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1. #Corona queens movie#
2. #Corona queens series#

In the years since, Corona Plaza has been transformed into a lively hub for street vendors and a safe space for neighbors to gather, relax, even play.Īs he observed this transformation in his old neighborhood, and with the thought that “ food is the best place to get communities together,” Fernando resolved to open a restaurant on National St., which borders Corona Plaza’s western edge.

#Corona queens movie#

that offered parking for a movie theater and neighboring shops.īeginning in 2012, however, it was reserved for pedestrians only.

Originally, the plaza was a service road alongside busy Roosevelt Ave. His desire to open a restaurant of his own was kick-started by the renovation of Corona Plaza. Memories of community and hospitality, especially in his mom’s kitchen and at that first restaurant job, stayed with Fernando over the years.

#Corona queens series#

He also recalls the customer-first ethic of the restaurant owner, Ezio Vlacich, who had a terrific memory for names and a talent for “making people feel special.” (And still has, adds Fernando, although Piccolo Venezia is currently closed for renovations.)įernando took a series of non-restaurant jobs – with a moving company, as an electronics salesman – while attending the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan, before settling into a career as a graphic designer. On a Saturday, the restaurant might handle 500 covers.

Fernando’s workday often began at 5:00 pm with a staff meal – chicken parmigiana was a favorite – closely followed by the 6:00 pm dinner rush. When Fernando was 16, his dad set out to teach him a lesson – “what hard work is” ­­– and got him a job at the restaurant as a dishwasher. His dad, on the other hand, worked for 20 years as a line cook at Piccolo Venezia, an Italian restaurant in Astoria. His mom – Leticia, as you might have guessed – didn’t have formal culinary training, but she would always be cooking, especially when friends or relatives came to visit. “I remember being little, and my mom would have something on the stove,” Fernando tells us. Fernando and his older sister were raised only blocks away from his restaurant, in the house where his parents still live today the siblings each have a house close by, in the neighborhood of East Elmhurst. Following the lead of first one uncle, then another, Fernando’s parents moved to the United States “for a better life” when he was just a year old. Cuenca’s historic district, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, reflects more than 250 years of Spanish rule over Ecuador.įernando, 45, formed his impressions of Cuenca as an adult, however, on return visits to the country. His first home was Cuenca, “in the sierra” (the highlands) a “quiet … very colonial” city, Fernando tells us. That culinary synthesis is well-established in New York – it’s a rare Ecuadorian restaurant that doesn’t serve chaulafan – and in Ecuador, where the chef-owner of Leticias, Fernando Cando, was born. We didn’t watch the fried rice as it cooked, but the presentation told the same story of culinary connection: Our chaulafan was served in a deep bowl that mimicked a Chinese takeout container.

Our second encounter was outdoors, too, at sidewalk table, although the wok was confined to the kitchen. As it cooked outdoors – in a wok over high heat, a testament to the dish’s origins among Chinese immigrant workers – the fried rice was a dramatic sight. Our first encounter with the chaulafan from Leticias, an Ecuadorian restaurant in Corona, was at the 2021 season opener of the nearby Queens Night Market.