Cooks in the West Side Bazaar and Downtown Bazaar could really use your love this week
And by love I mean money, because tenants saw business drop further amid questions about WEDI management
When I walked into the West Side Bazaar yesterday, One Thammasithikoun spotted me, and gave me a hug.
“Tell the people to come see us,” she whispered.
A hug is not a standard throw-in on the bubble tea she sells at 1432 Niagara St. Thammasithikoun and I go way back. I’ve written about her work at the original West Side Bazaar, her short-lived restaurant Gourmet Lao Foods on Grant Street near Buffalo State College, Rakhapura on Main Street, and now the new West Side Bazaar.
At the West Side Bazaar, Thammasithikoun waits to offer bubble tea in a rainbow of flavors, with regular boba pearls and “popping boba” with fruit-flavored centers. Fruit smoothies in 15 flavors, and pungent Lao coffee, iced or hot.
On the other side of the room, Nathalie Zola Malu will hook you up with Congolese-centered African dishes at Malkia & Co. Dwayne Fitzroy Jones will knock out your jerk craving at Chef Big Wayne Jamaican Cuisine. Sai Kyaw Tun and Nang Muya Aye have your kimchi fried rice and bibimbap fix at William's Kitchen Korean Comfort Food. Phyu Thein and Ko Thet Khine offer the only laksa and beef rendang in Buffalo at Phyu Thein Malaysian Restaurant.
The cooks of the West Side Bazaar and Downtown Bazaar wait for customers, 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday. Whatever answers may come to questions raised about bazaar management, no one is blaming the cooks.
The recipes haven’t changed, or the prices. The cooks need your support, By which I mean your money. Hugs are nice, but they don’t pay the rent.
At Egyptian Bites, Anhar Hassan-Ibraham and Mohamed Hafez-Soliman served me a lovely Egyptian Breakfast of falafel, seasoned hard boiled eggs, cheese, salad, bread, and fried eggplant with tomato sauce. Plus foul medames, stewed fava beans with spices and garlic, a vegan mainstay for Egyptian breakfasts. Kataifi, a sort of cheese-stuffed baklava, is served with dates on the side.
At 617 Main St., from 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, more hardworking cooks are standing by with outstanding Ethiopian, Filipino, South Sudanese, Mexican, and Burmese-Thai cuisine.
At Elizabeth Sher’s Pattaya Street Food, you can even get some of Thammasithikoun’s work. Sher is Thammasithikoun’s daughter-in-law, and sells lotus flower cookies and curry chicken puffs made by Thammasithikoun.
One Thammasithikoun has never asked me for help before. Please visit your local bazaar, and give the cooks some love.
#30#
Your support of these hard-working businesses is wonderful. And your old investigative reporting chops are still razor-sharp!
Also support Read It & Eat, the culinary bookstore upstairs at the West Side Bazaar too, please!
(www.readitandeatshop.com)