I had planned to go to a Middle Eastern grocer for ingredients this evening. If the weather still allows me to do that then dinner tomorrow is a possibility. Although from the looks of things, your IAD-EWR segment might be at risk too.

jackal - I was able to pick up ingredients so we'll plan to cook tomorrow night. Just drop me a PM if it looks like you'll be stuck in NY and I can give you address info. The same goes for anyone else in town that would like to sample our attempt at Bahraini cuisine.

Yeah, that's the one I was actually concerned about canceling and then causing me to misconnect to my EWR-TLV flight. (They've already canceled the first two IAD-EWR flights tomorrow morning.) I didn't realize until after I posted there's another (evening) EWR-TLV they'd probably stick me on. Whatever happens, I'm hopeful they rebook me in full Y and let me apply a GPU.

I was able to switch from a Q200 IAD-EWR to a 757-200 that's currently sitting at IAD and much more likely to make it into EWR than a little turboprop. So, I'll probably be OK. Still, if anything happens, I'll definitely let you know!

Ok, guess I missed that. I'm in for Bangladeshi or whatever is next. Checking in here to seldomly.

We decided to make 2 Bahraini dishes - Chicken Machboos and Muhammar, which were a hit and a miss, respectively

I first made a trip to Sahadi's in Brooklyn Heights to load up on spices (I later had to go back out to find rose water and dried limes, which we left off the original shopping list):


It seemed like the two dishes weren't meant to be served together, so we made the muhammar early in the evening and then got started on the machboos. Following the advice of a comment on the recipe, I cut the recommended amount of cloves in half, but we still found this "sweet" rice dish to have an overpowering clovey (?) aftertaste.


The chicken machboos was much more successful. This is a dish I would love to have again, but due to the prep work involved, probably won't until I find myself in Bahrain. A day later, my apartment still smells like a spice souq.

Chicken machboos, in progress:


and complete:

That machboos looks AMAZING. Ugh, I was a day early and an IRROPS layover short.

Still looking forward to joining y'all for some of these dinners though for me, Saturday nights tend to be problematic

Curious, if you chose to go to Brooklyn for the spices or Kalustyans was out of them?

Well I'm looking at a late lunch (~2pm) next Saturday (Feb 1) for the Bangladeshi meal. I just need to settle on a location. It will either be Neerob in Parchester (Bronx) or one of the places along Hillside Avenue in Jamaica (Queens). But I'm always willing to tweak the timing a bit to accommodate others' schedules, so just speak up if there's ever an upcoming meal that you're particularly interested in attending.

In all likelihood we will require at least a few ingredients for each of the meals we have to cook at home, and I would like to utilize a different ethnic market each time, within reason. I wasn't even aware of Kalustyan's until a few weeks ago, but I'm sure I will end up there at some point.

Following the recommendation of several cabbies, our Bangladeshi meal will be at Sagar, located at 168-25B Hillside Avenue in Jamaica, Queens. The restaurant sits above the 169th St (F) station. This appears to be a less formal setting than recent meals, so lunch seems more appropriate. The plan is to be there at 2pm this Saturday (Feb 1) but we could adjust the time a bit if needed.

Neerob in the Bronx also came highly recommended by the taxi forces (and the Times), but the logistics were unfriendly with the nearest subway station currently closed for renovations.

To make things a bit easier, I've added a wiki post for the the 'Upcoming Meals' section so you can add/remove yourself as you make/cancel plans.

This also opened up the second post for useless statistics

Not travelling anywhere this weekend so I'm in.

I might be able to make it to the lunch this Saturday; by when would you like to know?

great!

There won't be any reservations for a place like this, so you are free to decide at your leisure.

Yep, I'm in.

See you all tomorrow at 14:00!

This past weekend our quest took us to a Bangladeshi enclave along Hillside Avenue in Jamaica, Queens. Upon exiting the 169th Street (F) station, one is met with numerous East Indian/Bengali/Pakistani markets, restaurants, and sweet shops (Street View). We strolled around in one of the grocery stores (also one of my hobbies when traveling) before meeting with BuildingMyBento and greendx at Sagar for a lunch of beef curry, chilly chicken, samosas, naan, and biryani:


After lunch we made our way across the street to Dhaka Sweets & Restaurant for dessert:



Barbados is next on the list and Bajan Bistro in East Harlem should do the trick. They close at 8 and aren't open Sundays, so another Saturday lunch is probably our best bet. I have a trip to Russia starting this weekend, so this meal is penciled in for Saturday, February 22.