A walking food tour brought New Yorkers young and old out to taste Rego Park’s Jewish Uzbek specialties.
BY LUAN ROGERS
REGO PARK — On Sunday morning, a group of nearly twenty intrepid gourmets and local history enthusiasts converged on an unassuming street corner in Rego Park, Queens. Shuffling into Chaikhana Sem Sorok, a kosher Uzbek eatery on Booth Street, they inhaled the alluring aromas drafting in from the kitchen.
“It smells delicious, oh my god,” said one of the visitors as she waited in line. “I’ll have to save one for my boyfriend.”
Excitement built as the smiling proprietor produced trays of steaming samsas from the oven. Samsas, flaky pastries filled with either meat or pumpkin, are a staple of Bukharan cuisine.
Bukharan Jews, a Mizrahi subgroup from Central Asia, represent just one fraction of Queens’ multiethnic kaleidoscope. Having fled the Middle East during the Babylonian exile over 2,500 years ago, they settled in Uzbekistan. The Bukharans developed a unique culture in isolation from other Jewish communities, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to mass migration to the U.S. An estimated 50,000 now live in New York City, mostly in Queens.
The Municipal Art Society of New York organized the tour as part of Janes’ Walk NYC Festival – a citywide series of free, community-led walking tours. Named in honor of urbanist Jane Jacobs, the tours seek to engage participants in New York’s local history. Her activism in the ‘50s and ‘60s helped institutionalize the involvement of communities in urban planning projects.
Michael Lewyn, a law professor at Touro University, led the tour through Rego Park. Originally from Florida, Lewyn moved to New York in 2011. He first settled in Forest Hills where he soon came to discover the nearby Bukharan community.
“I was fascinated,” recalled Lewyn. “It’s not something you can get in other parts of the country.”
After devouring their samas the group moved onto Levy’s Bakery, the next stop on the tour. The small Kosher bakery offers Chak-Chak, a honey-soaked noodle cake as well as traditional Jewish treats such as hamantaschen and babka.
A few blocks up at Rokhat Kosher Bakery, visitors got the chance to see how they bake traditional Bukharan bread. The owner, Roshiel Samekhov, demonstrated how to use a walk-in tandoor oven to bake Lepyoshka – a circular flatbread topped with sesame seeds. “The bread is always broken by hand,” said Samekhov. “Never by knife.”
The bakery opened in 1996, during the height of Bukharan migration to Queens. The owner, Roshiel Samekhov, laments that younger generations have less interest in keeping up the unique culinary tradition. “My sons don’t want to take over the business,” he said.
The tour mostly attracted New Yorkers eager to discover unexplored corners of the city. Yonah Litwin, a native of the Upper East Side, had never ventured as far as Rego Park before.
“I’ve lived here for most of my life,” he said. “Yet there’s always new neighborhoods to discover.”
Others had even a shorter distance to travel. Emma Gometz grew up in Forest Hills and now lives in Astoria. The tour offers a chance to discover more about her home borough.
“It’s cool to check out places that are kind of adjacent to what you’re familiar with, but have never totally been a part of,” Gometz said.
Though chains proliferate along Queens Boulevard, there remains a strong network of family-run businesses. Having witnessed the city change over time, Gometz said she longs for more authentic experiences.
“We all want places that feel like actual people in the actual communities are running them,” she said. “This really feels like one of the last few places.”
Elizabeth Frascoia travelled down from Vermont for the occasion with her two children, Lola and Carlo. Having moved out of the city after the pandemic, these tours allow her to show her children all that New York has to offer.
“I want them to be exposed to this and see things that aren’t just the Empire State Building,” she says. “Where we live it’s not as diverse, so it’s nice to be around different cultures here.”
For Irene Vidal, the tour marked her very first venture into the borough of Queens. Having moved to New York from Madrid only two years ago, she is eager to explore different parts of the city.
“You have the world here,” she says. “That’s amazing to me.”
