Okay, so I cheated a bit on this one. After a company-sponsored Mets day game, I took the 7 train to Flushing (conveniently located one stop from Shea) and grabbed takeout from Sentosa, the 22nd entry on the list. I thus can’t really definitively review the place, though I did wait there about five minutes for my dish to be ready – does that make me qualified to comment on atmosphere?
“Like its neighbor, Spicy & Tasty, Sentosa has a coolly modern and clean atmosphere.”
There, I commented on it, and it even sounded like a real food critic might! I would also like to point out that if you arrive like I did at about 3:30 in the afternoon, you can watch the bored waitstaff making satay from chunks of marinated meat and bamboo skewers. Looks like fun, guys, and I’d love to help, but I’ve got a hair appointment to get to…er…would you believe machinists’ convention? Right.
The rendang, which I ate on the G train (the 7 was a bit too crowded to eat impolitely), was probably the best I’d ever tasted. A lingering, flavorful heat distinguishes the sauce from most others of its type, and the beef is uniformly tender and tasty. Packed into your take-out container with enough rice to soak up any sauce leftovers, the $5 meal is among the best things you can find in the city for its price (make sure to order the “Beef Rendang & Rice,” as the full portion of rendang is considerably more expensive).
Given my proclivity for Sichuan when traveling so far out, I don’t know if I’ll make it back to Sentosa for a full meal in the near future, but I will certainly consider it more closely now. And I promise not to make a habit out of doing the take-out thing.
Twenty Bucks A Day 