…and I ate a hamburger.

For those of you who don’t live in NYC, this is almost equivalent to eating at McDonald’s in Taipei.

Flushing is New York’s second Chinatown, in some ways now more dynamic than the one in Manhattan. I went out there to do a little on-the-ground research for The Rough Guide to New York City (still catching up on that back work–thank you, generous RG editors), so I was imagining, say, grazing through the Flushing Mall food court, or popping into a Korean joint for some bibimbop, or slurping a bubble tea, or something along those lines.

But after I’d traipsed all over the damn place following the “Flushing Freedom Trail,” which is totally boring and consists of a bunch of old Quaker shingle houses that have nothing to do with Asians of any kind, I was a little addled. And I was walking down Main Street and saw the sign: “Try Our Handmade Fries, NOW ONLY $1!” And there was a gorgeous photo of funky-lookin’, perfectly crispy fries with their peels still on.

I think the poster resonated because I’d just been at the Burget Joint in Le Meridien in midtown, which is a fantastic place but serves those ho-hum standard Simplot fries. I’d just been thinking how much cooler the Burger Joint would be if it had fries that looked…why, like these on this poster!

So I walked in to Joe’s Bestburger and ordered me some fries. And then I was happy to hear the woman behind me say, “I just want to try your fries!” See, I wasn’t the only sucker.

I’d heard vaguely of Joe’s Bestburger–I thought it was some new franchise. But I see now, with a little googling, that this one in Flushing is the only one. If I were going to open a fast-food hamburger joint, I wouldn’t immediately think of Main Street Flushing, but maybe that’s why I’m broke.

Anyway, Joe’s has a sharp red-and-white color scheme and snazzy little LCD panels displaying the menu, and additional panels on the registers, so you can see your order being rung up. This reminded me of Fatburger, in LA, which has the same thing. (Hmm, I’ve become quite the burger connoisseur in the past few months. I hope that mad-cow thing is a hoax.)

But Fatburger’s register screens don’t talk. After I’d placed my order–fries, oh, and a cheeseburger and a soda, since I was there, you know?–the cashier guy said, “That’ll be $4.28.”

And then the register said, in this bad robotic girl-voice, “You got a DEAL! Add a real ice-cream shake for a total of five dollars! Do you want to take this DEAL?!”

During all this, the cashier had to pause awkwardly, with a look on his face like, “Yes, my job of upselling has been outsourced to a computer. When will the war against the robots begin?” I opted out of the deal. But another 72 cents for a shake that normally sells for $2 is kind of genius.

Another genius/insidious pricing thing is that water costs $1.25, and soda, with free refills, costs $1. That one I fell for, and I drank a good cup and a half of root beer, thank you very sugared-up much.

While I was waiting for my order, some little old man in a cap and a Members Only jacket bellied up to the pick-up counter and started berating the woman there (who, incidentally, was one of the most cheerful, normal-looking people I’ve ever seen working at a fast-food joint–does Joe’s BB offer good health-care plans?). All I heard was that this place was dirty, dirty, and something about how the fries shouldn’t be like that. I think he was objecting to the peels still being on, which made me want to knock him upside the head. The cheerful woman just smiled and said the health department had given them the highest rating of any resto on Main Street. I wanted to give her the thumbs-up, but I refrained.

So I sat down and ate my burger and my fries and my big cup of root beer. The fries were perfectly crispy and looked remarkably like those on the poster. They were served in a little styrofoam cup, with a little wood fork on the side, all Euro-stylie. Another poster on the wall alerted me to the “gourmet” toppings I could’ve had. There was garlic mayo, I think, but I’d just gone for the all-you-can-pump ketchup, in those nice wide and flat paper cups, which are much better for dipping than those little narrow ones that you get at Wendy’s.

And my burger was goo-ood, especially for the bargain price of $1.95. Joe’s BB touts its freshness, and while it’s no In-n-Out Burger, because the tomatoes still probably had to travel hundreds of miles to get sliced up in Flushing, it was pretty tasty. There was some magic sauce. Oh, and I had the choice of raw onions or grilled onions. I chose grilled, and they were super-caramelized.

