Eating on the Edge -

by BS

Eating on the Edge: Staten Island Sri Lankan

It’s been a hot minute since we’ve posted an update to Eating on the Edge, our travel eating series that takes you to New York’s most far-flung restaurants. With summer in full swing, we’re back to exploring, which for us of course just means eating at new places. Today’s entry comes from NYC’s most shit-upon borough, but one that actually has its fair share of culinary surprises.

Every day, thousands of tourists ride the Staten Island ferry for the cheap-o’s version of a New York harbor tour. After taking in the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge views, almost all of them get back on the ferry and go straight back to Manhattan. I have to admit, I’d never thought about getting off and exploring in Staten Island, until I heard about the cluster of Sri Lankan restaurant and shops that have popped up there, just up the hill from the ferry terminal.

Eating on the Edge: City Island

Endless Simmer’s NYC-based tasting team is bypassing the cutesy outer borough neighborhoods and taking the subway to the end of the line, then getting on a bus and taking that to the end of the line, then seeing what we can find to eat.

This week’s destination — City Island — is seriously the edge-edge-edge of New York City. It’s kind of like an adorable New England fishing village, except it’s actually in The Bronx, retains just a smidge of that New York City grime, and you can get there on the MTA bus. Take the 6 train all the way to the end of the line, then hop on the Bx29 bus, which takes you across a bridge onto this amazing little island where they’ll deep-fry anything that swims. Just hope this fish isn’t too local.

Since we came this far, we figured we might as well go all the way to the water’s edge, where Tony’s Pier offers lunch at picnic tables right on the sound. As you can see, inside NYC or not, they’ve got pretty much the whole nine yards when it comes to summer-y fried seafood. Yes, even frog’s legs, which I’m pretty sure I disapprove of eating anywhere outside of Paris, but definitely in The Bronx.

Instead I went with the pretty perfect fried clam strips meal. Most excitedly, it turns out Tony’s has pioneered a new form of serving a five-course meal. I call it the slow reveal. This looks like just a giant pile of fried clams, with a super-sad side salad thrown in for good measure, right? Wrong!

Eating on the Edge: Howard Beach

In our new dining out series, Endless Simmer’s NYC-based tasting team is traveling to the ends of the earth. Well, the ends of the earth for snobby New Yorkers. We’re bypassing the cutesy outer borough neighborhoods and taking the subway to the end of the line, then getting on a bus and taking that to the end of the line, then seeing what we can find to eat.

Our first, very random stop is Howard Beach, Queens, a neighborhood known to most Manhattanites as the name of that stop way out there where you get the AirTrain to JFK. But it’s also an old-school Italian-American neighborhood facing Jamaica Bay, where New Yorkers live in single-family homes with fishing boats anchored in their front yards (really!)

To get to Cross Bay Boulevard, the main thoroughfare cutting through Howard Beach, we took the A train out to Rockaway Boulevard, where you can hop on the Q41 bus to the end of the line, which is conveniently a few blocks from the Bay, right outside the imposing Vetro Restaurant and Lounge.