Roadside attractions: A global food crawl on Long Island

Horseblock Road slashes diagonally through Suffolk for 9 miles, extending from Farmingville to Yaphank. For most of that length, the land on either side is punctuated by storage facilities, construction companies and the towering rise that is the Town of Brookhaven Landfill. West of Nicolls Road, however, the traffic is slowed by traffic lights and left-turn lanes.

Another reason to tap the brakes is that here you will find a level of culinary diversity, quality and value that may be unmatched on Long Island. Hidden in plain sight are restaurants and markets from Portugal, Mexico, China, the Philippines and elsewhere that cater, for the most part, to their own national audiences, which means you’ll find fare that has not been “elevated” to justify higher prices, nor watered down for widespread American tastes.

For geographic clarity, let’s start with the easternmost spot, Euro Fresh Bakery, a perfect choice for breakfast, and an ideal introduction to the baked goods of Portugal.

If Mineola is the epicenter of Portuguese culture in Nassau, Farmingville fulfills that role in Suffolk. Andre Silva, the president of the hamlet’s Portuguese American Center of Suffolk, an event venue, said that Portuguese immigrants started moving here in the 1980s, many of them employed by construction and cement companies and that “once one comes, the next person comes and it becomes a chain reaction.”

Maria Santos bought Euro Fresh in 2010, but it had been a Portuguese bakery for 30-odd years — and a bakery for decades before that, as the ancient benches and oft-mended mixers attest. The selection of breads here is as vast as it is inviting, from the smallest papa seco to the huge, flour-dusted saloio to the distinctive pico rolls with their little knobs at each end. Most of them recall the familiar rustic breads of Southern Europe, but the tough, round broa stands alone, made mostly from corn and rye flour, which bestow a distinctive texture that is dense yet crumbly.

Maria’s son and partner, Jason Santos, likes to start his day with torrada, thick slabs of the pao de forma (Pullman) bread that have been toasted and slathered — on both sides — with butter. “They must be cut into thirds or people get mad,” he noted. Euro Fresh also makes a mean torta mista, a pressed-till-oozing ham-and-cheese that outdoes most panini and Cubans. This is also the spot to sample the beloved Portuguese pasteis de nata, little custard tarts with a sweet, eggy suavity balanced by sunken, heat-blistered tops. Look for their cousins, bolos de feijao (filled with a sweet bean paste that makes its own crisp wafer hat), bolos de coco (coconut macaroons) and bolos de arroz, tall, slim rice muffins. Any (or all) of these are better with a short, strong espresso; even the decaf version here is made with freshly ground beans.

Next door to Euro Fresh is Fax Chix, a restaurant that has been a legend among Long Island chowhounds since Newsday’s Sylvia Carter wrote about it in 1998. At that point, Clara Martins had owned the place for less than three years and there were no servers or printed menus.

But there was — and still is — some of the best grilled chicken around, burnished and succulent with just the right amount of spice. “The key is small chickens,” Martins said. “Two and a half pounds, tops. We marinate them overnight, then brush them with the marinade while they are grilling.”

Over the years, the establishment’s name has prompted many questions. Martins explained that it was a relic of an era when fax technology represented the cutting edge. “I would have changed the sign when I bought it,” she said, “but I didn’t have the money.”

Despite the fact that it’s a cash-only establishment, Fax Chix almost always overflows with customers, and its takeout business gives dine-in a run for its money. At lunch, Martins said, it's workers: "cops, detectives, construction workers, landscapers, office workers like accountants, lawyers.” She added, “There’s one lawyer who considers this his office.”

On weekends, it’s more of a family (mob) scene. Chickens account for more than half the orders, but the huge menu features almost 100 items and there are always daily specials — perhaps Portuguese-style feijoada (which, unlike the Brazilian version, is made with red beans rather than black ones) or short ribs with pico de gallo (fried egg optional). Saturday usually brings roast suckling pig and cozido a Portuguesa, a slowly simmered dish containing cabbage, carrots, beans, meat, sausages and much more.

Fax Chix’s kitchen is led by Hidalgo-born brothers Primitivo and Sylvester Ramirez. Their mastery of tacos, tortas and quesadillas is unquestioned, but save your Mexican jones for one of Horseblock Road’s other treasures. Two blocks west is Don Taco Deli, one of Long Island’s best taquerias and the rare spot that makes a true taco al pastor, with pork shaved off a vertical spit.

Or carry on another two blocks and behold Gabino’s Diner, a classic 1950s steel-clad Kullman diner that, in 2006, turned Mexican when Gabino Ramirez took it over. Those first few years, he recalled, “people would come in and ask for a club sandwich, and I’d make one.” But gradually, the menu eschewed all diner fare aside from egg-based breakfast specials and a few burgers.

