![]() ![]() Many folks who did not grow up in the high elevations of the Himalayas and who may have done a Google search before coming for this new food will veer towards the list of datse. Furthering the family-owned feel of Weekender is Pema’s sister Jigme, who can be found here often but also helps out in the kitchen when dinner crowds start to overwhelm the chef. Since the Bhutanese community in New York City is much smaller than the Tibetan one, the menu here (and the awning outside) caters to both. Phagsha sikam pak. Photo by Sasha Maslov for The Queens Tribune.Ĭhef Norbu Gyeltshen (no relation to Pema) is from Tibet, the place in South Asia that most closely resembles Bhutanese culture and language. But if the metal gate is up, be confident you can swing open the dark, heavy wooden door and come inside. Unless it is dark out, the tinted windows almost obscure everything within, and heavy drapes sometimes block the rest. When the snooker hall is open, the kitchen is too, but from the street you might think you have arrived before opening time. This is also the time you may find an impromptu jam session breaking out on Weekender’s stage if people have brought their instruments and have a beer or two. The tables are often empty during weekdays, but on the weekend (as the name of the place suggests), you will probably have a bit of a wait for one of the $13/hour tables. As a result, most people have that butter tea or possibly a can of Red Bull. But you will not often find the players here with beers because snooker is not a game for the drunk: The pockets are so much smaller than billiards and the distances to them longer. Shamu datse and ema datse. Photo by Sasha Maslov for The Queens Tribune.īut based on the constant stream of business in evidence whenever the restaurant is open, most do not mind the wait even if they have no idea how snooker works.Īmateur billiards players will often boast that somewhere between their second and fourth beer, their game is at its peak. ![]() ![]() “Our food takes longer to prepare than most,” he explained simply. The decision to open Weekender as a gaming location with his cousin Lhendup Zangmo and her husband, Jamyang Tsultrim, who is from Tibet, mostly stemmed from not wanting to make people wait for their meals without something to do. Over a cup of his homemade and probably best-in-the-borough butter tea, Pema told me about his casual relationship with snooker, a game very popular back home. Now the space is almost evenly cut in half: two snooker tables for gaming on one side, and about a dozen dinner tables for satisfying the demands of the many regular customers on the other. Over time, one snooker table was removed in favor of more space for dining customers, and then another. When he opened his snooker hall in 2014, four of the larger-than-billiard tables filled the space with a kitchen and a few dining tables placed as an afterthought. Photo by Sasha Maslov for The Queens Tribune.įrom the outset, Pema Gyeltshen, the co-owner of Weekender Billiard, got his ratios wrong. ![]()
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