Levant, in Little Egypt, is an impressive addition to Steinway Street, a thoroughfare already thick with fascinating food choices.
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Priya Krishna, an interim restaurant critic for The New York Times, devoted several weekends to reporting in Astoria’s Little Egypt.
LevantNYT Critic’s Pick★★Middle Eastern$$25-64 Steinway Street718-233-8800
There we were, three of the chattiest women you’ve ever met, rendered completely speechless by pastry. We sat, astonished, at our tiny table, cheeks speckled with powdered sugar.
What on earth had we just eaten?
It was feteer — luxurious, ghee-glossed sheets that shattered as we ate, encasing softer, wavier layers filled with thickened cream and adorned with messy squiggles of Biscoff Cookie Butter and pistachios. The whole structure defied gravity, the delicate pastry somehow supporting (holding space with?) the weight of the toppings.
Every great bread I’d ever eaten flashed before me: shimmering poori straight from the fryer. A rich, blistered flour tortilla. Roti smeared with jaggery and ghee. Like them, this was pure, elemental pleasure.
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At Levant, a colorful sanctum in the Little Egypt neighborhood of Astoria, Queens, the feteer — an Egyptian pastry that some devotees say dates from the days of the pharaohs — comes in several lovable varieties. I’ve relished a version topped with dollops of qushta, a lush, not-too-sweet cream fragrant with orange blossom syrup. And one stuffed with crumbles of homemade beef-and-lamb sausage, peppers, olives and a mixture of mozzarella, a mild white cheese called akkawi and an Egyptian cheese, roumy, that tastes like Parmesan with a plot twist.
On my most recent encounter, I tried a classic filling of basterma, strips of dried beef redolent with maple-y fenugreek, and a less traditional shawarma feteer in which the spit-roasted meat and the pastry were an inspired match.
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