I used to be a Manhattanite… actually, I still really am. I’m an expat living in the Colony of Queens. For most Manhattanites, Queens is where you wake up at three in the morning, half drunk, after passing out on the subway. You get out, mildly pissed and mostly hungry, change directions, fall asleep going the opposite direction, and hope not to wake up in the ass-end of Brooklyn.

If my parents woke up on the F train in the middle of the night in Queens, they’d say “DAMMIT!” much as we would today. Except that in 1975, “DAMMIT!” translated roughly into “Thank God I’m not in the Bronx.” For my parents, Queens was where elderly relatives went to die, next to their cats and on a lawn down the block from the cemetery.

Queens was not, is not, cool. At least not most of it.

The end result of this is that not many outer borough restaurants get reviewed, especially Queens ones. This is slowly changing. Lots of us have been priced out of Manhattan and into Park Slope, Williamsburg, Long Island City, or where I am, Forest Hills. But most Manhattanites don’t know what they’re missing out on (and don’t really care) until their expat friends cajole (guilt) them into visiting and eating out. So while this isn’t exclusively a Queens blog, it’ll include perhaps more new places than you’re used to.

I hope.
We’ll see.