Eating In Translation

Word of Mouth: Personal pizzaiolo on Avenue J?

If your sights were set on a DiFara slice last Saturday evening and you arrived much after 5:00 (allowing for the usual waiting time), you were plumb out of luck. (Click on the photo, or any other, for a better view.) The sum of Dom DeMarco's efforts — a score of cheese, sausage, mushroom, and pepperoni pizzas, with basil all around — were destined for a single festive Midwood residence, where they arrived shortly after the exchange of vows. (Congratulations and best wishes, Gil and Gaby!) If you'd like that sort of service yourself, I gathered from the father of the groom, it helps to be a customer of long standing; knowing the pizzaiolo for 40-some years earns you a certain amount of goodwill.

DiFara Pizza
1424 Ave. J. (at East 15th St.), Midwood, Brooklyn
718-258-1367

Word of Mouth: Turkish Boza

On my return visit to try the sahlep at Güllüoglu, on Coney Island Ave., one of the regular customers volunteered as my food stylist (a luxury; perhaps you've noticed how many of these photos feature my left hand). I saw by his outfit that he spends a lot of time in the neighborhood, and asked if he'd ever seen boza, a Turkish hot drink prepared with chickpeas, cinnamon, and sugar. He pointed me to a pair of markets, by the names of Efe and Sultan, on Ocean Ave. at Ave. W. Although those markets don't serve ready-made boza, at least they sell the mix; I'll visit them soon.

Güllüoglu

A Turkish oasis on Coney Island Ave.

Mama Meya Pizza

Love the name, but there's no salmon roe for my white pie; the pizza shop's companion business has been closed "a long time," according to the counterman.

Mama Meya Pizza
1511 King's Highway, Brooklyn
718-339-9007

Memo Shish Kebab

A bowl of cool cacik (Jah-jik; small; $2), a Turkish cucumber-dill-yogurt soup, was very restorative on a hot day; an adana kebab on pita (ground meat, typically lamb; $5.50) topped off my tank.

Memo Shish Kebab
1821 Kings Highway, Midwood, Brooklyn
718-339-8001

Surprise Food Store

Russian grocer with a very good selection — even a few prepared foods — for such a small store. Dadu brand apricot sweet curd dessert (100 g.; $1.30) was a stiff frozen yogurt, give or take.

Surprise Food Store
1637 E. 18th St. (near Kings Highway), Midwood, Brooklyn
718-645-8575

Supernuts

Nuts, raw and flavored; fried peas; "exploded" lima beans that I'd first sampled in Bangkok; and sunflower seeds (unshelled; $2.50 per half-pound).

Supernuts
701 Kings Highway (at 7th St.), Midwood, Brooklyn
718-872-5490

Porges Canadian Style Bakery

The owners ran a bakery in Montreal for many years, I was told; one of the recipes they brought across the border must be for this exceedingly moist apple kugel ($1.80 for a dense 2-inch cube).

Porges Canadian Style Bakery
1441 Coney Island Ave. (at Ave. K), Midwood, Brooklyn
718-252-3025

Golan Dried Fruits

Fresh produce and dairy items, too, but dried fruits and nuts take the high ground; the quince ($4.99 per pound) was still quite supple.

Golan Dried Fruits
1348 Coney Island Ave. (at Ave. J), Midwood, Brooklyn
718-338-1040

Oztrowizky Bakery

Fix for post-DiFara cravings: a rough-and-ready chocolate roll ($1.25).

Oztrowizky Bakery
1124 Ave. J, Midwood, Brooklyn
718-951-7924

DiFara Pizza

This cheese slice ($3), blessed by a scattering of fresh-cut basil, featured an outer lip that was puffy but not pillowy, and a base that bent, even crackled, but never cracked. Sublime.

DiFara Pizza
1424 Ave. J. (at East 15th St.), Midwood, Brooklyn
718-258-1367

Uncle Louie G's

I first encountered Uncle Louie G's in Midwood; a scoop of root beer sorbet (small; $2) had a slightly bitter taste of, well, roots, but the uneven, grainy texture was certainly interesting. Another time, in Bay Ridge, lemon sorbet (shown; large; $3) was much smoother and more refreshing.

Uncle Louie G's
376 86th St., Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
(one of many locations)
718-724-2120

Dushanbe

(This venue is closed.) Even if I could set up two banquet tables side by side (which Dushanbe might do when they open up the dance floor), I'd have a tough time distinguishing the Tajik food at Dushanbe from the Uzbek food at a half-dozen other restaurants. Sue and I did our best to cover one table (to the amusement of our waitress), beginning with "national bread" ($2) — a hefty disk that was soft at the rim, firmer and speckled with seeds at the center. A Crimean-style cheburecke ($1.50) was a large, airy half-moon pastry, a little greasy, concealing a much smaller lozenge of moist, almost wet meat of some sort. Achik-chuk ($6.95) was a healthy serving of spicy tomato and onion salad. Best among the starters were the Uzbek mantu ($1.50), a pair of homemade baseball-size dumplings with an almost delicate center — "lamb-y," said Sue.

As for kebabs, lamb ($3.50) and chicken with bones ($3.50) had a nice, grilled taste; lamb fat ($2) was very salty but utterly delectable. Out waitress also suggested an order of tkemali sauce ($1.50), a thin, sweet-and-tangy, tomato-based sauce with dill, scallions, and perhaps onions; wonderful with the lamb and chicken (but don't put anything on my lamb fat).

Only misstep: "Russian-style" lemonade ($1.75), a corn-syrupy drink that arrived in a bottle labeled both with Cyrillic characters and the word "guarana."

Dushanbe
1915 Coney Island Ave. (Aves. O-P), Brooklyn
718-336-6698

U.S. Russian Bread

On our way to a Tajik lunch in Midwood, Sue and I invited ourselves into this somewhat uninviting little bakery; perhaps we were suspect simply as non-Russian speakers. I chose two varieties of rugalech-shaped poppyseed pastries; Sue, a double-length cherry roll (all $3.99 per pound). OK.

U.S. Russian Bread
1631 East 18th St., Brooklyn
718-336-3956