Kevin K.
Yelp
So in my honest opinion, one should always carry a bit of pride in your local area. As the old saying goes - Home is where you hang your hat and lay your head. You should have at least 3 local vendors and businesses in your past neighnorhoods whose regular actions enriched your life experiences immensely. When I was in Corona it was the Ecuadorean food vendors in Flushing Meadows Park, Benfaremos (the lemon ice king of Corona) and the Argentinean bakeries on Corona Avenue whipping up a frothy cappuccino to go with my Alfajor. When it was Elmhurst it was the Pad Thai at Chao Thai, the Laphing at Lhasa Liang Fen, and the Indonesian food at Indo Java. When it comes to Sunnyside it was the platters at Souk el-shater, the Irish groceries at the Butcher's block, and the donuts in Alpha donuts. For Rego Park, it was the shashliks and plov at Cheburechnaya, the knishes at knish nosh, and the samcys at Bella Roza.
When it comes to Forest Hills...it becomes tricky. See, Forest Hills have that pocket of anglo-saxon suburban WASPiness at its ForHi Garden core, which dictates certain outliers near Continental Avenue. It has a transitional zone from the Buhkarian McMansions on the 67th side to 71st, and then from 75th Avenue towards the subway yard near the border with Kew Gardens, it gets more constrained and weird. In the meantime, on the south near Metropolitan Avenue it feels more like Middle Village/Woodhaven with mom-n-pop restaurants that I cannot tell are good or not. To pick 3 places representing the neighborhood is tough. I'll say it's Ayahausca, the little Peruvian hole-in-the-wall takeout behind Parker Towers Austin street (it's cheap, surprisingly good and a little obscure), the Bonnelle bakery, which is a very authentic French bakery run by a pair of sisters from India, nestled right up to the entrance of "The Gardens" on Ascan (good carrot cake slices and Plan B if Boulongerie is mobbed), and there's Sakura-ya (one of the very rare mom-n-pop Japanese grocery stores in NYC).
So what's so interesting about Sakura-ya? Well, it's a bona-fide Japanese grocery store where the staff greet visitors with an "Irasshaimase" (welcome to our store) and local Japanese lady nods at the staff and gets an acknowledgement in return. It's a smallish grocery store and they try to fit quite a bit in. Condiments, frozen foods, meat, veggies, prepared foods, baked goods, canned drinks and snacks are all found amongst those narrow aisles - the remarkable thing is that just like Han-ah-rehm in Woodside, they are clean and well organized, but unlike the Korean store, they don't have the backing of a massive supermarket chain. Judging by the fact that parking is nowhere to be found (street parking on Austin street? HA!) most customers are locals - apartment or townhome dwellers heading home with their bags or small folding strollers, or maybe residents from the private houses at the garden picking up a few small things for their homes. The aisles are narrow but you'll find some amazing things - like takoyaki pans, 3 types of ochazuke (お茶漬け) mixes, Japanese OTC medication (complete with the obligatory Sato-chan elephant mascot above the register - the sign of a true mom-n-pop Japanese convenience store) and the decent selection of Kabaya trade models that kids might enjoy. It takes about 14 hours to fly from NY to Osaka or Tokyo, and your nearest Lawson's is still in Hawaii 11 hours away. If Sakura-ya disappears the nearest mom-n-pop Japanese grocery will probably be Tominga Shoten in Port Washington (or Taiyo in Woodside), and you won't get to keep the cool neighborhood status. So yeah, come visit often and buy some stuff. Granted, it's not the biggest nor the coolest Japanese grocer out there (that will be Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater NJ and Daido in Scarsdale respectively), but it's the perfect one for ForHi.
