Ethnic street food from around the world has gone mainstream. Talk about street food? Tamales cooked inside a hubcap over the open flames of a barrel fire stoked with woody products of all sorts, giving, of course, these junkyard tamales their distinct smokey flavor.
The Junyards, aka, the Iron Triangle is a wild and grossly unmaintained section of Queens next to Citi Fiels, the Mets home. It’s always been this way stretching back to when the ara was a dumping ground, most famously, an ash dumping ground, the leftovers of a city powered by coal. Eventually the city-owned, park-designated lands would be leased out to auto mechanics, manufactireres and junkyards owners, since the 1930s. The only thing that changes is the ethnic make-up of the owners and workers over the years. However, a startling change occurred when Mayor Bloomberg sold 23 acres of shops and their workers, for one f dollar to a development company that wanted to build a 4 billion dollar shopping mall in the age of Amazon. In 2013 these lands were taken over and all the shops torn down for development that has, over the years, and, through lots of protest, in to a new plan including lots of affordable housing and the fist professional soccer stadium fo the city. The Junkyards is the most existential place i’ve shot and lived. Largely a jumping off point for new immigrants, the most penniless of new arrivals.
Food from the streets of the Junkyards, sometimes, even using discarded woods and synthetic lumber, as fuel. But most other cooks will build their own restaurants, decorate them, and use a generator to power their cooking equipment. Legit food is rare within the junyards after the big shutdown in 2013, when there were four active restaurants. Beverages? Whether the place had a liquor lisence or not, never mattere. Drinks, beer and small bottles of booze were not just available in the restaurants, but were sold all over the yards. One of these joints didm\ have a bar and liquor lsence, and is still in operation. It began s Joe’s Bar, run and owned by the Iron Triangle’s most long-lasting resident, Joe, wh was basically born int the middle of junkyards at the bar and restaurant.
When a long-tome Guatemala/Peruvian restaurant closed (they didn’t pay rent for a couple of years) the owners set up a shack, a block away, and made specialties of Central America, on public and private property, very close to Citi Field and the Mets, although, never would a Mets fan venture into the Junkyards for food, maybe car repair, but not food. No one would ever park for free in the Junkyards, closest to Citi Field. But no one would ever break into your car if you were at the game. The thies, from the Junkyards, are cruising the parking lots and neighborhoods around Flushing Meadows Park.
Other foods popular in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, like mofongo, are made and sold here.
A mushed fish dish, Mofongo approval is only achieved under the proper conditions.
Classic plantain mofongo is a dish made of fried plantains, mashed and mixed with garlic paste and chicharrón (crispy pork skin). It is served alongside beef broth. Traditionally, mofongo is served in a pilón, a wooden mortar (the bowl-like part of the mortar and pestle). Read more about its history and origin