The burger was even a wee bit pink in the middle, which you pretty much never get at a fast-food setup. It wasn’t pink enough to make me worry, though. See, secretly, I’m always a little relieved when they don’t ask how I want my burger cooked, because if they do ask, then I’m obliged to say, “Medium rare, please,” even though I know that I’m flirting with death, or at least my brain dissolving into nothing. Because I can’t choose to eat overcooked meat.

But if they don’t ask, and then the burger is still a tiny bit pink, I think that’s a pretty good compromise. I’ll probably still feel the prions creepin’ in in a few years, but oh well. They were good, burger-rich years.

One other good-or-maybe-creepy thing about the place was all the flat-panel TVs. The sound was turned off, fortunately, and they were evenly split between CNN and the Food Network. Plenty of inspiration to muse on the future of food in America, while I sat there eating more fries than I wanted and drinking more root beer than was good for me.

Anyway, I know I’m part of the problem, not the solution, when I say this, but for the whopping price of $4.28, Joe’s Bestburger was pretty freakin’ good. I mean, I don’t think I’d tell anyone to go all the way to Flushing for it, but if you happen to be there, and for some reason don’t want some Sichuan duck… Oh, what an idiot I am.

Since I’ve been back in NYC, I’ve had a relatively low workload and a fresh appreciation of all the nifty things to do here. So when I got really, really hungry the other night, I suggested to Peter that we go try Minangasli, an Indonesian restaurant in Elmhurst that’s gotten a lot of coverage in the New York Times recently (also a proper review here).

Having grown up on gado-gado (I’m not sure why–was it a stylish vegetarian thing in the 70s?), then come of age in Amsterdam, where Indonesian food appears in automat windows, I have some exposure to the cuisine, but hardly an understanding or true appreciation of it. But a few years ago I read a Saveur article about one island that made me drool, and the review of Minangasli made it sound overwhelmingly good, even if you didn’t order the beef brains, so I was excited to try it.

And it was good. Don’t get me wrong. But it did not make my face glow and my veins rush with a feeling of heartbreaking joy, like I get when I eat at Sripraphai or Spicy Mina. And it wasn’t like the food wasn’t spicy hot–the deep-fried kingfish we had was covered in a great sweet-spicy sambal, and the beef renddang was really rich. It was all tasty, and I also got a sweet avocado shake. And lamb satay.

Oh, and we ate a lot of green jackfruit. It was kind of artichoke-y, and slightly fleshy, even a bit pink on the inside. Jackfruit is something I can now remove from the long list of tropical goodies in my head: in one column, there are names like soursop and custard apple and alligator pear, and in the other are pictures, like green bumpy things and brown smooth things and things the size of footballs, and I’m slowly sorting out how things match up by process of elimination. (But if we put in a third column about how things taste, I’m back at square one.)

Anyway, I hate to resort to the very word I make a halftime freelance career of striking out, but the spices at Minangasli just didn’t “pop.” (For those who don’t read women’s magazines, this term is usually applied to body parts: “Coloring in the inner lash line really makes the eyes pop.” Which is a ghastly thought, which is why I always underline it and write “Really?!” in the margin when I’m copy editing. To no avail.) At Spicy Mina, you can almost discern every flavor as it travels across your tongue, even if it happens too fast for you to consciously register “Cardamom, cumin, cinnamon, clove, coriander…” There’s that sensation, and there’s also the pure heat. I think it takes the combo of the two to get the awesome endorphin rush. At Sripraphai, it’s the killer one-two-three punch (is that possible?) of fish sauce, lime and incredibly hot chili.

In Minangasli’s favor, the staff is exceedingly friendly. The prices are fabulously low. Its location in Elmhurst is lively and convenient (another reason to ride the V). The waitress (owner?) wears a cute little green apron that has “Minangasli” Bedazzled on it in orange rhinestones. Now that pops.

But I’m a junkie, and I need stronger stuff, I’m afraid.