August 10th, 2017 Update:
Note to self, when taking your family and taking the Chengdu Fish home, you will be the only one eating it the next day or 3. That sneaky heat will be in your face, slap you mama kind of heat, the next day
Note to self 2, When ordering the Chongqing Diced Chicken (or at least I think thats what it was, from the first page of the new menu), you will be the only one eating it right off the bat. But that’s fine, since its delicious.
February 18th, 2017 Post:
This one is for the 1%. No, not that 1%. But the 1% of the readers that can make it to this one. The location is, well, let me put it this way. When you sit around with 5 hounds (as in Chowhounds), and one of the topics of conversation is where the F are we and what do you call this area, you know we are way out there. And when you find yourself in an area in Queens with so much parking wealth that you dont know what to do with it, you start questioning if you are still in city proper. But, its close to someone out there. And if I can convince one person for this one, preferably a local, its well worth it.
Simply put Legend of Taste is some of the best Chinese food I’ve had in NYC, and probably the best Sichuan. You almost find yourself expecting an old grungy looking place, but instead I found a clean and comfortable room that looks more like your mainstream New York Chinese establishment. The entire window front is completely bare except for one very important note. More important than “Zagat Rated” or “We are on Trip Advisor”, or most of the crap you see on windows nowadays. Its a copy of this original post.
Even the menu on first glance looks like your corner Chinese takeout. You have to dig in and dig well into this one. The waitresses speak English, which is important not only with ordering the right items, but the right heat level. And it was, naturally, completely empty as Mr Leff put it, at least by the time we left. There were two or three other tables occupied when the six of us (Including this gentleman) came to this gem. At no point things went south, but I will try to make it easier by ranking the food from best to worst
Chengdu Fish Fillet With Pickle Vegetable– Easily shareable between six and simply outstanding. It has some sneaky heat that with soups one needs to be a little careful. Plenty of delicious flaky flounder, and I especially enjoyed all the Enoki Mushroom action that sent me straight to Fei Long supermarket in Sunset Park a couple of days later. Even good when it was cold an hour later
Szechuan Style Crispy Eggplant – This was an obvious order coming in and the talk of the town coming out. Everything about this was great, from the crunchy bell peppers (looks like chili ) to the light fried eggplant, to the peanuts.
Double Cooked Sliced Pork – This was probably the surprise of the meal. By now you got this wonderful taste sensation going, and this had this welcoming sweetness. Almost paper thin slices of pork with Leeks almost as delicious.
Cumin Lamb– Another winner. Fragrant, thin tender slices of lamb with cumin you can smell from across the the round table
Beef with Long Horn Pepper – A simpler version of something similar I enjoy at Szechuan Gourmet 56 on occasion. Missing perhaps garlic chips that could have made it better. But still very solid, and again, tender wonderfully cooked meat which is the theme throughout it seems
Smoke Ribs app – Tastier than they look. Smoky, dry but delicious.
Szechuan Pork Dumplings – A little doughy and flat, but with great pungant filling. Aided much by the excellent sauce
Bok Choy with Mushrooms – Maybe the only dish I didnt care for, but only because I had better versions of it (Han Dynasty). If this would have been my first crack at it, it would have been amazing!
Coparing the joy/cost ratio to the great Indian Accent (the previous post) is almost comical, and somewhat reflected in my score below. All this for $23 per person. It felt like I just stole a little boy’s lunch money, while kicking his pet monkey in the gut in the process, before taking the monkey too
Legend of Taste
2002 Utopia Pkwy, Whitestone
Rating: Three Z’s (out of 4)
Stars range from Good to Exceptional. Simple as that
Recommended Dishes: Chengdu Fish, Crispy Eggplant, Double Cooked Sliced Pork, Cumin Lamb, Beef with Long Horn Pepper
Boy meets girl on Jdate. They quickly fall for each other, get married and live together for 7 years until the eventual breakup due to rent increase. Or, boy meets girl, and within 20 minutes they cant stand each other and know this is not gonna work. Or, boy meets girl, and he is simply not sure. She seems attractive, potential is definitely there. She got this sexy British Indian accent but the personality is just not a slam dunk match. Perhaps more suited for a friends with benefits role. Indian Accent, the Melania Trump of Indian dining in NYC today, falls closer to that last category. But instead of meeting Melania, you meet Bernadette from Big Bang Theory. There’s potential, but false advertised.
While EWZ historians scrambling to find a post about museums, let me tell you what I did yesterday at the American Museum of Natural History at around 4:45. I was playing the part of a beautiful desert male Bird attempting to woo a female bird. I snuck up and faced her directly, and then started moving side Mick Jagger style, stretching my hands to each side while waving them up and down with my set of feathers in full display. At some point I paused to gauge her level of interest, only to resume in furious mode while making various sounds this time. Exhilarating! But it didnt work.
‘Twas the night before Sushi. I was shaving. That’s when I usually do most of my deep thinking. Like when was my last pizza. Where did I park the car. And how does Sugarfish handle the huge service demands of an Omakase for an entire house. How do they serve a house full of people, an 8 course meal and/or whatever else people ordered. 30 minutes into my meal in the Iphone section (aka counter area) of this new Sushi sensation, I found my answer. They manage to do it by making a lot of mistakes.
Love is in the air on EWZ, and inside the latest KTCHLST, the mini zine inside the big zine (you see what I did there, Hebrew speakers?). The big zine is W42st, Hells Kitchen’s own magazine. And if you cant find it, you are either not looking hard enough or not deep enough (Like I said, love is in the air). This month on KTCHLST, I list 5 Unconventional pre-theater Picks. Well, just about all my HK picks are pretty unconventional, but these 5 have a certain Je ne sais quoi. Ok, one of them has dildos on display, so I can explain that one. Description are kept short in order to fit inside mini zine
Just like a mom balancing work and being a mom, a tourist in NYC needs to find the right balance between being a tourist and unleashing that inner Ziggy. After meeting so many of you on 
Its the most eye candy Hell’s Kitchen has seen since the Jimmy Coonan days, and the glory days of 42nd street. Thanks Obama! A decor like no other in the area, and a daring menu that takes Chinese American cuisine into Mission Chinese territory. Its rare for something like this to open in this neighborhood, which is why I’m so drawn and keep coming back. And after 5 visits, you would think I would get a good handle on things, but nope. This kind of menu requires bigger group meals in order to properly gauge this one, but at least I get the idea.
Its that time of the year again. Resolution season! The slowest eating month of the year. The time of the year when Mrs Z says “Enough”, and I have to sneak out of the house Shawshank Redemption style in order to eat something that doesnt have Quinoa in it. I then find myself in a dark room in a basement, a resolution speakeasy, with other men indulging in pizza, and chicken skin dumplings. These are dumplings deep fried in chicken skin instead of dough.
Eating With Ziggy 