Get Your Kosher Fix
Buddy’s Kosher Deli
215-01 73rd Ave., Bayside
(718) 631-2110
Cuisine: Traditional Kosher Favorites
Hours: Open seven days 9:30 a.m. - 9 p.m
Credit Cards: All Major
Delivery: Yes (Minimum order $15)
It takes as many as four Hebrew words to describe something that is amazing or great: chaval al ha zman. In English, it just takes one word: Buddy’s.
Buddy’s Kosher Delicatessen Restaurant has been delighting Queens residents with hearty Jewish staples since 1950. While the front of the establishment resembles an ordinary deli, the back dining room is a love letter to a bygone era, with colorful murals that feature vintage advertisements for honest lawyers, $5 hot knishes, $4 used suits and a tribute to the New York Giants (the baseball team, of course).
It was difficult to choose just one soup from the extensive list that includes Chicken Soup with Matzoball, Split Pea, Cabbage Soup and traditional Chicken Noodle. I ordered a Mushroom Barley Soup and was struck by how many sizable, meaty mushrooms I found in the thick and tasty homemade brew, a rare treat in a city where so many delis favor a can opener to fresh ingredients.
My next dish, Stuffed Cabbage, was the most surprisingly delicious entrée I sampled. For years, my Irish relatives have been unsuccessfully trying to breathe life into this wallflower vegetable. Buddy’s does it by wrapping tender cabbage slices around a beef and rice filling and serving it with a light, sweet raisin sauce and French Fries that are so void of oil they’re practically weightless.
A trip to a Kosher deli is incomplete without trying the hot Corned Beef and Pastrami sandwich. I ordered mine on rye bread, which balanced the tender and perfectly salted meat, but you can also have it served in a knish. And though I haven’t enjoyed a knish in years, Buddy’s Spinach Knish, with its thin dough wrap, shared little in common with the overly-fried, oily knishes of my childhood flea market trips. I ended my lunch with a slice of Sweet Potato Pie, a thick pudding-like dessert with just a hint of cinnamon and brown sugar.
And for anyone who doesn’t appreciate the culinary skill it takes to produce a perfectly tangy, crisp-as-ice pickle, head over to Buddy’s and see what you’ve been missing.