Kwan’s Qualms’ New York City World Cup Food Guide (In Progress)

Written By Kwan Ng

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Please keep in mind that any restaurant listed as a recommendation I would personally go back to, I just added the star system to help differentiate, but again, let me be clear, I genuinely like all of these restaurants. I will go back and even have been back to some of them already!

Because this whole process is taking me a lot longer than I thought, I’m posting this as the “list”, and then going to split up the actual blog portion into two parts, because I simply cannot get to all of them in time. 26 are in Part I, and the rest I’ll try and get into Part II. Also 4 of them I’m holding with information because I’ve been to them before, just not for this scheme. 9 of them I need help with, so please send in your suggestions.

Background

Alright, a break from tickets and soccer. It’s the World Cup in America. So I’m going to highlight two of the best parts of New York. Our diversity and food.

The criteria is thus. Food from the World Cup nations. I spent December, January, and February going to these restaurants and testing them out. These are my personal experiences and it is not a complete list nor a definitive judgement on these restaurants. But I figured I would do it to support local businesses, try new foods, and spread the word.

  1. Serve food of that country’s cuisine (or at least attempts it tangentially)

  2. I must have eaten there and liked it

    • If I haven’t been there, I’ve included it as a courtesy with someone else vouching for it.

  3. Locally owned (hopefully), but this isn’t a hard and fast rule…

  4. I’ve had to add this fourth rule because I found that a few were very hard / probably impossible to find an entire restaurant dedicated to them, so I had to downgrade to just a dish… and maybe that is being generous.

That means there are many more restaurants that aren’t on this list, but alas, I can’t spend all my time and money going to restaurants all over the city. There’s also going to be a high bias towards restaurants in my geographic area since that’s easier for me. Sorry, but Astoria and Queens are just so diverse, we often don’t have to go far, but I apologize to the Bronx and Brooklyn in particular for the lack of representation (I’m not really even going to mention Staten Island). I’m going to bold my main recommendation, but keep some additionals in case geographically it matters to anyone. Again, there are no real rules in my world despite what it may seem.

Let’s start with the fact that some of the most popular cuisines in New York City are not represented. Of the top 10 most popular countries of origin of New York City restaurants, 4 of the largest aren’t even represented (Chinese, Italian, Indian, and Thai), with a vague Caribbean one sort of being represented via Curacao and Haiti.

Now that I’m posting this, I’ll just call out a few issues. We found that there were four regions in particular that had a hard time differentiating their food specifically. These are Middle Eastern, North African, West African (and sort of Pan-African), and Scandinavian. Restaurants generally called themselves a representation of foods from these regions not particularly a specific country. In these situations my option may be more of a fusion / blend / or American adaptation of it, but hey, I’m an amateur and this is for myself. At the very least I’m trying to find a national dish or something that people would consider of that country, since basically an entire restaurant is out of the question.

Also, as a disclaimer, I’ve been paid by no one and am completely independent in my reporting. Just a rogue individual who eats food and has no qualifications to really rank anything other than vibes on a single visit. Also, I generally have asked my dining companions to say a few words and have paraphrased and plagiarized them as my own content. Honestly, I would have done quotes, but it was so inconsistent that I’m just going to pretend they’re all my thoughts. Sorry friends, and Mattos in particular.

We weren’t consistent, but we tried to let the “Phone Eat First”. But I don’t care enough about the photos, nor am I good enough at taking them. So… enjoy poorly framed often blurry photos. I refused to let it delay us longer than 3 seconds, but I’m an influencer now (because I said so), and felt obliged to show my tens of readers some pictures. If a restaurant is missing pictures it’s because we either went before I was taking them, or before this was even a project of ours, or I simply forgot.

Also, as I said at the top, I’ve decided to leave a star rating. This isn’t your classic filter 4 stars and up only, I would literally go back to any of the restaurants that I’m recommending. But I wanted to find a way to highlight the best of the best and just organize my thoughts. So keep that in mind when you see the star ratings.

Countries I sincerely need help finding a restaurant for:

  1. Cape Verde

  2. Curacao

  3. DR Congo

  4. Iraq

  5. Netherlands

  6. Norway

  7. Qatar

  8. Saudi Arabia

  9. Scotland

Alphabetically

There is an absolute bias towards restaurants I’ve been to, frequent, are in neighborhoods I spend more time in, and that I personally like, this is by no means a definitive list. Just a suggestion to hit these places up. It also turns out Queens is just the most diverse and Astoria in particularly has some pretty solid representation (but that all tracks). Bold ones are ones I’ve been to. TBD are ones I haven’t decided on yet or cannot find.

