Curries, pepper pot and roti: a guide to tasty Guyanese food in Queens

Farideh Sadeghin is a Brooklyn-based writer and recipe developer. In this series, she explores New York City neighborhoods through their food and histories.

Queens has one of the largest Guyanese populations in the United States, and I’ve been eager to try the restaurants in the neighborhoods of Richmond Hill and Ozone Park, which make up Little Guyana.

So I turned to my friend Renny Itwaru for guidance. When he was 3, his mom moved from Guyana to Jamaica, Queens in 1985 to establish a life for the family.

Itwaru and his four brothers later joined their mother and moved to New York in 1988. By 1990, his dad joined them.

Growing up, Itwaru said he shrugged off his Guyanese culture as he tried to assimilate into the New York school system and blend in with his peers. He missed the fresh tropical fruits of Guyana, but his mom’s cooking made up for that.

Plus, with Richmond Hill and Little Guyana right next door, there was a large Guyanese community filled with restaurants to satisfy all of his cravings. The New York Times reported that “about 8% of the total population of Guyana moved to New York City in the 1980s.”

Although Guyana is technically part of the mainland of South America, it is often considered culturally to be part of the Caribbean. The food and flavors of Guyanese cuisine are reflective of the country’s colonization and current ethnic makeup, which is predominantly East Indian, African, Indigenous, Portuguese and Chinese.

Rich curries, fresh seafood, root vegetables and fruits can be found in many of the country’s most iconic dishes. Metemgee (a vegetable and dumpling stew in coconut broth), cook-up rice (a one-pot rice dish, traditionally eaten on New Year’s Eve), fried pastries and flaky flatbreads are some of the staples that I knew I’d find on the menu at many of the spots that day.

The area known as Little Guyana is mainly located along Liberty Avenue, not far from JFK Airport, and is sprawling with Caribbean and West Indian restaurants and shops.

I knew that Itwaru frequented the neighborhood still and has his favorite spots, and I was excited to check them out.

I met Itwaru and his nephew Rylee Itwaru at Sybil’s. The restaurant opened in 1976 on the corner of Liberty Avenue and 133rd Street and, according to Itwaru, is the cornerstone of Little Guyana. A sign in the window reads “Free Guyana” and a plaque on the wall outside states, “Servant of the Hungry.”

The atmosphere when we stepped inside was friendly and busy, and we grabbed a ticket and waited for our number to be called. There is a large refrigerator filled with cream soda — which, I’m told, is a Guyanese staple — as well as banana, cherry and mango juices. I grabbed a bottle of peanut punch. As we stood waiting, I cracked it open and saw a thick layer of cream that blocked my ability to drink. I put the lid back on and shook the bottle vigorously, which gave way to a creamy, thick drink that was ice cold, sweet, savory and oddly satisfying.

Itwaru’s favorite here is the fried fish sandwich. It comes on a tennis roll (a fluffy, round roll made from evaporated milk, flour and lemon) layered with mayonnaise and vegetables. We also get pepperpot, a dark, rich and slightly bitter Amerindian meat stew that is often served around Christmas and is considered Guyana’s national dish. It’s made with cassareep, a thick, dark syrup made from cassava root. We tore off pieces of plait bread (all of the breads are made in-house), which we drenched in the stew’s thick sauce as we grabbed tender pieces of beef.

Veggie Castle II, located next door on Liberty Avenue, is owned and operated by the same family as Sybil’s. This vegan spot has prepared foods and a large juice selection with combinations it claims can remedy any ailment you might have, including arthritis, diabetes, indigestion and allergies. We get one called “Skin Tight,” a combination of ginger, carrot, pineapple and cucumber that we’re hoping will make us look younger. Later, I’ll wish we’d gotten the one for digestion to help us get through our crawl.

Across the street is Brown Betty, which is owned by Kalesh Angira. When we walked in, his mom Omadi Angira was there and she lit up when she recommended us dishes to order and try.

The display case is loaded with packaged pastries. We got salara (a bread rolled with brightly colored red coconut), mithai (small fritters traditionally served at weddings) and cassava pone (a dense, chewy cake made with coconut and cassava).

