Eating In Translation

Chestnut

For generations, many hawkers in Singapore have made their reputations on a single dish, or a closely related family of dishes, expertly prepared. In New York, where restaurant economics favor larger menus, street fairs can be an occasion for this singleminded approach — here, at $2 per BBQ rib.

Chestnut
271 Smith St. (Degraw-Sackett Sts.), Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
718-243-0049
www.ChestnutOnSmith.com
Closed Monday
At the Smith Street Funday Sunday
June (the 2001 festival was held on June 26, 2011)

Babka, cake, and pierogi sale

Coffee cake? Not in the usual sense.

Kofte Piyaz

The grilled beef meatballs were very light.

Four & Twenty Blackbirds

Amid the apple varieties ordered by customers just before and after I arrived — salted caramel apple, apple pear rose — this was the pie that called to me. Subconsciously, perhaps, I associated "blackbird" with the predominant dark color of the roasted nut and chocolate pie (slice; $4.50).

Sadly, the chocolate lacked richness befitting its hue, the nuts were somehow not so nutty, and even the crust seemed thin and dry. (This was late in Four & Twenty's working day, also note.) I would have done better following the lead of Ed Levine, if only he'd published sooner.

Four & Twenty Blackbirds
439 Third Ave. (at 8th St.), Gowanus, Brooklyn
718-499-2917
www.BirdsBlack.com

Crooked Tail Cafe

(This venue is closed.) There's the beef.

Al-Noor Halal Chicken

The immediate past tenant of this building seems to have been New Wing & Sing Poultry. The inspiration for the sculpted, colored decorations on the facade (click for a closer look) is more intriguing, and still a mystery.

Al-Noor Halal Chicken
204 20th St. (Fourth-Fifth Aves.), Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
718-832-7338

Sheep Station

At a place that proudly flies the Southern Cross, on both the national flag and the flag of the Eureka Stockade, you'd never expect grub from the Great White North — unless you knew that one of the owners is French-Canadian, with a soft spot for loose cheese curds on crisp fries. Unlike the top-heavy dinosaur once prepared by The Inn LW12 (but now extinct), the only other component of Sheep Station's trim, classic poutine ($6) is a thin brown peppery sauce.

Some customers order the poutine for takeaway, I'm told, with sauce on the side to be heated later; to me, it seems ideal for this Australian restaurant's front barroom, though I have yet to determine the perfect poutine-to-pint proportion.

Sheep Station
149 Fourth Ave. (at Douglass St.), Park Slope, Brooklyn
718-857-4337
www.SheepStation.net

"Lest you forget, we say it yet..."

"...Uneeda biscuit." That slogan for the first brand of prepackaged biscuits was devised in the late 1800s, not long after the merger that created the National Biscuit Company, later called Nabisco.

Milan's Restaurant

Bacon, cheese, but not a burger in sight.

Eagle Provisions

A bottle of Tymbark brand wisniowo-jabtkowy (cherry-apple drink; 250 ml.; 69 cents) had a pretty nice flavor (from concentrate), after I spent five minutes wrestling with the ring-pull.

Eagle Provisions
628 Fifth Ave. (17th-18th Sts.), Brooklyn
718-499-0026