My wife and I drove my cousin and her husband to the Brooklyn Ship Terminal today. After dropping them off we headed for Queens for a late lunch. We had planned to try Just Like Mother's a few weeks ago when they asked us, but a few day's ago my wife remembered she had tickets to our grandaughter's dance recital. So she said no and I never printed out the directions or wrote down the phone number. But everything went so smoothly that after the drop off we had plenty of time and I said "Return to plan "A" we're heading to Queen's". "Well do you know where it is?" "All I remember it is on South end of Queen's Boulevard, on the right." After finding it we drove around the block and parked on the street. That seemed too easy.
I opted for the first special on the list, beef goulash on potato pancakes, plus a broccoli and cheddar blintz with mushroom gravy. My wife ordered halupkis. We each had 1/2 slice each of fresh rye and pumperknicle. The waiter came to refill the bread basket but we sent it away, as we could have done nothing but that all afternnon. We shared everything and a halupki came home for my mother. We also ordered a cherry and a blueberry blintz to go.
We got home in time to warm up the blintzes and top off the day with them and a cup of coffee. Tommorrow mom gets a halupki, some fresh cooked brocolli and 1/3 of each blintz for dinner. Everything was excellent and not pricey or too spicy at all. We would not drive there just to eat, but will definitely stop when passing through again.
Hey, wait, I am going that way alone when the cruise ship returns. I just might have to hit JLM's for breakfast, since I have never had Polish style poached eggs on grilled Krakus ham with dill gravy.
BTW, the dance recital was well entertaining.
Paul in PA
Sounds like fun...one of these days I'll get to NYC!! 🙂
What are blintzes???
It's quite obvious that we had different mothers.
It is wonderful, though, to find a place that serves real food. Too many of today's offerings are factory produced. Then final preparation is handled by people who have no knowledge of true cooking.
What a nice day you had. Thanks for sharing it with us. I wish you could have shared the food.
Don
Blintz For Angel
Think of it as a wrap.
Thin pancake batter, make a large but slightly thicker crepe. Fill with anything and fry. Can be a main course or desert.
As a main or side course fill with veggies and/or meat plus cheese, most often cheddar. Smother with tomato or mushroom gravy if you like.
Dessert, fill with soft sweeter cheeses or cheese plus fruits or jams if you like. Cover with fruit in sauce, powdered sugar or drizzle on icing. Soft cheeses can be one or more; cottage cheese, pot cheese, farmer's cheese. If you have an Italian bent use ricotta.
Here is a link to Just Like Mother's menu:
http://www.justlikemothers.com/menu
Then there are pierogis. Smaller and thicker (pie dough) wrap, filled with mashed potato (most common), meat, cheese, spinach, sauekraut and combinations of same.
Along that line are knishes, large enough to be a meal, filled with same ingredients. Similar in size and shape to a Cornish pasty pie.
I have yet to have a sweet potato knish, but I drool thinking about one.
Polish food likes to be wrapped, halupkis are just, meat, onions and tomatoes wrapped in cabbage.
Cheese, potato, cabbage, dough have a common theme, very cheap, every day food for poor hard working people getting the most nutrition they can for the money.
Paul in PA
Another place worth visiting along similar lines is The Comfort Diner on East 45th Street near Grand Central Station in midtown Manhattan.
Blintz For Angel
You're making me hungry... :-):-P
Those Blintz things sound like this food thing I had in Texas. I always forget the name of whatever they were but they were breakfast foods wrapped in some sort of pastry dough and then baked. The mom and pop stores that made them would sell them by the dozen. They were so good!! 🙂
Blintz For Angel
I think they are called "kolaches" or similar and they are indeed good!
If I'm not mistaken, Angelo lives in that neighborhood.
Blintz For Angel
Halupkis - not to be confused with halushki. Cabbage and egg noodles sautee'd up with onion, butter, salt and pepper.
Kolaches!! Czech background!
> I think they are called "kolaches" or similar and they are indeed good!
I think you're right!! I looked these up and the links I found look like what I had. There was one place (located in Texas of course) that has an entire store dedicated to these. What's funny is they are Czech based! Wendell will like this because he comes from a Czech background.
They look so delicious...YUM!!!! 🙂
Kolachis and Blintzes
Kolachis are baked and made from a bready type dough, so they rise from the yeast, kind of like a bread stuffed with fillings, I've most often seen them with nuts or poppyseed, but sometimes with apricots or plums.
Blintzes aren't at all bready like kolachis - they are more like really thin pancakes or crepes that are then stuffed with fillings, usually cheese, rolled up like a burrito and served with sauce.
I could have walked right over...........it's six blocks away.
It's in one of three little "restaurant row" areas in Forest Hills. Penang Malaysian, Midori Matsu and Buenos Aires Tango are there, along with Family and Portofino for Italian food.
I've never heard of any of that.
I guess I'll just stick to American food.
😉
