Kings, Queens and Swing Sets

I am hardly ever in Queens, though it is a just a few blocks from my apartment. Unlike most of Kings county, Queens county is better traversed with an automobile. In fact, it is covered in expressways and wide boulevards. Brooklyn’s entire center, on the other hand, is devoid of highways. The Belt Parkway runs along the southern shore of Brooklyn, the gateway to JFK, Coney Island and the Verrazano Bridge to Staten Island, while the Gowanus/Brooklyn Queens Expressway runs its perimeter on the north side, linking motorists to Manhattan before quickly spitting them out in Queens. Queens, with its gems far and far between, is a criss-cross of asphalt. I really don’t have much cause to visit Queens often, besides the occasional airport run or bike ride, but that makes my Queens expeditions always exciting. Like a visiting a new city.

“All-vegetarian” and “dim sum” are quite persuasive beckons. And in light of my recent borough-scourings for real ethnic flavor, I thought I’d start my search for New York City’s best dumplings (coming soon) in the heart of Chinese-New York: Flushing, Queens. As with any task, you start where you know: Buddha Bodai‘s dim sum.

Dim sum is kind of tricky. The majority of vegetarian offerings are glutinous, heavy, stomach-expanding… and absolutely delicious. It’s essential to not let plentiful all-veg offerings and rock-bottom prices fool you into ordering too many plates. Having suffered dim sum comas myself, I have come up with a helpful equation in deciding how many plates to order: take the # of people, multiplied by 2 and minus 1. This’ll guarantee you a satisfying meal and not an overly satisfying meal.

Recommended at Buddha Bodai is their BBQ vegetarian meat plate. It’s a tender wheat gluten covered in sweet barbeque sauce.

Their spinach rice roll is so good. It’s cooked spinach wrapped in rice noodle with a yummy dipping sauce wading pool underneath.

Of course no dim sum is complete without a huge bun filled with heavenly veggies (or “pork”). Let’s take a zoom on this one.

And dim sum is also a time of experimentation. We tried the shredded turnip pastry. A flaky pastry stuffed with kinda slimy tofu and turnip.

Yeah, I kind of forgot to order dumplings. Oh well, I’ll just have to brave the 7 train again.

The great thing about Buddha Bodai is that it is right across the street from the beautiful Queens Botanical Garden, which is a short walk to the wonderful 1964/1965 World’s Fair grounds at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. On this unseasonable warm November day, we hit the swings and the sights for a well-rounded Flushing excursion.