Looking for more great restaurant recommendations around New York?  Lucky for you, we spend some of our free time exploring the city and hunting for good, unique, vegetarian-friendly places – and we’re going to share two with you today.  Both of these spots cook up different cuisines, but they’re less than a mile from each other in northern Queens and they’re excellent examples of the diverse foods this borough offers.  So here’s what we got at each – just be warned that we are going to show you one image of meat here.

Over in Long Island City is Adda Indian Canteen, a cozy restaurant with a menu of lesser-known Indian dishes.  This place is small and pretty popular, so if you want to visit you’ll probably have to make a reservation several weeks in advance.  Many of the foods offered here are not items you’ll typically see at mainstream Indian restaurants – for example, here’s one of the appetizers we started our meal off with:  the dahi batata puri, which are spiced potato puffs served in a chutney and yogurt sauce.

We also got an order of the aloo chana chaat, made with potatoes and chickpeas in another chutney sauce, topped with crispy bits.

Then we shared two entrees:  first, the paneer khurchan, which is cubes of Indian cheese in a spicy pepper and tomato sauce …

… and then an impressive Lucknow dum biryani.  This dish is usually made with stewed goat and rice in a bread bowl, but if you ask they’ll make a vegetarian version that subs vegetables in for the meat.

And of course we had to get some naan – this is the cheese and chili variety.

Now if you head west on Queens Boulevard, one neighborhood over in Sunnyside is Sofra Mediterranean Grill, which serves up Turkish food.  There we started our meal with a cold appetizer platter, which features patlican salatasi (a smoked eggplant and pepper dip), cacik (a mint, garlic, and cucumber yogurt dip), white bean salad, babaghanoush, tabbouleh, and hummus – all served with some homemade bread.

We also got an order of falafel with more hummus.

Our favorite part of the meal there was this kasarli pide, which is flatbread stuffed and baked with cheese.

And finally, Cyril got a kebab for himself:  this one is the adana kebab, made with spiced lamb grilled with tomatoes and peppers.

As you can see, the food that we got at each of these restaurants is pretty impressive.  At Adda we were able to try some Indian dishes that were new to us, and we most enjoyed the Lucknow dum biryani.  Then at Sofra we had our fill of all different kinds of Turkish food and were introduced to a wonderfully cheesy pide.  By some measures Queens is considered to be the most diverse area of the United States, and that cultural richness is reflected in many kinds of different cuisines on offer there.  Adda and Sofra represent just two of the communities that have made the borough their home, and they’re great examples of different food traditions – so if you happen to be venturing into Queens, give these place a visit.