Good Hope Restaurant

GUYANA 🇬🇾

Talk long enough with people from Guyana, and the topic of conversation will likely somehow come to a point of pride they have with their ability to drink you under the table. There may be cultures we more stereotypically associate with alcohol consumption, but there may be no people more enthusiastic about this "gift." While cricket is the sport on TV, drinking is such a culture in the country that "sporting" has become slang for the act.

In the capital Georgetown, before it gets late and parties move to places like Original Palm Court, a lot of drinking takes place in Chinese restaurants. These offer the best of both worlds, plenty to drink and Indo-Caribbean style Chinese food which is fabulously popular. These habits have directly transplanted themselves with the Guyanese population in and around Ozone Park and Richmond Hill as well, as thoroughfares like Liberty Avenue are densely packed with establishments just like back home.

As far as a casual visitor is concerned, Good Hope Restaurant is always full of "sporting," and seemingly near or over capacity at all times of day and night. It was a place to seek refuge on the night of a blizzard last winter, but even then not even a stool at the bar could be found to rest weary (and wet) feet.

But stand around for a bit after ordering a beer and something will open up. Grab a dirt cheap beer from the bar and tip a couple bucks and the ladies here will immediately start taking care of you. The scene is raucous and might spin at first with the soundtrack of Bollywood and its Caribbean offshoot chutney at volumes that make everyone have to raise their voices, but give it a few minutes for your body to find its rhythm within the walls here and the music will eventually seem ideal.

By the time your first order arrives, a booth or at least a seat at someone else's will have most likely opened up and you can sit and enjoy plates like pepper chicken lo mein (above). Lo mein of course has its own section on the menu at any reputable Indo-Caribbean Chinese restaurant, and you can get it topped with all manner of jerked and barbecued meats, gizzards and livers, and seafoods. The pepper chicken is always nice because it brings the heat and creates a certain pleasure mixed with the sweetness of the noodles below.

As the first dish was just about finished, the first point of contact brought a bill since she was about to leave. The damage for the plate and a Becks beer: $10. But on this occasion there was no feeling of wanting to leave, and plenty of other tables were snacking on plates of fried wonton ($5.25, above) so another tab was started. These small nuggets come with a side of sweet dipping sauce but are better alone or with a slight drizzle of the vinegar they bring to the table in clear or mustard squeeze bottles.

There are usually no female customers here, but every once in a while a confident pair will come in and meet up with friends, immediately becoming the center of attention of everyone. The community is quite large in this part of Queens but you get the sense everyone knows each other already and certainly the patrons of this restaurant are all on a first name basis.

If you are not in the mood for the spicy chicken gizzards and liver appetizer, another safe option is the cha che kai chicken ($7.50), on not just Guyanese-Chinese menus but all throughout the region. These spicy morsels are fried to a strong crisp with the skin still on. While most of it can be popped in your mouth directly, do be aware that this is bone-in chicken and you will find them here and there.

The spicy oil and peppers shine through brilliantly in the dish, which of course is best washed down with bottles of light beer readily available. In an informal poll during many trips here, Heineken is by far and away the most popular beer of the Guyanese diaspora, followed by Coors Light and Corona. You may find a Guyanese Banks Lager at some establishments up and down the strip but not here, and as you may recall from previous posts the Trini beer Carib has been sold and is awful now, worth avoiding.

Follow the "locals" and drink what they're drinking. On a most recent visit the highlights from the Cricket World Cup were showing on the restaurant's TVs but the "sporting" going on this evening was definitely more about emptying those bottles.

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SOUTH OZONE PARK Queens
121-15 Liberty Avenue

Map of Eat the World NYC:

The Hibiscus

GUYANA 🇬🇾

In a two month long search to find Queens' best cricket bar for a story that never happened, I kept returning to The Hibiscus in South Richmond Hill. There were stories of the owner coming in long before opening time with his friends to catch a feed from somewhere on the subcontinent, the kind of thing many European expats and football fans in this country do at early opening bars so they can watch English Premier League or Italian Serie A.

The whole space is split into two parts, with the left being a bar ideal for sports. On one visit in the late afternoon, I witnessed a shift change and all the TVs were tuned into cricket replays while the music switched over to Bollywood-type tunes. Because of the dark tinted windows, you cannot see into either side, but the right is a quieter sit down restaurant and takeout counter. This was by far the most busy part of the operation on my visits mostly in the afternoon.

