{"id":21905,"date":"2022-04-12T17:29:24","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T17:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.devourtours.com\/?p=21905"},"modified":"2022-12-20T17:04:37","modified_gmt":"2022-12-20T17:04:37","slug":"outer-boroughs-eating-excursion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dev.devourtours.com\/blog\/outer-boroughs-eating-excursion\/","title":{"rendered":"Outer Boroughs Eating Excursion: Little Poland to Himalayan Heights"},"content":{"rendered":"

In some ways, New York City is the world in microcosm. There are reportedly 600 different languages spoken throughout the five boroughs. When you go to the ATM in, say, hyper-diverse Jackson Heights, Queens, you\u2019re given the option of doing the transaction in one of 16 different languages. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Incredible dim sum in Flushing’s Chinatown. Photo credit: Meng He<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here are some other staggering statistics: 36 percent of the population of New York City is foreign born. New York is home to the largest population of Puerto Ricans outside of Puerto Rico, the largest Asian-Indian population in the Western hemisphere, the second-largest population of Koreans outside of Korea, the largest amount of Arabs in North America, the biggest Jewish population outside of Israel, and the largest number of Chinese outside of Asia. (In fact, there are eight Chinatowns here.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are pockets of communities of Sri Lankans and Liberians on Staten Island, Albanians in the Bronx, Central Asian Tajik-speaking Bukharian Jews in Rego Park, Greeks and Egyptians in Astoria, and Ukrainians in Brighton Beach. There are only 700 people in the world who still speak Seke, a rare language from Nepal\u2014and 100 of them live in Brooklyn\u2019s Flatbush neighborhood. <\/span><\/p>\n

Travel is great. But if you can\u2019t get on an airplane and fly over an ocean, just hop on the subway for 45 minutes. Here are the best neighborhoods to visit when you want to feel like you\u2019re in a different country, places to do an outer boroughs eating excursion. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Chinatown (Flushing, Queens)<\/span><\/h2>\n

Most visitors to New York end up at some point in Chinatown in Manhattan. A lot of tourists might not realize that there are also Chinatowns in Elmhurst, Queens; Bensonhurst, Brooklyn; Homecrest, Brooklyn; Little Neck, Queens; Forest Hills, Queens; and Sunset Park, Brooklyn.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Flushing. Take the number 7 train to the end of the line, and emerge from the platform and you\u2019ll be engulfed in this bustling Queens neighborhood, like you\u2019ve just been deposited into some random city in China.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always this way. Until the 1970s, Flushing was mostly Jewish and Italian. Then the Chinese from a handful of regions in China started coming.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, the neighborhood is 70 percent Asian and the biggest and fastest growing Chinatown in New York. And it\u2019s unique in that there are restaurants serving the cuisine of very under-represented Chinese regions in the United States.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure, it\u2019s easy to find Hunan and Szechuan restaurants, but in Flushing there are restaurants serving the cuisine of Dong Bei, a region in China that is just north of North Korea. Also, there are restaurants serving food from Shandong, Shaanxi, and Xinjiang, among other regions in China.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Flushing offers a piece of China in the heart of Queens. Photo credit: Jorge Quinteros<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here are a few restaurants to check out in Flushing:\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n