Eating In Translation

What's Eating In Translation?

This website began as a collection of field notes on interesting food I'd tried, or planned to try, in and around New York. Since its launch, in January 2005, I've visited more than 2,000 venues, from white-linen restaurants to elbows-on-the-table eateries, as well as street vendors, fairs, festivals, grocers, and greenmarkets — and my "to eat" list is longer than ever.

Delicious BBQ

Not low and slow, but definitely big and meaty.

Word of Mouth: Filipino meats in the Meadowlands

A gentleman outside Delicious BBQ mentioned that beginning July 18, on Saturdays there'll be Filipino grilling going on in the Meadowlands parking lot. Only for a couple of months, I imagine, between the finale of the State Fair Meadowlands in early July and the kickoff of the big tailgating season in September.

Adriana's Laundromat

Behind the main room, where customers at the 100-plus machines paid little heed to the NASCAR race droning away on the small screen, I found a semi-enclosed four-stool snack bar with its own TV and better AC. The sandwiches and packaged sweets held little attraction, but Diet Pepsi (20 fl. oz.; $1.60) in hand, I chilled out for 15 minutes as Marion Crane attempted to take refuge in a refreshing shower.

Adriana's Laundromat
389 West Side Ave. (Yale-Claremont Aves.), Jersey City
201-435-9798

Food-Friendly Events, July 3-9

International African Arts Festival
Continues Friday, July 3, through Sunday, July 5, 10:00-9:00, rain or shine
Commodore Barry Park, Navy St. between Park and Flushing Aves., Brooklyn
www.IAAFestival.org
Much stronger on arts, crafts, and fashion than food, but I also came across Caribbean and Southern chow as well as one stall featuring cuisine from the Brazilian state of Bahia (shown above). Admission by donation

Multicultural Festival
Friday, July 3, 11:00-4:00
St. John's Place between Bedford and Rogers avenues, Brooklyn
This event was buried among listings of many other street fairs, and the stretch of street isn't large, but it is close the route of the annual West Indian Day Parade. No further information available.

Stark's

"Steaks" — tube steaks?

Paratha Junction

This is as close as I got (on a day I shuttled between many station stops of my own), but even from a distance I saw the bar-and-circle logo that signaled a connection to the London Underground. Indeed, one of the restaurant's owners was born in that city, the other, in New Delhi; their previous venture is the English-style Brick Lane Curry House. I hope to pay a visit soon, after hopping the subway, then the PATH to Journal Square.

Paratha Junction
779 Newark Ave. (John F. Kennedy Blvd.-Herbert Pl.), Jersey City
(one of two locations)
201-533-1555
www.ParathaJunction.com

Café con Leche

This recently expanded Ecuadorian eatery bills itself as a panaderia, or bakery, and a picanteria, too.

La Ecuatoriana

Straightforwardly strawberry.

"Fink means good bread"

After shared cabs home from CBGB to Morningside Heights, College Inn was my favorite destination for breakfast before bedtime, ideally in plenary session at the round booth in the back corner. When the only seats were closer to the windows facing Broadway, often I'd see the Fink delivery truck on its pre-dawn rounds. To me, the bakery's familiar motto didn't promise good bread — it was the grace note to a good night out.

College Inn closed its doors for good in 1997, and Fink (or to be precise, its successor company) followed suit five years later. The bakery's trucks still haunt the streets, under new ownership but sometimes with ghostly traces of their old paint jobs; this one recently made a fleeting appearance in Corona, Queens.

"Fink means good bread"
Seen on a repurposed truck
Roosevelt Ave., Corona, Queens

Deshi Bazar

Despite the brand name, I've never tried the cola version of Pakistan-made Pakola.

Mei Li Wah Bakery

There's one thing that keeps picking at me.

Eldridge Street Synagogue

Like the cornucopia that accompanies it, the fruit is associated with abundance.

Ka Wah Bakery

Double shot of my red bean's love.

