Eating In Translation

West Indian Day Parade

By the time I saw the sign, I was too weary even to ask what it was.

Meytex Cafe

A return visit confirmed it: This Ghanaian restaurant is less rough-and-ready than it looks.

Pop Master Deluxe

Saturday's randy special doesn't fly on Sunday morning.

Kelso Restaurant

Sunday brunch, Panama style.

De Island Restaurant

The island is Grenada, and the national dish is oildown ($10). Cooked in coconut milk, herbs, and spices till they develop an oily sheen, the ingredients — including plantain, breadfruit, salt cod, bready dumplings, goat, and calalloo (okra and taro leaves) — aren't overwhelmingly rich, just very satisfying. Available Saturday only, from early afternoon until the stewpot bottoms out a few short hours later.

De Island Restaurant
1199 Nostrand Ave. (Fenimore-Hawthore Sts.), Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn
718-735-1570

Blake Bakery

A currant roll ($1.25) was flaky without, moist within. Lots more to choose from, too.

Blake Bakery
1681 Nostrand Ave. (Beverley-Cortelyou Rds.), Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn
718-693-5133

Taste the Tropics

"Try a new flavor" suggested a sign out front; one scoop later, I found myself (briefly) in the company of this pistachio-peanut combo ($2.20). The ice cream at Taste the Tropics gets runny very quickly; on a previous visit, a scoop each of grapenut and soursop began melting so fast and furiously that I didn't get a picture, and my only takeaway was a few soursop drops on my Merrells.

Taste the Tropics
1839 Nostrand Ave. (at Ave. D), Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn
718-856-0821

Culpepper's

(This venue is closed.) By the beach in Barbados, this flying-fish "cutter" ($4) — a sandwich served up on Bajan salt bread — might have soaked up a little atmosphere, but it didn't fly on Nostrand Ave. Worth another visit for Culpepper's well-regarded cou-cou, a cornmeal-and-okra porridge.

Culpepper's
1082 Nostrand Ave. (at Lincoln Rd.), Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn
718-940-4122

Sun Splash

The chunks in this rough-hewn coconut pastry ($1.25) may owe their color to a heavy dose of ginger. More coconut meaty than coconut sweet.

Sun Splash
1398 Nostrand Ave. (at Linden Blvd.), Brooklyn

Rum Cake Factory

This newly opened Guyanese bakery not far from Eastern Parkway also offers a nice spread at the steam table, an interesting selection of drinks in the refrigerator case, and plenty of seats, too. Currant rolls and coconut rolls are just $1 each; also available are those larger, Caribbean-style tamarind balls, as well as "tennis rolls," which (I later learned) are famous for their sweet, lemony taste. Today I just picked up a sugar cake ($1), a not-too-sweet coconut macaroon more than three inches across and half as high.

Rum Cake Factory
882 Franklin Ave. (President-Carroll Sts.), Brooklyn
718-771-0717

Tha Fam's Restaurant

Really just a limited steam table, a little bakery case, and a few seats. A currant roll ($1.25) was like a doughier, drier version of strudels, intermittently studded with dark berries.

Tha Fam's Restaurant
781 Franklin Ave. (Lincoln Pl.-St. John's Pl.), Brooklyn
718-735-3768