My recommendation at any part of the day though is to choose the door on the left and grab a seat at the bar or at one of the tables on this side. The menu is the same regardless and it just feels more alive over here even during the quiet times. You can get more traditional Caribbean foods in the "West Indian Corner" of the menu, but there is much more to it than that, the appetites of Guyanese are all over the place just like the people who live there.

A lot of the menu, like most Guyanese restaurants in this section of Queens, is devoted to Guyanese-style Chinese food, a mashup with beautiful results. The jerk pork lo mein ($11.95, below) is one of these beauties, luscious and fatty hunks of pork full of pepper and spice placed right on top of overly sweet western-style lo mein noodles.

The combination works well, and so do the rest of the entrees and appetizers that toe this line. Every country with Chinese immigrants (probably every country in the world?) has their own versions of tweaked Chinese foods to cater to local tastes, and Guyanese is up there in the running for the best.

Despite being told by the bartender up at Palm Court of Guyana that Carib Lager had been sold and was not good anymore, I ordered one here just to confirm and this was proven true. The popular Trini beer had lost its way. Also available are super sweet West Indian sodas like the one below, a creamy sorrel that definitely screams to be poured over ice to thin it out.

Sweet things seem to be part of the ride here though, as on top of this food and drink I watched a man come in on my last visit to quickly drink a Grand Marnier on the rocks and take back off. That was new.

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SOUTH RICHMOND HILL Queens

124-18 101st Street

Map of Eat the World NYC:

Kaieteur Sports Bar

GUYANA 🇬🇾

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GUYANA 🇬🇾 BARBADOS 🇧🇧 Dispatch from Richmond Hill, Queens: 📸 (1) One cold Banks Caribbean Lager (2) Lefferts Blvd facade. ° Banks Brewery was the idea of a Guyanese businessman, but a short six years after it's conception in 1955, another Banks Brewery he created in Barbados also started brewing the beer and quickly separated from the original. For decades, competition and copyright problems between the two companies created confusion for drinkers and mutual problems for the businesses. In 2005, the breweries of both islands came to a mutual decision to join forces once again. Banks Caribbean Lager is the most popular beer in their arsenal, available in the Caribbean, the United States, and Canada. For those curious to try it in New York City, quite a few Guyanese bars in South Queens carry the light lager. ° 📍 Kaieteur Sports Bar, 87-12 Lefferts Blvd, Richmond Hill, Queens. ℹ️ Instagram exclusive post, added to full map on website. ° ° #EattheWorldNYC #eattheworld #worldfood #worldfoods #nyceats #nycfood #nycdining #eatsofnyc #foodlovers #foodlover #instayum #instafood #instaeat #newforkcity #eatingnyc #queensny #queensnyc #queensistasty #queenseats #ediblequeens #richmondhillqueens #barbados #barbadian #bajan #bajanbeer #barbadosbeer #guyana #guyanese #guyanese #banksbeer

A post shared by Eat the World NYC (@eattheworldnyc) on Nov 10, 2018 at 6:11pm PST

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RICHMOND HILL Queens

87-12 Lefferts Blvd

Map of Eat the World NYC:

Palm Court of Guyana

GUYANA 🇬🇾

A night out in Georgetown, the capital city of Guyana, often starts or ends at the Original Palm Court, a vast operation that takes on different appearances and character at different times of day. Some spaces are inside and/or covered for watching sports around a bar or enjoying dinner before a big night out, while outdoor spaces start to get used more as the sun goes down and the air cools. As the name suggests, the courtyard is lined with leafy palm trees and shrubs and gives a tropical vibe. Later in the night, things get loud with live music or a DJ. It is the type of establishment that everyone in town knows since it has been open for three quarters of a century, but also a place every tourist ends up in at least once.

This is the mood and inspiration for the Palm Court of Guyana, a restaurant and bar that lives on a gritty stretch of Hillside Avenue in Jamaica, Queens. Bus routes with destinations further east of the subway terminus make sure the air is filled with exhaust and noise at all times. While those tropical feelings from the north coast of South America are hard to import, a wonderfully palmy welcome mural does its best in transplanting you as you walk into the space.

