Natives: Go Native in Jackson Heights Colombian eatery

By Carol Brock

We were lunching in Jackson Heights, a Colombian restaurant, and had just ordered the house specialty, empanadas. My guest from Argentina said, “You'll see and taste that these empanadas and my countries are not the same. Ours are flour and baked.” Natives' are a large deep pocket in a crispy corn shell stuffed with deliciously spiced ground top sirloin, then deep fried. Sauce accompanies them. Caution, it's hot! Natives makes them cocktail sized, too, but having tasted these, I'd pass them, halved.

For 15 years, bright, shiny Natives, a restaurant theatre bar, has been on the corner of 82nd Street and Northern Boulevard. We arrived at about 1 p.m. (incidentally, 1:30 p.m. seems the popular dining hour here) and were seated in booths by the juice bar with scores of tall glasses, hung bottoms up, overhead. So we sipped fruit juices – lulo, curuba and passion. Muy delicioso and so pretty! These are imported South American fruit concentrates served blended with water or as a milk shake. (Shakes are wonderful, but filling pre-lunch).

For an appetizer, cracker-thin, crispy and salted mashed plantain and a grilled corn pancake with butter and cubes of mild, white, crumbly goat cheese was delightful, too.

Close by, four slim, attractive, young Latin lassies were, with gusto, forking into four platters typical – “Served by our grandparents,” to quote the take-out menu. I was taken by this inch-wide curl, slashed around the edge, of crisply fried pork rind, a mound of rice topped with a fried egg, red beans, a sweet plantain and paper-thin slices of steak with a hint of grilled-over-charcoal flavor. An arepa, a small grilled corn pancake, accompanied it. Terrific!

But do try something new to you. For instance, the seafood casserole “as only Natives knows how to make,” the menu claims. Served bubbling in a clay pot over a flame with a side of coconut rice, the scallops, shrimp and octopus are in a wonderful creamy sauce that marries so well with the coconut rice.

Our interesting main dish salad was a toss of cut-up lettuce, pineapple tidbits, cubed cucumber, tomato and mango plus mushrooms. Crowning it was large piece of chilled, poached salmon. Wasn't that a tasty dish to have set before you!

Postre (desserts) didn't disappoint. Poached black figs in heavy syrup were arranged on a plate with Natives mild, crumbly, homemade goat cheese, and dulce de leche, the famed Latin caramel spread. Here's a Colombian combo that's a tremendous taste treat. What tiramisu is to today's Italian meal, cremes pastel de tres leche is to today's Latin meal. Natives' creamy three-milk pudding cake is unbeatable. Enough said.

And of course to top it off, there. must be a cup of Colombian coffee, claimed to be the world's finest.

Let me run through a few more menu items with you: There are soups, and the four men whose fare I noted over my right shoulder were spooning into a yellow cornmeal soup with rice, grilled spareribs and a corn pancake. On Friday there's fish soup with rice, salad, stewed fish and grilled pancake – a signature, traditional chicken soup with capers and cream that I know I would love. Yellow rice with shrimp and calamari salad, and French fries sounds good. Natives' surf and turf is lobster tail with fajitas. The lentils platter comes with rice, fried spareribs and sweet plantain. The grilled steak, a 14-ounce cut of top sirloin marinated in spices and grilled over hot coals – is their specialty.

Some day I must try breakfast with arepa, with cheese and butter, eggs scrambled casserole style, and hot chocolate made from melted bitter sweet Colombian chocolate sweetened with brown sugar. What about you?

The Bottom Line

A Colombian restaurant theatre bar in Jackson Heights on Northern. Breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days. Open 24 hours Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Great Colombian style empanadas. Daily soup starring luncheons. Great desserts-bread pudding, rice pudding, figs in syrup with cheese and dulce de leche. Pleasant service. Spanish lingual comic, song and dance theatre.

Natives

82-22 Northern Blvd.

Jackson Heights

718-335-0780

Chef's Choice

Empanadas (Colombian beef patties with homemade hot sauce)…$1

Chorizo (homemade sausage with grilled corn pancake-arepa)…$3

Grilled corn pancake with butter and cheese…$2.50

Traditional Chicken Soup (with capers and cream)…$8.50

Bistec (steak, fried and sautéed in Creole sauce)…$9

Seafood Casserole with Coconut Rice (like only Natives knows how to make served bubbling in a clay pot over a flame)…$16

Tres Leche (creamy three milk pudding cake)…$4