I spent the day wandering around Brighton Beach and Coney Island.

New York City is a place I’m always quick to say I hate, but deep down, I love it so much. Not only is my part-time and freelance work there, giving me an excuse to go up and see great theatre whenever I’m in town. It all started when I moved to New York from Baltimore in college to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Having just studied abroad in Seoul that summer to bounce to the energy of New York was wild, but I only got a year and a half of it before COVID hit. I graduated college early during COVID to avoid the rent prices in the city, as I live at home and save a lot of my money that way, but back in the day I used to go up once a month.

Today’s blog post is a continuation of a blog post I made detailing what I did on an eight day trip to New York City. This was my last trip up for a week, as I was going to be starting a full-time job right after this trip. Unfortunately it’s in-person and my PTO only stretches so far, which means I’m going to have to be more choosy about where I end up going with paid time off.

I had meant to go to Coney Island and Brighton Beach the last time I was in the city, back in March 2025, but then I ended up injuring my knee to the point where I couldn’t get out of bed or go up and down steps. It was a terrible time, but it was a miracle I made it back home in that condition. Thank god for accessible subway stations!

So when I was planning out my itinerary this time I knew I wanted to go to Brighton and Coney Island, especially considering it was now summer and I had the perfect opportunity to see the beach vibes in-person. I hopped on the Q train, took a twenty minute walk, and ended up at my first location: Laghman Express.

Let’s get into what I did and ate!

Laghman Express has the best Uyghur style lagman I’ve had.

I detailed this restaurant in my post about what I ate when I was wandering around the city this time, but Laghman Express has been all over my Instagram feed. Usually I ignore the Instagram suggestions because I’ve been burned so many time by social media recommendations. I have my own way of vetting, but when I went through. my usual channels, I saw this place was legit.

Anyways, I got off at the Q train several stops before Brighton Beach then walked twenty minutes to eat lunch at Laghman Express. I ordered one of their laghman dishes with beef and a Moroccan tea, which was expensive for one person but so worth it. In hindsight I wouldn’t order a hot tea like that again on a sweltering hot day, or an entire pot for myself, but it was a delicious tea.

The laghman was the star of the show. I genuinely wished we had one of these near where I lived, as I was in love with the vibes of the place. They were placing Kazakh pop groups too and I found some excellent tunes that I’m going to be listening to during my work commute for sure.

After that, I kind of shrugged when I saw it was a thirty minute walk to the beach, but then I realized it was too hot and I was holding the remnants of my scalding hot tea. When I hit the larger Tashkent supermarket I hopped on the bus that dropped me off in front of the Brighton Beach location.

Tashkent Supermarket is an incredible place if you’re into Uzbek, Central Asian, or Russian food.

I ended up going to Tashkent Supermarket twice during this single day, as when the bus first dropped me off right next to the market, I wandered inside. I knew I didn’t want to haul all of the stuff I was going to buy around the neighborhood, so I scoped out the chaotic situation and what wares the store had to offer.

The lore behind this store is not only do they have a bunch of groceries from the regions once unified as the Soviet Union, but they also have this massive hot bar in the middle of the store. It’s split into two different sections, but they have pickled items you can get by the pound, fresh kabobs, rice dishes, samsas—literally everything you could think of.

In the corner you can also pick up fresh Central Asian bread, lamb or beef plov, or go to the deli and buy meats or cheeses. Most people were flocking around around the hot food bar, so if you want something specific in here, you might have to elbow some people in order to get to it. There was also an incredible looking cake counter, which was tempting, but I had a cafe picked out.

I’m used to Asian grocery stores and the chaos behind them, but this was an entirely new level of chaos. The hot food bar was one thing—the line was another. It was wrapped around the store when I was there both times, and when I actually got in the line, I saw it was a messy but efficient system.

When I came back in after wrapping up my day, I picked up a hot food bar combination of a beef samsa, several pieces of beef tenderloin shashlik, two pumpkin manti, and a stuffed kutabi. This was my lunch and breakfast the next two days. I also grabbed an Uzbek non bread for $3 and a mojito-flavored drink (but with no alcohol). Although I was tempted by the gorgeous Uzbek plates for sale, I only ended up spending $19 total.