Gold Medal Flour

You can just make out the name "Washburn's," a reference to the manufacturer, if you click on the photo (for a better view) and look above "Gold." The script lettering at the very top is the truncated version of the flour's long-running slogan, "Eventually — Why Not Now?" That ad campaign gave up the ghost the early 1950s, which makes this painted sign at least a half-century old; eventually it will vanish entirely, but not just now.

Gold Medal Flour
Surviving signage near the northeast corner of Delancey and Eldridge streets

Bilingual workers need not apply

"Part-time employees wanted; must speak Cantonese, Mandarin, and English."

Notice posted at Hong Kong Station
45 Division St. (Market St.-Bowery)
(one of two locations)
212-966-9682

American Fu Zhou Grocery

That popeyed profile and those sturdy pecs could only belong to a mudskipper, an amphibious fish related to the goby that can muscle its way across mud flats using its strong pectoral fins. (Here's a clearer view of a related blue-spotted species; there's even an entire website devoted to the mudskipper.)

I never imagined them on any bill of fare, but American Fu Zhou Grocery (where English is not the first language, and maybe not the second) must be confident of the market: These mudskippers were swimming in a foam box marked with an Air China waybill.

American Fu Zhou Grocery
101 E. Broadway (Market-Pike Sts.)
212-385-0658

Fish out of water

I was tearing at a steamed pork bun on Bayard St. when a seafood broker's truck pulled to the curb; the driver popped out across the street while his passenger caught some quick Zs. Behind the cab of the truck — a drab Mitsubishi Fuso marked with an address on the nether end of the Navy Yard — the open bed carried a large wooden tank hooked up to rubber tubing and tarnished aeration canisters. One poor fish, which must have expired before being handed over to a restaurant, was lying forgotten on the crosspiece of the tank (let's hope forgotten, and not being set aside for some penny-saving stew).

Several minutes later, after walking through the Elizabeth-Bowery arcade, I saw the fish again, gleaming in the distance, as the truck made the sweeping turn onto the Manhattan Bridge ramp, headed home to Brooklyn.

Fish out of water
Bayard St., New York

Food-Friendly Events, June 26-July 2

The Edible Local Garden
Saturday and Sunday, June 27 and 28, 10-6, rain or shine
New York Botanical Garden, Fordham, Bronx
www.NYBG.org/edible_garden/index_tickets.html
This weekend's launch of the botanical garden's exhibits (on display all summer) also includes afternoon demonstrations by Dan Barber, Martha Stewart, and Johnny Iuzzini (Saturday) and Michael Anthony, Michel Nishan, Peter Hoffman, and Aida Mollenkamp (Sunday). $35 admission includes access to the demonstration tent; $20 general admission lets you watch from the lawn (BYO blanket)

Tapestry of Nations Egyptian Festival
Saturday, June 27, 10-6, rain or shine
Journal Square PATH Plaza, Newark, New Jersey
www.EgyptianFestivalJC.com
Perhaps only two Egyptian food vendors, including Morgan Seafood Restaurant, but if you can't find good chow in Jersey City, you're not trying.

Buon Italia

This terrific market bristles with cheeses and chocolates, well-annotated arrays of honeys and olive oils, and legions of legumes — but why is so much of the display so far below waist level?

Rudy's Bar & Grill

Rudy's mascot is masked against human flu, you'd hope, and not because he took it personal, that bit about "a crying disgrace...they saw your face." In addition to assorted alcoholic remedies (but no big black cow), Rudy's is famous for dispensing free hot dogs. What meat is inside, the masked mascot won't say.

Rudy's Bar & Grill
627 Ninth Ave. (44th-45th Sts.)
212-974-9169
www.RudysBarNYC.com

DBGB

My sundae arrived before the soup and sausage.

Lederhosen

A basic appetizer provided a sad early benchmark.

Szechuan Gourmet

One ingredient is an old acquaintance; one is a new friend.

Kim's Market

Carrot juice and stout? The label offered little explanation.

Dunkin' Donuts

There's hash browns...