This first room is a bar with booths and TVs surrounding the space. A projector on one side is used when big cricket matches are happening, one of the main draws here. Two "Live Cricket" signs adorn the front window, making sure fans of the sport know the best spot in the neighborhood for taking in a match. This front space also doubles as a party hall and nightclub with live DJ on weekend nights, doing its best to duplicate the spirit of the original.

You can of course eat in the front space, but a more formal dining room in the back also exists. This gets you closer to the kitchen, subcontinent smells filling the room.

People of Indian descent make up the largest group in Guyana, dating back to about the time the British West Indies abolished slave labor from Africa and started a system of indentured labor that was not that different. The main freedom these laborers from Northern India were afforded over their African counterparts was the ability to keep their cultural traditions, which live on today. Chinese migrants also entered the country looking for opportunity, and today Guyana is a very multicultural society as these communities all live on and mix.

Chinese-style Guyanese food is wildly popular in the country and available here as in most Guyanese restaurants in New York City, but I opted for the weekend special cook-up rice ($10, above), served with chicken. Cook-up rice is similar to what other Caribbean countries might call rice and peas, a combination of rice and black-eyed peas served as a side dish to other meats. With its roots firmly in West African tradition, Guyanese kitchens prepare the dish a bit differently, all in one pot with meats cooked together with the rice. Coconut milk thickens the dish and provides a sweetness that works to bring all the other tastes together.

On multiple visits here I saw the same familiar faces working and eating. One man that sat next to me at the bar the first time came in during a later visit to pick up a takeout order. Seeing me in the same seat he even said hello and remembered our conversations, asking me if I had the chance to check out his other local recommendations.

Somehow, it might be easy to become a regular here no matter where you come from.

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JAMAICA Queens

171-16 Hillside Avenue

Map of Eat the World NYC:

Island Express

GUYANA 🇬🇾

If you are a Caribbean person living in South Queens or Brooklyn, or just love good food, chances are you have heard of and love Sybil Bernard. Her first bakery opened in 1976, offering Guyanese bread and pastries that quickly became beloved and eventually expanded to two other restaurants. The fourth has recently opened in Flatbush, Brooklyn and resembles a fast food burger joint on first glance. Fortunately it is much better, all of the Guyanese favorites are just as good as always.

The graphics game is on point, and the walls tell the story of Sybil, her children, and this Guyanese empire. It also includes her photos from younger years and a few select quotes that frame her as a no-nonsense woman.

The menu is compact but offers all the Guyanese and Caribbean favorites including roti and curry. There is also a bakery side, getting back to her roots and showcasing her many skills.

Off the menu, but sometimes available is pepper pot ($12, above and below), a stewed beef dish made with Caribbean hot peppers, cinnamon, and a cassava root-based sauce called cassareep. The second half of the name comes about because this is a dish usually reserved for special occasions or holidays, and cooked in a large pot for many servings.

This should be eaten with white rice, which will turn brown and soak up all the good gravy. It comes with a choice of one side, which will be added to the plate and also covered with gravy.

The bakery skills of Sybil have always shown through with her Jamaican-style patties, which can also be purchased here in a small size called cocktail patties ($1.50 each, below). The well-seasoned meats are covered with perfectly flaky crust.

Other treats from the bakery include a thick and sweet yucca and coconut "pudding" called pone ($2, below) and the cheese roll ($1, below) which is not unlike the patties but filled with slightly spicy cheddar.

Also available are homemade Caribbean drinks like sorrel and mauby, and something I can never resist, the peanut punch ($3, below).

Caribbean people fly the flags of their country everywhere, but often times a restaurant will have an awning that says "West Indian" on it instead of being specific. I think it is great that Island Express proudly prints "Authentic Guyanese Cuisine since 1976." If you have ever felt intimidated by some of the Caribbean steam table restaurants written about on these pages that do not really have a self-explanatory menu and require some guess work, this is a "user-friendly" place to start.

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FLATBUSH Brooklyn

998 Flatbush Avenue

Tota's Bakery & Restaurant

GUYANA 🇬🇾

From the moment Tota's opens it doors, Caribbean reggae music is blasting from inside. On a first visit, Jamaica's Bob Andy seemed to be the artist of the day, his most popular hits audible for at least two blocks. Like the music, the food here seems to be traveling through the Caribbean, most likely satisfying to all the neighborhood's residents. Everything has Guyanese roots like the owners, but it does not limit itself.