The boardwalk from Brighton Beach to Coney Island, as well as the beach, is a nice way to pretend you’re not in New York City.

After I went to Tashkent Supermarket the first time, I hit the beach. I knew I was coming back for my goods, but until then I was ready to spend an hour or two wandering the boardwalk from Brighton all the way down to Coney Island. I did only spend about an hour and a half doing this, but if you wanted to take your time, stopping and eating, then this would take a lot longer.

Anyways, I headed onto the beach on the Brighton end, which wasn’t too impressive. I’ve been on a lot of beaches in my lifetime, and this was just an average one to me. I also just don’t like beaches in the Northeast generally, unless it’s the scenery of one in Maine, so I found this one interesting in the sense that it was like you were in New York City and suddenly there’s the beach.

This end was interesting because of the Slavic influences. Lots of old men in tight bathing suit bottoms playing volleyball and yelling at each other in Russian and/or Ukrainian. I was having a time looking at all of the grafitti that was cursing out Putin on this side of the boardwalk. If I wasn’t still stuffed from Laghman Express, I would have stopped at Tatiana’s just to say I’ve been there.

The Coney Island side of the boardwalk is more classic American boardwalk vibes. There’s an aquarium, an amusement park, and a lot of places to eat on this side. This was about where I gave up though on my walk, even though there was a bit more nature on this section of the boardwalk, as I wanted to go back and eat my cake slice at this point (more on that in the next section).

So I walked back! It seemed like a much faster walk back to Brighton Beach, and it seemed weirdly comforting to see all of the signs switching back to a mix of Russian and Turkic languages. I then wandered into my next stop, which was Gulluoglu.

Gulluoglu has some fantastic Turkish and Russian desserts.

I have no idea if this Gulluoglu has any association with the ones in Istanbul and Turkey, but when I was doing research on cafes and dessert shops around the area I knew I wanted to come here fairly quickly. I love Turkish cakes, and I did debate trying one of the honey cakes.

When I walked in on a weekday there were a surprising amount of people around, but enough tables open that I could comfortable have an entire corner to myself. They also had outdoor seating, which was pretty nice to see. I ended up debating my choice in front of the case before ordering with one of the girls working up front.

I landed on a pistachio mousse cake situation. I have no idea what this cake was called—I just told the girl I would take this one and pointed at the cake—but it was a chocolate cake, then the pistachio mousse, and then a layer of chocolate mousse. It was so dense, but divine. Every bite melted in my mouth.

With a small Turkish tea it was only $11. I was shocked to see the tea only cost $2 here. A $2 tea in this economy? You know I had to snatch this opportunity.

By the end I was finding the cake a little hard to finish because of its density, so it might be ideal to split this cake with someone else (or the other cakes—they all looked a little dense). It was delicious though and I do want to go back to this little cafe if I am ever in the area.

I sat around and relaxed here for a bit, sipping my tea, before heading back to Tashkent Supermarket to pick up my goodies before leaving. This stop especially made me excited for my upcoming Istanbul trip, as I love Turkish sweets.

Just walking around Brighton Beach and Coney Island is truly a vibe.

I ended up going home after my second stop into Tashkent Market, hopping back onto the Q train until it was time to get off, but to end this blog post I wanted to say that this area truly is just a vibe to walk around. I had never been until now, but one of the many aspects of New York City that always excites me is seeing the blend of cultures.

To step off the bus or Q train and see everything in Cyrillic script, the vendors selling used Russian and Uzbek books, the people speaking a flurry of languages—all of this really excites me when I’m in New York, and I’m glad I made the trek all the way down to Brighton just to see this in real life. I also spotted a lot of Hebrew when I began my walk from Laghman Express, which is interesting too.

Coney Island is also a must-do if you’re consistently in New York. I didn’t end up actually doing anything paid while I was down there, but I had fun looking at everything and seeing what the area and beach had to offer.

So go down to this section of Brooklyn if you get the chance! I know it’s a bit of a hike, but it’s worth it.

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