  • All Teams (alphabetically)

    • Algeria - Le Petit Pecheur, Astoria

    • Argentina - Boca Juniors, Elmhurst

    • Australia - Sushi Counter, West Village

    • Austria - Cafe Sabarsky, Upper East Side

    • Belgium - BXL Cafe, Midtown

    • Bosnia & Herzegovina - Sarajevo Grill, Astoria

    • Brazil - Rio Market, Astoria

    • Canada - The Canuck, Chelsea

    • Cape Verde - TBD

    • Colombia - El Basurero, Astoria

    • Croatia - Rudar Club, Astoria

    • Curacao - TBD

    • Czechia - Bohemian Spirit, Upper East Side

    • DR Congo - TBD

    • Ecuador - Barzola, Astoria

    • England - Dame, West Village

    • Egypt - Abuqir, Astoria

    • France - Benoit, Midtown

    • Germany - Max Bratwurst und Bier, Astoria

    • Ghana - Accra Express, Harlem

    • Haiti - TBD

    • Iran - TBD

    • Iraq - TBD

    • Ivory Coast - YopCity, Belmont (Arthur Avenue)

    • Japan - Kondo, Astoria

    • Jordan - Levant, Astoria

    • Mexico - Nenes Taqueria, Multiple

    • Morocco - Dar Lbahja, Astoria

    • Netherlands - TBD

    • New Zealand - The Musket Room, Soho

    • Norway - Nordic Preserves, Lowest East Side

    • Panama - Michelle’s Lounge, Flatbush

    • Paraguay - I Love Paraguay, Sunnyside

    • Portugal - Portugalia, Newark

    • Qatar - TBD

    • Saudi Arabia - TBD

    • Scotland - TBD

    • Senegal - Le Baobab Gouygui, Harlem

    • South Africa - Kaia Wine Bar, Upper East Side

    • South Korea - Jongro BBQ, Midtown

    • Spain - Little Mercardo, Hudson Yards

    • Sweden - Bjork Cafe, Midtown

    • Switzerland - The Lavaux, West Village

    • Tunisia - Basta Middle Eastern Grill, Astoria

    • Turkiye - Safir Mediterranean, Long Island City

    • Uruguay - La Gran, Jackson Heights

    • USA - Fraunces Tavern, Financial District

    • Uzbekistan - Marakand, Forest Hills

Help… What New York City Could Not Offer

A restaurant representing Cape Verde was not available unfortunately. Considering they only have a population of 600K people, this was always going to be a tough one. It is considered to be a mix of Portuguese, West African, and Brazilian, but there were no dedicated restaurants in New York City. I was particularly looking for Cachupa, their national dish. However, this week we did find that our local Irish pub will be temporarily supporting Cape Verde and I hear they will be making both food and have some Cape Verdean drinks available. So to be found.

Also joining the missing list are Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It became a bit hard to truly define the differences in the Middle Eastern cuisine, so we tried to simply find the national dish of each; Majboos and Kabsa respectively. Similarly, having a hard time finding a specifically Iraqi restaurant.

Scotland is proving to be hard. Plenty of bars, not so many food spots. Apparently authentic Haggis is illegal in New York state, but even then I can’t find somewhere that could truly be called Scottish food. Just more generic pub food.

Norwegian isn’t exactly that well represented either. Most of the Scandinavian food seems to focus on Swedish food. I think technically we got it covered with our visits to Bjork Cafe / Nordic Preserves, but I’m probably stretching it a bit.

For a town that used to be called New Amsterdam, we have a dire lack of Dutch food. I think the best we’ll be able to do is a similar herring. The Stroopwafel place was truly horrendous…

Curacao is hard, but it could probably be represented in some sort of Caribbean food. Though I haven’t been able to find Keshi Yena.

Same rules go for DR Congo and African food. But I do intend on finding something to represent this. Poulet à la Moambe, fufu, and pondu are available at some places.

By Star Rating

  • ★★★★★ - Drop everything and go

    • Egypt - Abuqir, Astoria

  • ★★★★☆ - Exceptional

    • Croatia - Rudar Club, Astoria

    • England - Dame, Greenwich Village

Blue I haven’t been to yet / finalized.

Light green to dark green represent the stars.

Kwan Ng
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