We also ordered the chow mein, one of Rylee’s favorite Guyanese Chinese dishes, and fried rice, plus coconut choka, fish cakes and chicken patties.

Itwaru said Guyanese Chinese food is a guilty pleasure, and added that it’s as much of a staple in Guyanese cuisine as curries. It was a way for his parents to be able to feed his family without breaking the bank. It “hits home” although “nothing hits home like when you have it in Guyana,” Itwaru said.

The coconut choka was perhaps one of my favorite meals of the day. Fire-roasted coconut is finely ground, then seasoned with garlic, onion and peppers. It’s served over rice and topped with a side of dhal. It was incredibly savory and light.

From there, we walked to Shivram’s Bakery, located on Liberty Avenue between 129th and 130th streets. Display cases were filled with freshly baked goods and the shelves were stocked with their own line of homemade breads and pastries.

We got pine tarts (little tarts filled with pineapple paste that Itwaru tells me were always found around the house when he was growing up), tamarind balls (sour, sweet, tart and salty bites), peera (Guyanese milk fudge), and black eye cake (a sweet pastry filled with a black bean paste — another example of the Chinese influence on Guyanese cuisine). We tried a bite from each before packing up and heading to our next destination: Anil’s.

Anil’s Roti Shop is located just down the way on Liberty Avenue between 125th and 126th streets. The menu features both Guyanese and Trinidadian fare, but we were obviously there to sample some Guyanese food. I was excited to see that they sold black cake whole and by the slice. (We grabbed a slice.) Itwaru was happy to see they hadn’t sold out of baigon choka, a favorite breakfast staple of his growing up. Baigon choka is smashed, smoked eggplant eaten with roti, and is reminiscent of baba ghanoush.

The roti was fresh and flaky and the perfect vehicle for scooping and eating the baigon choka. We also got some salt fish, which had been cooked with vegetables and spices. Together, it was a wonderful snack; the black cake, which was similar to fruit cake, was dense, rich and loaded with dried fruits, rum and spices.

From Anil’s, we wandered down to some grocery stores. Apna Bazaar, J&B West Indian Grocery Store, Spice World, and West Indian Farmer’s Market (to name a few) are all located between 123rd and 125th streets on Liberty Avenue and are loaded with various Caribbean vegetables and cooking staples.

We stopped at GT Rice Bowl, located between 115th and 114th streets. Its walls are paneled with mirrors, black and orange padded booths line the walls, and a row of tables and chairs runs through the middle. Cricket games were being broadcast on the televisions along the walls. This, Itwaru told me, is a classic rum shop.

Rum shops are important throughout the Caribbean and serve as places for people to gather and exchange news. We grabbed a few beers and ordered pepper shrimp and cha chi kai chicken (chunks of fried chicken tossed with peppers and onions), both Chinese-influenced Guyanese dishes. Before heading to our final destination, we relaxed and enjoyed some beer while watching the cricket match.

Our last stop was Shanta’s Bakery and Restaurant, located a nearly 10 minute walk down Liberty Avenue between 107th and 108th Streets. A bottle of Mauby (a sweet and slightly bitter cinnamon-flavored drink) found in the drink fridge read “Shanta’s AKA 3 Sisters,” so we knew we were in the right place.

We felt incredibly full but ready to keep trying new things, so we ordered the chicken curry with roti (Itwaru and his nephew made sure to let me know that in Guyana, it is always called chicken curry, unlike other countries in the Caribbean where it’s called curry chicken), pholourie (fritters made from flour, split pea flour and spices), and an egg ball (a hard boiled egg that has been fried in a cassava batter).

The pholourie and egg ball were served with both pepper sauce (a vinegar and pepper sauce found in nearly every Guyanese home and almost never made the same) and mango sour. It was all incredible and made me wish that I hadn’t eaten so much before arriving here.

As we sat chatting and picking at our food, another customer chatted with us, telling us that he drives all the way from the Poconos in Pennsylvania once a month to get duck curry, baigan choka, and other dishes to bring home to his mom and family. I might also need to start making monthly trips out to Little Guyana to do the same.