travelmad478

I don't know if I can explain it, but I can appreciate it

Time to put up the list of the B's so people can start working on restaurant options!

thewayofthefuture

The B's are going to be challenging, with several small countries from Africa and the Caribbean. My list is as follows:

Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belgium
Belize
Benin
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Brazil
Brunei
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Burundi

Notes:

• I have not included the British territory of Bermuda, but would be willing to do so if someone presents a convincing argument for its cuisine to be recognized.
• Burma will be Myanmar for the purposes of this project.

thewayofthefuture

Well, Baku Palace is all booked for a private event on December 14, so we need to change our location. Fortunately Eastern Europe is well represented in NY so this is not a problem.

Dinner is now at The Lights of Baku in Gravesend, Brooklyn (next to L&B Spumoni Gardens). I've made a reservation for 8 people at 6:30pm, but will gladly adjust if anyone else would like to come along.

GrjApp

I'm going to be in NY now this weekend, so if you have a spot available, I'll gladly join in this adventure!

thewayofthefuture

Great! Under the current reservation we had one spot left at the table, but it's now yours. Be sure to note the location change above.

I will still try to adjust the reservation if anyone else would care to join us.

monitor

Does The Lights of Baku have a license or is it BYOB?

thewayofthefuture

According to Yelp they have a full license and the video on their site features wine glasses.

I tried calling the restaurant to confirm, but English is not widely spoken.

monitor

A quick look on the googz shows that Azerbajian does do wine and does it fairly well. The problem is that little or none of it gets to the States and the guess here is that this place will probably feature the Western European wines that most Azeris turned to when Gorbachev shut down most alcohol-related industries in the '80s. If by some chance they do have an Azeri, I would want to try it.

travelmad478

FYI, I did a little Googling yesterday to see what I could find in the Bahamas category. The result was zip, and interestingly, as part of that I came across someone else's identical quest (around the world in the 5 boroughs) from 5-6 years ago. Seems like they made it through the A's and halfway through the B's and then gave up...possibly in despair from the lack of options for Bahamanian, Bahraini, Bermudan etc. food! Maybe mixing it up a bit and skipping back and forth among the letters might be more satisfying.

thewayofthefuture

Yeah I've seen that other site but I'm convinced we can do better. In the absence of a dedicated restaurant for a country, I look for the national dish(es) on menus of regional restaurants (e.g., Caribbean/African/Middle Eastern). If that doesn't work, there are various other resources such as permanent missions to the UN or taxi drivers who are often able to point me to smaller places that might not turn in any Google searches. If we absolutely can't find anything, we will find the food at an ethnic market and host the meal at home (as we did for Angola). Knowing myself, I would give up on the project in no time if I didn't have the alphabetical structure.

travelmad478

Aha, I didn't realize you used the other options. In that case I am not concerned about the Bahamas...I have already found a restaurant with Bahamanian conch fritters on the menu

thewayofthefuture

Are you talking about the conch bar at Sagaponack? Ideally I'd like to find a more Caribbean venue, but this is the only place where I've found cracked conch on the menu.

thewayofthefuture

Finally confirmed with the restaurant that they do not have a wine list, but we can bring our own with no corkage fee. If you can locate a wine shop in the city with an Azeri bottle, I'm happy to pick it up before Saturday evening.

thewayofthefuture

We finished the A's last night with a delightful dinner at The Lights of Baku in Gravesend, Brooklyn - thus far the southernmost meal of the project. This would have been a long trip anyway, but a moderate snowstorm didn't help matters.

Most on this board understand the thrill of arriving after a long trip to a foreign land where almost no one speaks your language, customs and clothing are different, and ordering from a menu is a game of chance. The Lights of Baku is such a place. Our group of 7 was the only table in the restaurant that was not being used for guests of the 90th birthday celebration for a woman who seemed to be well-loved in the community.

The restaurant does not have a wine selection, but corkage was free so GrjApp and bdnyc brought a Pinot Noir and a Gewurtz, respectively, from the previous night's 'WineDo 6.1' while I (after failing to find an Azeri wine anywhere in the city) picked up a "semi-sweet red" in an interesting clay bottle from nearby Georgia (Republic of). The birthday party guests also took advantage of the free corkage with several large bottles of both Tropicana orange juice and Ketel One - an excellent pairing I'm told.

Patrons ordering food in English is a challenge the wait staff doesn't encounter on a regular basis, so we made several appetizer picks based on limited communication and hoped for the best. A highlight was the kyufta bozbash, a meatball soup with potatoes, a bounty of herbs and spices, and maybe a bit of egg. The dolma was also quite popular, even if not exactly photogenic. For the main course, the table shared a large plate of assorted kebabs while the birthday girl was serenaded from the stage. The real party was just beginning as we left. I was certainly tempted to stick around and join in the fun, but alas this once I had a rental car and needed to be responsible.


Now as we start the B's it's on to some warmer countries for the next few winter meals. Stay tuned.

greendx

This is great. I'll try to join you guys at some of these.