Batty for Burek

Whenever I go on a business trip, one thing I always check on is my GPS, not only to see how to get to somewhere but to also see if I have anything of interest near my destination. I have over 200 places entered in my GPS and most of them are food related. So when I went to cover the New York Sharks training camp up in the Bronx, I looked to see where I may go to get something to eat.

One place that was fairly close by and was something I have tried to go to in the past was Mo Gridder's. Mo Gridder's is one of those unusual business combinations, consisting of barbecue and auto repair. But they were closed for the winter so the next closest thing I had was for Dukagjini Burek.


Unfortunately for me all I could remember was that I saw an episode of the tv show Bronx Flavor and they highlighted this restaurant for their burek, but I could not remember what the heck burek was. Not having a smart phone, I called up a friend to see if he could find out what is burek. After a few tries of spelling out the dish, he was able to find out what it is.

Burek (or borek) is a pastry made of phyllo dough and filled with meat, cheese, or vegetables that originated from the Balkans. Anything made with phyllo and filled with meat can't be bad so I made a beeline to Dukagjini Burek at the end of the day.


Dukagjini Burek looked kind of out of place situated amongst an array of hispanic restaurants and businesses. It is a small establishment with only 5 tables and counter service. The menu is quite limited to serving 3 types of burek (meat, cheese, and spinach), home-made yogurt and espresso. A whole burek costs $16 or you can get a slice for $4.

Unless I have had a dish before, I usually have a hard time making up my mind on what to select. With the aroma of the fresh baked bureks filling the air, it made my choice more difficult. There was one customer in the place and I asked him what he liked, and he was not really all that helpful as he said that he liked them all with some of the home-made yogurt on top. I decided to buy one of each but did not get the yogurt as I am not a really big yogurt fan.

The lady behind the counter took out a 3 freshly made bureks and cut them into slices and put them into a pizza box. I took the bureks home to eat and tried a little from each one as each slice was enough for a meal. The cheese burek was filled with feta and ricotta cheese, the spinach burek was filled with spinach and some feta, and the meat burek was filled with seasoned beef.


Overall the bureks was quite tasty with the beef being the best. It was savory with the meat having the right amount of seasoning. Next best was the cheese burek and then the spinach. I would have preferred there to be more seasoning in the spinach burek as it tasted of mostly spinach and very little feta. Next time I will try the yogurt to put on the burek.

Dukagjini Burek (***)
758 Lydig Avenue
Bronx, New York
(718) 822-8955

You can't spell scrapple without "crap"

I was working at an Internet start-up about antiques a few years ago. I can't remember how the subject even came up, but I mentioned that I liked scrapple to a co-worker. She made one of those faces of disgust when I told her what it was made of and she said that she wouldn't eat anything that had the word "crap" in it.

For the uninitiated, scrapple is a Pennsylvania Dutch specialty consisting of pork and cornmeal. It is like mush but is then fried and usually served at breakfast like bacon or sausage. What makes it unappealing to some is that the pork part of scrapple can be any part of the pig. It can consist of pig hearts, tongue, liver, anything that is left over. The saying about scrapple is that it is made of "everything but the oink".

Well this past weekend, I went to visit some relatives in Philadelphia and then decided to take a day trip to Lancaster. I love to eat at the Amish style restaurants where I can get my fill of fried chicken, buttered noodles, and vegetables. I especially like the sweet dried corn. In fact that was one of the main reasons to head to Pennsylvania Dutch was so I can buy a few boxes of Cope's Corn. They are hard to find outside of Pennsylvania Dutch and when you do, they cost quite a bit.


But getting back to scrapple. The first stop was for breakfast at Dienner's Country Restaurant in
Ronks, Pennsylvania. They offer a breakfast buffet that is not as varied as an Old Country Buffet but they offer many dishes from the area. The most important dish to me was the scrapple. They offered the scrapple made with pork and for the more health conscience I guess, they had a turkey one too ("everything but the gobble?"). They also had pancakes, sausage, home fries, scrambled eggs, fruit, oatmeal, grits, biscuits and sausage gravy, smoked sausage, french toast, and few more items. The quality is not bad and it only cost $5.95. By the way did I mention they had scrapple?

After a big breakfast, I headed out to do some shopping. There are quite a few outlet stores in the area. The place is geared towards tourists with lots of shopping and family chain restaurants. It is quite a dizzying mix when you consider that many Amish residents live in the area and can be seen on the main roads riding their horse and buggy. What I find kind of amusing is that there are some Amish that will wear most of the traditional dark clothing but will wearing Croc shoes or driving a mini-van. Then again, I shouldn't be making any stereotypes. While at Dienner's the waitress came up to me and seeing that I am Asian asked if I had food like this in my country. Being the 6th generation living in the United States, I could have made a smart remark but refrained so and just said that I had been to that restaurant before.

Just before leaving Lancaster to head back to New York, I decided to get an early dinner. I had been to many other Amish family style restaurants like Miller's, Plain and Fancy, Stoltzfus, and others. I was looking to at least get some dried sweet corn and not pay the arm and a leg that some of those buffets charge. Granted many of those places offered discount coupons on the Internet and travel guides but they still can be pretty pricey.

After looking at menus and reviews, I chose to go to The Family Cupboard. The reviews on Yelp were pretty good and someone mentioned that they had the dried corn there. Plus their buffet was under $11. I got there around 3:30pm, just before they were switching over to dinner. Maybe that was the reason but the food and choices were only OK. They had fried chicken, baked chicken, chicken and dumplings, beef tips in gravy, ham, and an assortment of vegetables from mashed potatoes, carrots, green beans, beets, beans, and sweet shoe peg corn.

But they didn't have the dried sweet corn. What a bummer! And to make matters worse was the food was only OK. Except for the fried chicken and only by a little bit, you can do just as well at Old Country Buffet. The buttered noodles looked exceptionally vile, just a heap of over cooked pasta that was disintergrating in to itself. It wasn't terrible and the people were nice but there are so many other places to try in the area that I won't be heading back.

They're baaaaack!

Holy crap! While driving to a McDonald's to use their free Wi-Fi to download the day's copy of the Sunday newspaper on to my Kindle, I saw a sign that they were selling the McRib sandwich. I had already eaten but I made a mental note to come back another day.

The McRib sandwich is McDonald's faux pork sandwich, consisting of processed pork that is molded into the shape of mini-pork ribs served on a bun with lots of sweet barbecue sauce. The sandwich is not a regular item on the McDonald's menu and would sporadically show up for limited times around the country. The sandwich has a cult like following with people tracking and traveling around the U.S. to partake in the McRib.

Last year McDonald's had brought back the McRib nation-wide for a limited time around this time of year and had a huge success with it. I guess due the popularity they are bringing the sandwich back again nation-wide this year for a 3-week period until November 14th.

There has been no word so far if the McRib will become a regular item on the menu or if this will be an annual event like their Shamrock shakes or cherry baked pies. Maybe I will celebrate Halloween with a McRib meal. Now Count Floyd, that's scary.