BENSONHURST, BROOKLYN

Cafe Lily

Korean-Uzbek cooking on Avenue O — cold kuksi noodles, fernbrake salad and beef-and-cabbage pigodi.

Cafe Lily cooks the food of a community few New Yorkers have heard of: ethnic Koreans of Uzbekistan, whose families were deported to Central Asia in the Soviet era and whose cooking set kimchi and cold noodles beside Central Asian manti. It has been doing so on Avenue O since 2015.

Order the marinated fernbrake fronds, the cold, spicy kuksi noodles, and pigodi — soft steamed buns stuffed with cabbage and halal beef. Manti and kimchi are excellent too, and hwe, a marinated raw fish dish, turns up on many tables. It is one of the most distinctive meals in south Brooklyn and very easy on the wallet.

Editor’s tip

Order the kuksi, the fernbrake salad and a few pigodi to share, and add manti if you're hungry.

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Editorial draft — core details last reviewed October 13, 2026. Confirm practical details with the official site before you go.