Despite nearly a dozen tourist-friendly hotels and plenty of warehouses around the 36th St. M subway station in Long Island City, the streets are still scarce on good grub. If you’re in the area, be sure to seek out these three local haunts.
Cool beans
If Coffeed — a sunlit cafe and roastery in the lobby of the Standard Motor Products Building — only made great coffee, it would already be a boon to the neighborhood.
But the year-old space, which also hosts a weekend artisan food market and art shows, is designed to do much more. It was created by restaurateur Frank Raffaele, whose family owns Coney Island’s legendary Totonno’s Pizza, as a way to prove that a for-profit business could also give back to its community.
Each of his coffee shop’s three locations — a fourth in Queens’ new Hunter’s Point South waterfront park opens soon — gives 5% to 10% of each sale to a specific nonprofit. In Long Island City, that’s the working farm called Brooklyn Grange on the roof of their building, which takes Coffeed’s compost and supplies much of their produce as long as weather permits.
In summers that means Coffeed’s tomato and vegetable soups are some of the freshest in town. And right now Queens greens are still dressing sandwiches like the hummus-cheddar bagel ($7.75) or the turkey-bacon-avocado wrap ($8.75), both served with Turkish chocolate and fruit drizzled with honey from rooftop hives. Be sure to stop by in a few months, when Coffeed will have also opened a tasting room and lab.
Coffeed: 37-18 Northern Blvd. near 37th Ave., Queens; (718) 606-1299
Secret steak
If you’ve never heard about the $20 all-you-can-eat Brazilian rotisserie restaurant in the basement of Holiday Inn-Manhattan View, it’s because regulars don’t want you to. “This place is a well-kept secret,” confides Alexander Minevich, a defensive-driving instructor from Coney Island who recently celebrated his 30th birthday here at Rio Grande with abundant skewers of grilled meats.
Like most traditional churrascarias, the restaurant supplies each table with a marker in green and red. When you flip yours to green, servers show up tableside bearing 16 different kinds of protein they slice right onto your plate, including plump sausages, bacon-wrapped chicken and fish, pork ribs, leg of lamb and four kinds of steak, including the perfectly pink top sirloin that’s called picanha in Portuguese.
Along with the meats, each $20 meal includes a vast buffet of hot and cold sides prepared fresh each day, from a rainbow of sweet peppers to fried polenta and marinated greens beans. On Saturday and Sundays, the buffet includes an endless bowl of silky, flavorful feijoada, the pork and beef-studded black bean stew Brazilians eat each weekend.
Rio Grande Churrascaria: 39-05 29th St. at 39th Ave., Queens; (718) 361-1707
Bodega bites
Owned by Alberto Rodriguez, the 11-year-old L.I.C. Deli Grocery is well-stocked with essentials should area hotel guests want an overstuffed hoagie or a six-pack for their room. But Monday through Saturday, the kitchen in the back — where hotel workers and locals gather to catch up on gossip — also serves up excellent Dominican food.
There are 99-cent pastelitos — the crispy-skinned Dominican empanadas — plus piles of wonderfully fluffy white rice and fat pink beans. Those come served with dozens of hot dishes like pollo or chivo guisado, or stewed chicken or goat, crispy fried pork called chicharron de cerdo, skinny pork chops or yucca and onions. Filled to the brim, a small 7-inch foil pan is $4.50, a large 9-inch pan typically runs $5 to $6.
L.I.C. Deli Grocery: 2901 39th Ave. at 39th Ave, Queens; (718) 349-6368
