HARLEM — This takeout spot has food from south of the border and west of the Pacific.
A new eatery, 118 Kitchen, serves Tex-Mex and Sushi, courtesy of a sister-brother team from China.
“I’ve cooked sushi for a long time and my sister owns a Tex-Mex and Chinese restaurant,” said co-owner Mingyong Zhang, who was has lived in Harlem for four years.
The unusual menu pairing comes from the fact that each sibling has experience cooking a different cuisine, he added.
Harlem Bespoke first spotted the takeout place, which is located at at 1 E. 118 th St.
The menu includes grilled chicken lunch specials served with rice and beans, salmon rolls, nachos, coconut black tea and green tea ice cream.
So far, the biggest challenge has been getting the people around 118th Street and Fifth Avenue to open up to sushi, said Zhang, who has been a sushi chef for 12 years.
“People here prefer the cooked food,” he said. “The sushi is slow.”
The raw fish also doesn’t stay fresh very long. Zhang gets his salmon from the Faroe Islands, which produce meat that is firmer and tastes sweeter, he said.
The most popular item at 118 Kitchen, which opened two weeks ago, is the Special Platter which comes with grilled chicken, grilled shrimp, sweet plantain, sauteed broccoli, and beans for $6.50.
“I decided to try it yesterday for lunch and came back for dinner with my wife,” said David Lanboy, who works as a concierge in a nearby apartment building. “This is my third time here.”
Besides a Subway sandwich shop and a couple of bodegas, there are not any takeout places in the area, he said.
“This is a godsend,” Lanboy said.