Armenian food. I have never really thought anything of it until now. To be honest, I never thought anything of Armenia until a few weeks ago when it came up as an answer to a clue on Jeopardy…. “This small landlocked country located in Western Asia is bordered by Georgia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Iran and was member of the USSR until 1991 when the Union disbanded.”…
“What is Armenia?”
For those of you who don’t know, I work at a group home in Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn which is a neighborhood heavily populated with people from Russia and other former Soviet countries. However until recently, I was fairly ignorant and assumed that everyone in the neighborhood was Russian. Things changed once I arrived at the Brooklyn Bread House one day after running an errand for work to the Post Office.
Instead of going my normal route back to work that afternoon, I crossed the street from the post office and went to check out a new spot that looked like a mini-restaurant with a small sign in Cyrillic as well as a sign in English. I peeped in and saw a hot-bar with a lot of different foods that looked familiar to those found at a Russian grocery store I frequent in the neighborhood. The food at the grocery store deli is always cold and never really fresh, but this looked freshly prepared and hot. So of course I was on it like white on rice.
When I walked in there was this sweet looking lady standing behind a counter with a baked goodie window in front of it. The tiny walls of the little store were packed with Turkish delights, teas, and other various items. She said her name was Emilia when we introduced one another and I then told her I didn’t know much about Russian food and wanted to learn. She corrected me and said “This isn’t Russian food. It is Armenian. I am from Armenia.” I apologized and asked her “What would be good to eat?”….she then replied “All of it” with a smile on her face. I began asking her about all of the options on the hot-bar as I wanted to educate myself on Armenian cuisine….
The mushrooms up top are stuffed with a seasoned and ground chicken then topped with a melted cheese….absolutely incredible. Emilia described the item on the bottom as sautéed breaded chicken and onions.
On the top are some amazingly sautéed vegetables (eggplant, carrots, and bell pepper) and on the bottom is another variation of the sautéed chicken n’ onion.
Emilia gave me the native names for these two items: on the top is a dish called a “Judi kebab chicken” and on the bottom are some pork stuffed cabbage leaves called “Galubcy”. Both explode with flavor.
These are plain “kebabs”. They are made of ground pork and cooked on skewers and then served up just like this!
Opposite the hot bar is a typical olive bar….last time I got these olives from here that were stuffed with a uniquely flavored, spicy pepper….super chill.
The goodie counter in the front of the store…pictured are some really tasty light and flakey pastries. Emilia can be seen in the background…that sweet little lady.
Here is a unique and really good baklava. I always thought baklava was exclusive to the Greeks. Well the Armenians have their spin on one of my favorite deserts. Compared to the Greek versions that I’ve had, the Armenian version is very light and fluffy as opposed to the very dense Greek style. The Armenian version has a unique light layer of marshmallow on the top and is then soaked in honey, but not nearly as much as the Greeks soak it up with.
Now I will say something, and you might agree with me; but I don’t think that a lot of Armenian cuisine is all that enticing when you first look at it. However it is ALL incredibly delicious and I find that it pops will all sorts of unique and fun flavors. You wouldn’t know just by looking at it but trust me, the shit is legit.
The Brooklyn Bread House is not an actual sit down restaurant, but a café rather with a sit down bar by the window and three European style stools if you feel the need to sit. Because of that, you can either pile the food onto styrofoam plates for dine-in or into clear plastic containers for carry-out.
From left to right: Mushrooms stuffed with ground chicken, pork kebab, and rockin’ sautéed veggies.
Now I love a stuffed mushroom. I can make and eat the mess out of em’. But never in my life have I had a mushroom stuffed with meat!!! They are almost always stuffed with a cheese or cheese mixture of some sort whenever I’ve had them. Well at BBH, they stuff their mushrooms with a different stuffing every day…this day happened to be a seasoned ground-chicken kind of day. Onto the kebab….oh the kebab. It definitely tasted similar in many ways to the kebab I had in Istanbul. Certainly a well-seasoned and tasty meat. Finally, the sautéed veggies…I had no idea these veggies were going to explode with the flavor that they ended up exploding with. They possessed a Middle-Eastern/Asian flavor combo…and they were extraordinary.
From left to right: Galubcy (stuffed cabbage), sautéed chicken cutlet and onion, judi kebab chicken, and chicken n’ rice.
The Galubcy from BBH was far superior compared to the ones from the Russian grocery. They had FLAVOR…and I can’t really say what kind of flavor, but it was delicious nonetheless. The sautéed chicken n’ onion was simple, but good. Now the judi kebab chicken!!!! Holy cow! I don’t know how to begin explaining the flavor of this but I’ll try….it reminded me of this chicken I used to eat when I visited Morocco in 2007, however it kind of had an Asian twist. Soy maybe? Not sure, but it had kind of a middle-east meets Asia flavor…which happens to be where Armenia is…right on the cusp of Europe and Asia. The last item is a chicken and rice dish which tasted like home-cooked goodness that would make anyone feel better on a sick-day. There were no disappointments here...just plenty of satisfaction.
Good, hearty, “make-you-feel-good” food. That’s what Armenian food is.
- Boatner
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