The music can be inconvenient during orders, especially if you have questions. The soft spoken woman who runs the place smiles and answers but does not really try to compete with the volume levels.

Although this is a bakery and a restaurant, the baked goods seem to be a select few loaves of bread. They are not an afterthought though, looking fresh and constantly being ordered by takeout customers.

The real show though is all the prepared foods set up in old, dripping coolers with condensation that sometimes obscures the contents. It is apparent that these have held decades of curries. The well worn walls and furniture hold in them decades of happy customers. A framed portrait of "The President of the United States of America" is a photo of Barack Obama, for a moment it allows for time travel and relief.

What goes for a small portion here is actually quite large, an order of the goat curry ($7, below) was plenty for a very filling lunch.

Guyana, like its Caribbean neighbors Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago, is full of intersections of people, culture, and traditions. This of course always leads to outstanding foods like this intensely spiced curry. Each bite kept getting better, and gravy does a wonderful job saturating the rice below.

There is only one table here as most people don't stay to eat and takeout orders are the rule. I have sat down there twice now though, and had good company each time. It seems there is always someone just hanging out, listening to the music or reading a copy of the Trinidad & Tobago newspaper that is available.

Tota's also offers a bit of the popular Guyanese-style Chinese food, but our meals here stuck with Guyanese proper with not enough bellies to enjoy it all. Do not miss a chance to end your meal with a cup of their housemade custard flavor soft serve ice cream.

A second meal consisted of the baked chicken ($7, below), one of three styles of chicken offered including jerk and bbq. The baked has similar tastes to jerk chicken and is again full of flavor. While the baking may have dried out the bird a little, this is nothing that a few scoops of the gravy can't fix.

The spinach rice is unseen in both photos above but recommended over the white rice for the base. It just adds more herbs and spices to each bite, hard to resist even when you start getting stuffed.

On each visit I ordered the cassava egg ball ($1.50, below), the no meat Caribbean version of a Scotch egg. The cassava mash is full of spices and has a soft, spongy texture that is very pleasant.

On the second visit, Marcia Griffiths blasted from the speakers, another famous Jamaican singer. Further research into her career found that for five years she performed in a duo named "Bob and Marcia" with none other than Bob Andy, the star of the first visit.

If you have the time to enjoy the atmosphere here at the restaurant and can tolerate the volume, grab a bottle of their homemade peanut punch (below). This version is sweet of course, but not too sweet and very good.

The steady stream of takeout customers is proof that things here are going fairly well and my initial impressions of the food must be shared by their loyal following. A good history seems to ooze from every surface.

When the sun goes down, a big black jerk drum is wheeled in front and the smells of jerk chicken waft through the night air over Utica Avenue. The party moves outside, and revelers come from their own parties to fuel up before going home.

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CROWN HEIGHTS Brooklyn

244 Utica Avenue

GT Rice Bowl

GUYANA

In this part of Richmond Hill and/or Ozone Park, it is very common to see Guyanese or Caribbean style Chinese restaurants up and down Liberty Avenue and surrounding streets. None of them are particularly mind-blowing, but for my money, GT Rice Bowl takes first prize amongst them for food and atmosphere. Come during a big cricket match and find the place packed with beer guzzling fans. Come during an evening and the place resembles a club despite its modesty. Come for lunch and find a workaday West Indian eatery catering to locals.

As a solo customer at midday, I got some stares from the groups of Coors Light drinking mothers at tables and individual men at the bar and felt slightly out of place. The woman running the show barely acknowledged me, not making it any easier, so I took a seat and tried to act like I was in my long time favorite restaurant.

She just had a couple things on her mind or something though, because after bringing me a menu was very kind and donned a smile. Eventually I could see she was just annoyed with the men at the bar that were probably nursing their 4th or 5th beer at one in the afternoon.

The menu here reads like a Chinese-Caribbean mashup, and it seemed only natural to order a rice dish since it is in the name. I went for the house special fried rice ($12.45, below) which turns out to be a mountain of food that should be able to fill two people.

The rice mountain is generously proportioned with various chunks of pork, shrimp, and crab, and is all topped with a big slab of chicken that is moist and well-seasoned. The rice is not quite as greasy as your local Chinese takeout and is definitely more fun to eat. A few weak peppers are interspersed in the mix as well, but for real heat add the fiery sauce that is on offer on every table. Be careful with this stuff though!

