We need to talk about fusion
For one reason or another — several martinis on a school night, the sickening thought of another steak au poivre — I found myself back at Nobu … ordering tacos. There’s no defending it. Not the king crab inside, or the wonton wrapper willed into a golden halfpipe by a deep fryer. Still, it was delicious, as fusion often is. Long ago, chefs learned to avoid the “F” word — safer to say “globally inspired” or “modern Japanese” — but fusion never really left. It’s floating in our matzo ball ramen and tucked into cheese steak egg rolls. Recently, though, I noticed that some chefs, many of them first-generation Americans, have fully embraced fusion as a way to describe their kimchi jambalaya and buffalo tandoori chicken. To them, fusion isn’t cringe. It’s the natural result of growing up between cultures. While you figure out what to call it, mind if I start in on these bok choy tamales?
Let me get a …The chapli kebab chopped cheese is what you get when a Pakistani chef spends his thirties in New York City. So goes the story of Zeeshan Bakhrani, the winner of season 18 of “The Great Food Truck Race” and the owner of Nishaan in the East Village. There, he who rejiggers the original chopped cheese — ground beef and sazón — with kebab spices and tamarind chutney among other Pakistan-influenced delights. I don’t need to tell you it’s been a hit, but if you insist: Shortly before the season finale aired, Bakhrani opened a sandwich counter — and outgrew it overnight. At his East Village restaurant, there always seems to be a young, diverse crowd spilling out onto First Avenue, lychee rose sodas in hand, without regard for the recent weather. When I visited last time, one of them was digging into an order of French fries buried under puffed rice and an optional glob of beef barbacoa. (The restaurant calls these elote chaat fries, and you could probably treat them as dessert, so loaded are they with sweet corn and chutney.) One bite, and I was instantly rooting for Nishaan. 160 First Avenue (East 10th Street), East Village
South Korea meets South LouisianaJae Jung, the owner of Kjun, doesn’t mind if you call her food fusion. How else to describe her crawfish bibimbap, boudin balls threaded with japchae and potato salad with daikon instead of spuds? Since 2022, Jung has run her Korean Cajun restaurant — pronounced “kay-jun,” get it? — from a restaurant not much bigger than a parking space. This winter, she opened a low-slung, second restaurant right down the street, where big band jazz croons over the speakers and a liquor license allows for kimchi Bloody Marys at dinner. The name of the new place is also Kjun, but you’ll know you’re in the right place when you see Jerome, an adult male crawfish that Ms. Jung keeps as a pet. Tucked away in an aquarium, he is the lone survivor of a Mardi Gras cookout from year’s past. The chief feature of the new restaurant is a $77 set menu that includes banchan and amuse-bouches. To start, there is kimchi soup with jasmine rice pooled at the bottom, and an andouille gumbo in a ham hock broth based on a recipe from the beloved Creole chef Leah Chase, one of Jung’s mentors. You have a few choices of entrees, and thanks to our server for insisting we order the grits: marinated galbi looks so visually appealing atop them, any questions of authenticity go right out the window. 334B Lexington Avenue (East 39th Street), Murray Hill
Xiu mai, por favorNot just any chef can pull off Vietnamese tamales. No, it takes a serial cross-pollinator like Eric Tran, the owner of Falansai in Brooklyn, to fold masa into a banana leaf with duck neck and have it turn out. Tran, whose parents are Vietnamese and Mexican, is known to serve up both nuoc cham and salsa macha with dinner and once slung banh mi French fries to punks at a dive bar in Bushwick. When he moved into the kitchen of a wine bar in Greenpoint last fall, I quickly followed. The room was jam packed when I visited on a recent Wednesday. (If the tables were an inch closer together, your elbows would be in your neighbor’s turnip cake curry.) Not everything on the menu is a remix, but my favorite dishes bend the rules: bulging meatballs (“xiu mai” on the menu) that pass for supersize albondingas and a braised lamb neck that’s spiced like a bowl of pho. Naturally, it comes with a stack of corn tortillas. The Tuna Crunch No. 1 is a seeded rice cracker dressed like a corn tostada. Besides guacamole and blades of cilantro, on goes raw tuna, the chunks begging for salsa macha. 120 Norman Avenue (Eckford Street), Greenpoint Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have New York City restaurant questions? Send us a note here. Follow NYT Food on TikTok and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest.
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