Ramirez has worked in every possible restaurant capacity, from dishwasher to bartender to manager. But, he said, “Cooking is my passion. When you see the faces of the people who are eating your food — it’s like how singers feel when they hear the applause.”

In addition to a full array of tacos, at Gabino’s Diner, you’ll find terrific sopes: Thicker and crunchier than tacos, they’re spread with refried beans before being topped with cheese, lettuce and the meat of your choice. Also recommended for lovers of head cheese (admittedly a select society) are tostadas de pata, little jellied cubes of calf’s foot on a fried corn tortilla with shredded lettuce and cheese.

Every day, Ramirez supplements the menu with three specials. You might find chicken smothered in a spicy guajillo sauce with nopales (prickly pear cactus pads), or spareribs in green sauce. Every Saturday night he starts preparing a signature Sunday special from his native Hidalgo (Gabino is the brother of Fax Chix chefs Primitivo and Sylvester). Traditionally, lamb barbacoa is cooked in a pit dug into the ground but, in Farmingville, a huge pot makes do. Nestle some shards of tender lamb in a tortilla, bury them with onion and cilantro and a lot of fresh lime, then dip the whole package into a bowl of lamb consommé. You’ll forget you’re in a diner, on Long Island, in El Norte.

Ramirez welcomes a diverse crowd but has a deep loyalty to workers in his Mexican community. For $60, he offers a package that entitles them to one enormous meal a day, six days a week. Every holiday season, he throws a big party at the catering hall he owns in Medford, where they are wined (or beered) and dined for free.

If, after feasting at Gabino’s, you need a little pick-me-up — or downtime with WiFi — the shopping strip behind the diner has a 2-year-old coffee shop, Roller Coasta, that roasts its own beans and uses them in a full panoply of caffeinated (and decaf) beverages. One store down is a true Turkish treasure, Konak, that packs a heckuva lot of market and cafe into a tiny space.

If you ever wondered how the Portuguese managed to dominate the Age of Exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries, some of the credit must go to preserved fish. At the Portuguese Deli & Market (next door to Konak), you’ll find a great selection of bacalhau, the salt-cured cod that sustained the voyages of Vasco da Gama (the first European to reach India), Bartolomeu Dias (rounded the Cape of Good Hope), Ferdinand Magellan (first to circumnavigate the globe) and Pedro Álvares Cabral (who “discovered” Brazil).

You’ll also find the fruits of the Portuguese canning industry that arose in the 19th century and still produces some of the world’s best tinned tuna, sardines and anchovies. The market also stocks Portuguese terra-cotta, as beautiful as it is functional.

You’ll see plenty of pottery in motion across the street at Rio Douro Bistro, which, in 2011, succeeded Portuguese Paradise (and, before that, Algarve). A friendly, sprawling establishment with a patio out back, it serves traditional dishes, often plated in a more contemporary style, with some Italian dishes thrown in for good measure. For the most old-school Portuguese restaurant in town, though, head a half mile west to Olé, which opened around 1982, according to Jose Brito, who bought it in 1993 after working there for a few years.

Brito came here from Arcos de Valdevez, in northwest Portugal, to work in construction. But he’d been a restaurant guy back home, and he relished a job that didn’t require as much heavy lifting. Little has changed here in the 33 years that Brito has been in charge. The restaurant is split into a dining room (not usually open for lunch) and a workaday bar where you can watch soccer or Portuguese news on TV. The bullfight is a visual motif here, but animal lovers will be pleased to know that in Portugal the bull is not killed. 

Every meal begins with a selection of tiny, meaty olives showered with an indecent amount of raw garlic and a basket of bread that will come in handy when you get to the bottom of your caldo verde, the great Portuguese soup. It’s a purée of potatoes into which finely shredded kale has been thrown. The kale is given just enough time to relax, but not so much time that it loses its vibrant color—"caldo verde” means green broth. Chouriço sausage adds just the right salty, smoky note.

Remember the bacalhau at Portuguese Deli & Market? Olé offers an opportunity to sample it in manifold ways. The cod starts out stiff as a board but a regimen of soaking and rinsing renders it pleasingly tender and mild. Brito said that the bacalhau assado (grilled) is the most popular among the five preparations on the regular menu, but another recommendation is bacalhau a braz, in which the fish has been roughly shredded and blended with scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, onions and garlic. For all the world, it looks like matzo brei, and it’s easy to imagine that when Magellan had a rough day, he asked the ship’s cook to make it for him.