I have never been at night, but if you are in the area, I imagine that a group of four could settle in nicely to one of the booths with a bucket full of bottled beer and enjoy the "clubby" scene of it all. As with other places on this street, Coors Light seems to be the go to beer of the West Indian community, but they make plenty of cocktails as well.

RICHMOND HILL Queens

114-09 Liberty Avenue

Guyana's Choice Bakery

GUYANA 🇬🇾

The bakery that a community centers around can be an exciting, albeit intimidating, place to eat. This small location is the bakery that the Guyanese and surrounding Caribbean community seems to go to for all their bread and pastry needs. The shop also includes quite a range of non-perishable goods and interesting cold drinks.

Stepping through grocery products in front and following your nose to the smells in the back, you will find a large display with all types of bread loaves, as well as the case below with a good selection of sweet and savory pastries.

I tried to choose some products that I had not sampled before, to take home and enjoy at a later time. Despite meeting some others for lunch nearby, I could not help but immediately eat the warm chicken patty ($1, below), which has shredded chicken and a lot of herbal-ness within. It's a bit on the dry side, but completely enjoyable as a quick snack to surpress hunger.

More interesting were both the cheese roll (50 cents, below right) and the pine tart (50 cents, below left). The cheese roll is only slightly cheesy, but seems infused with a nice mustard or similar taste that makes it really good. There could have been a hint of cumin in their as well. A little more familiar to most might be the shuriken-like pine tart, which is much more successful as an edible than as a weapon. The "pine" refers to the pineapple filling inside, not overly sweet and tucked away inside of a flaky holder.

The pineapple and strawberry tarts (75 cents each, below) interested me for the gooey centers falling out, but were less appetizing than their predecessors above. That being said, they are sure to satisfy anyone with a sugar craving, and would make an excellent breakfast pastry in their own right.

Three or four people had come in since I had stepped up to the counter, and they seemed to be getting a little unhappy as I was asking questions and making slow decisions, so I decided to wrap up my inquiries and be on my way. Other women were buying dozens of bread rolls and loaves, most of which were still steaming hot from the oven, packing them away in bags to bring home and accompany their meals. Unfortunately I did not secure any invitations into their homes to eat.

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RICHMOND HILL Queens

119-14 101st Avenue

Joy & Snook

GUYANA 🇬🇾

Around Labor Day of 2010 a new white awning went up, a Guyanese flag was flown, and "GT Style" pronounced the cuisine. Nostrand Avenue's newest Caribbean addition is nothing out of the ordinary for the area, but is definitely a good option, its owners hailing from Georgetown.

The place has a small steam table and about 8 options daily, as well as some pastries and fritters. Ask what is good and you are met with a smiling answer. I wish I could try all, except maybe the weird appearance of veggie chow mein!

On the top shelf are a few friend options which looked appealing. The fish cake ($1, above) is not at all crispy like it looks and has only a slightly fishy taste. The server will apply some spicy sauce for you if requested. Another selection was the egg ball ($1.50, below, real name I swear)

which was exactly as described. The hard-boiled egg was wrapped in a thin layer of potato, then breaded and very shortly fried. It also had the same sauce, and while I would not call the item delicious, it was unlike anything I had ever eaten which was fun.

Before and after dissection.

Of the mains, the pumpkin curry chicken ($5, below, served with rice) appealed to me most. It was very flavorful in a subtle way. The chicken fell off the bone as most tender Caribbean meats tend to. When ordering you are offered a side of salad or plantains, of which I went straight for the sweet fried latter. The salad was not visible, but I imagined it to be nothing special.

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CROWN HEIGHTS Brooklyn
762 Nostrand Avenue

Rockaway West Indian Roti Shop

GUYANA 🇬🇾

The Rockaway Roti Shop is one of the best places to sample the many varieties of Guyanese curries, including this goat curry ($7, below). There is a clash of cultures and spices that make a few delightful differences between the curries in the south Caribbean and those of their ancestors in India.

It takes a little walk from the nearest subway station, but buses serve Rockaway Blvd just as well. [UPDATE: This whole building has been recently made over, but the impressions are that the food remains just as tasty, if not a few dollars more expensive than in 2008.]

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SOUTH OZONE PARK Queens
122-21 Rockaway Boulevard