beach
As a broke and overworked line cook in my 20s, I used to ride the Q train to Brighton Beach on days off. I prided myself on being a cook with abilities and a work ethic that could stand up to the city’s best — but the food at Kashkar was different. It was Uzbek-Uyghur, and at the time I had no idea what that meant. Lamb plov, dumpling soup, a simple eggplant salad — if I made them 100 times over, they’d never be as soulful.
Premium Sweets and Restaurant, Jackson Heights
Between Covid and archaic immigration policies, I’ve been unable to go home to Bangladesh for years. Home is my family, my friends and the food. Try as I may to replicate most of the flavors, some dishes are out of the purview of my studio home kitchen. Whether it be a simple paratha and aloo bhaji, or an intricate, adroitly made kacchi biryani, Premium has it all. A warm meal, made with the love I grew up with, served in a language that helps me break causality and be home for a good hour and back.
— A. Nafis Arafat, Upper East Side