The Portuguese are great clam lovers as well, and they have a particular culinary genius for combining the bivalves with cubes of pork in carne de porco Alentejana. Whether you’ve just had a quick bowl of soup in the bar or a belly-busting feast in the dining room, don’t pass up the smooth-as-silk flan.

On a little rise directly across the street from Olé is an establishment now known as Rosie’s Burgers, Heroes & Catering, the latest in a series of acclaimed sandwich specialists. For decades it was Moller’s deli then, in 2019, Ryan Jones, of the Medford butcher shop Chubs Meats, transformed it into Chubs Burgers Burritos & Heroes Co. That shop was run by longtime Chubs counterman Ron Ferrazzi, who, in 2024, bought it with his wife, Brittany. This spring, they relaunched as Rosie’s, a tribute to Ferrazzi’s mother.

It’s difficult for Ferrazzi to put into words what makes a sandwich great, even while he slathers precisely the right amount of mayonnaise on a seeded semolina roll, covers it with a molecularly even layer of paper-thin ham and iceberg lettuce that has been shredded into a pale green fluff. “I hate to bite into anything tough,” he said. If a sandwich has a chicken cutlet, it is fresh out of the fryer, prime eye round is roasted daily. All his bread comes from an Oakdale bakery; the kaiser rolls taste and look nothing like cotton and can take a standard BECSPK to undreamed-of heights.

Ferrazzi’s ongoing relationship with Chubs means he gets a good deal on the prime beef he uses to make a cheesesteak — with homemade cheese sauce — that can compete with Philly’s best. And a blend of brisket, chuck and hanger steak produces an extraordinary burger that meets its match with a right-sized brioche bun that’s rich but not, as many are, greasy.

Travel a half mile west, and you’ll find yourself in a part of Suffolk County where “Chinese” is usually synonymous with “takeout.” But, in 2022, Commack’s popular Sichuan restaurant, Spicy Home Tasty (est. 2017), opened an attractive satellite in the former digs of Tofu. The menu at Spicy Home Tasty 2 is virtually identical to that of the mother ship, with many of the Sichuan entrees organized by preparation style: hot sauce (with cabbage, garlic and celery), garlic sauce (self-explanatory), dry pot (a sauceless stir-fry with celery, wood ear mushrooms, lotus root, peppers, potatoes and cilantro).

Anthony Chen, who owns both restaurants, has learned that while Chinese diners “like spicy, and they like bones,” most Americans prefer their food “a little sweet, and they love sushi.” He indulges these preferences with a wide range of crowd pleasers such as shrimp shumai, General Tso’s chicken, beef with broccoli — and a full sushi menu. But folks looking for a true taste of Sichuan should also consider the wontons in spicy oil or the majestic spicy grilled whole fish.

This culinary journey along Farmingville’s Horseblock Road shouldn’t stop once you cross over into Lake Ronkonkoma and Horseblock turns into Portion Road. After all, you wouldn’t want to miss the market-cafe Asian One Best. As grocers, Philippines-born Ysa Weller and her daughter (now partner), Kate Gladyshev, try to be all things to all customers from China, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia.

If a country produces fish sauce, it will have an emissary here: Squid brand from Thailand, Red Boat from Vietnam, Datu Puti and Weller’s favorite, Rufina from the Philippines. Filipinos, she said, come from Nassau and Montauk for national specialties such as balut (fertilized duck eggs) and homemade ube ice cream, which comes by its deep purple color naturally: It’s made from a purple yam called ube.

Asian One Best also serves non-Asians who are culturally curious or are surfing a current trend. Back in 2012, Weller told me that she was selling a lot of oolong tea and shirataki noodles. Today, it’s gochujang (a Korean fermented chili paste) and canned lychees (the required garnish for lychee martinis) that she can’t keep on the shelves.

The market may skew pan-Asian, but the cafe is strictly and unequivocally Filipino, a natural East-West fusion that reflects the influences of Chinese and Spanish, among other cuisines. The cafe’s top seller, kare-kare, however, is thought to originate with Indian sepoys (soldiers in the British army) who brought curry with them during the British occupation of Manila in the late 18th century. It’s fantastic, a complex bowlful of oxtail, tripe, bok choy, long beans and eggplant surfacing in a rich peanut broth.

Among the best-known-and-loved Filipino dishes here are chicken adobo (marinated and glazed with garlic, soy and vinegar), lumpia (tender crepes filled with shrimp, chicken and vegetables), hearty two-egg silog breakfast dishes and the thoroughly loopy dessert, halo-halo, an exuberant pileup of shaved ice, ube, bananas, ube ice cream, jackfruit, coconut gel and coconut-string flan. “Mix well before eating,” says the menu. Great advice, no matter where you eat along Horseblock Road.