Eating In Translation

Desert Island Comics

Before this storefront sold "comic booklets" and the like — note how the newer lettering mimics the old — it was a telecom store, and earlier, briefly, an art-supply shop with living quarters in back. Most of the newer signage has been stripped off, but "Sparacino's," whose typeface contrasts with the rest, was apparently not the first bakery on these premises.

Elsewhere online, a commenter has asked whether this might once have been Bellucci's, in the 1920s and '30s. I'll try to catch this facade in a more revealing light; in the meantime, can any Eating In Translation reader tell us more?

Desert Island Comics
540 Metropolitan Ave. (Union Ave.-Lorimer St.), Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-388-5087
www.DesertIslandBrooklyn.com

Broken Rice

Com tam, in Vietnam, describes a dish that includes broken rice. When cooked, the individual grains become softer than intact rice prepared to the same recipe. Broken rice rice also readily takes on other flavors; often it serves as a bed for grilled pork. Here the rice is tossed with tomato, pickled cucumber, carrot, daikon, and roasted scallion, and accompanied by fried catfish ($9).

The catfish, also available in one of the restaurant's various banh mi, was labeled "Hanoi-style." It's likely that the Vietnamese-born owner, absent this day, came from some more southern part of the country. However, the two folks on duty, one a Filipina, one a fellow from Nepal, didn't know for sure.

Broken Rice (previously known as Banh Mi)
580 Grand St. (Lorimer-Leonard Sts.), Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-599-5015

Grande Monuments

The staff of life is a source of comfort and, especially when baked to traditional recipes, a binding force in many communities. Grande Monuments, which provides headstones and related services in the Italian core of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, also offers bread from Il Fornaretto Bakery of Bensonhurst. (See, too, this story from WABC.)

The best selection surely goes to early arrivals (I passed this way in late afternoon), and additional specialties appear for the weekend (which means Friday and Saturday; Grande Monuments is closed Sunday). Also shown: a detail of the window display, where other sources of comfort include used romance novels.

Grande Monuments
382 Graham Ave. (at Skillman Ave.), Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-782-1800
Closed Sunday

Not enough snow, but plenty of joe

Seen at Gimme Coffee
495 Lorimer St. (Powers-Grand Sts.), Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-388-7771

Noshi

The name is a portmanteau of "Nordic" and "sushi" that reflects the first homes of the husband-and-wife business partners, Copenhagen and Yokohama. Flatbreads decorated with cured seafood have a long tradition in Scandinavia, but each of Noshi's creations also bows to the East. Shown: cured cod with beet gel, cauliflower spread, and kombu, and cured salmon with cucumber, wasabi, and nori (set of two, $6).

Noshi
Fort Greene, Brooklyn
917-545-2648
www.NoshiBrooklyn.com
At Smorgasburg, North 7th St. at the East River, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Saturdays during the warmer months

Note: Today's posts, fittingly for the Sunday after Thanksgiving, are leftovers. Smorgasburg has closed for the year, but each of these vendors may appear indoors during the winter.

Ramen Lab

Little bits of fried batter added crunch to a creamy, chowdery corn ramen with egg ($6).

Ramen Lab
www.Twitter.com/#!/RamenLab
At Smorgasburg, North 7th St. at the East River, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Saturdays during the warmer months

Shorty Tang & Sons

Cold noodles with sesame sauce were a signature of Shorty Tang, a pioneer of Sichuan cooking in New York. To much acclaim, in recent years the dish has been re-created by Shorty's family. Now it has company in this more robust relation, served hot with meat sauce ($7).

Shorty Tang & Sons
www.Facebook.com/shortytangandsons
At Smorgasburg, North 7th St. at the East River, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Saturdays during the warmer months

East Met West

Onetime record holder (since supplanted) for most cuisines name-checked on a single awning: "Hunan & Szechuan & Cantonese & Japanese & American food." Bolstered by an egg roll, my chicken chow mein (dinner special, $6.50) could be claimed by at least two of the five.

East Met West
752 Metropolitan Ave. (Graham Ave.-Humboldt St.), Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-218-7777

Ridgewood Pork Store

This slightly if unevenly smoked hotdog ($5) was housemade with lean of beef and fat of pork, inside a snappy casing of lamb. No eye of newt or fillers of any sort whatsoever, as one bite made clear.

Ridgewood Pork Store
516 Seneca Ave. (Bleecker St.-Greene Ave.), Ridgewood, Queens
718-381-0686
At Smorgasburg, North 7th St. at the East River, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
www.BrooklynFlea.com
Saturdays

Bon Chovie

Curiously, the "original" version at Bon Chovie is cleaned to remove heads and guts; for whole fish, order the Jersey style fried anchovies (six for $6). Whichever is your fancy, "whole" is just how to eat them, head to tail, accompanied by pickled peppers and garlic aioli, or simply lemon.

See also this Bangladeshi dish featuring little fish.

Bon Chovie
At Smorgasburg, North 7th St. at the East River, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
www.BrooklynFlea.com
Saturdays

Eton

Freshly fallen, it's fluffy.

"Old buttered toast"

I saw my first such slice not far away, on Kent Ave., in 2005. This plasticized appliqué, judging by the wear and tear, may possibly have been cut from the same loaf.

"Old buttered toast"
One of two slices near Metropolitan Ave. and North 3rd St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Kentucky coffeetree

Gymnocladus dioicus earned its common name on the frontier, east of the Mississippi.

Queen's Danh Tu

Bun thit nuong ($10), hot pork shoulder on cold rice vermicelli, Vietnamese style.

Queen's Danh Tu
At Smorgasburg, North 7th St. at the East River, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
www.BrooklynFlea.com
Saturdays

American Beverage

The entire sign, most of which is faded almost beyond recognition, reads "American Beverage Corp. Carl H. Schultz Sparkling Beverages." The supplier of mineral water was, from 1928, the second major occupant the building, which today is divvied into commercial and residential lofts.

Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal

From 1907, the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal (BEDT) maintained a rail and marine facility along the Williamsburg waterfront between North 3rd and North 10th Sts. The best-known commodity that landed at the BEDT, you may know, was raw sugar.

As Brooklyn's sugar processing industry dwindled in importance, in 1964 the BEDT added the Bulk Flour Terminal building, which distributed flour and semolina to the borough's commercial bakers and pasta makers. It did business for less than two decades, however; the BEDT ceased operations in 1983. Today little is left but the rails and a hodgepodge of nifty old photos.

Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal
Surviving rails at East River State Park
Near Kent Ave. and North 9th St., Williamburg, Brooklyn

JNK

Frgáli are dlicious.

City 'Lasses

My brief encounter with these entrepreneurs and their switzel, a beverage they prepare with blackstrap molasses, is chronicled in the Diner's Journal blog of The New York Times.

Midoriya

I picked this Pokka milk coffee (240 ml., 79 cents), from Singapore, partly for the model; he looks like the brand spokesman for an old blow dryer of mine. (See another period 'do.)

But I also picked it partly because, innocuous commercial brew though it was, it wasn't cold from the fridge. Midoriya is the rare Japanese mini-mart that troubles to keep a self-serve countertop case stocked with cans of hot coffee and tea.

Midoriya
167 North 9th St. (Bedford-Driggs Aves.), Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-599-4690

"Cereal Killers"

This rogue's gallery features mascots from a baker's dozen of brand names. At least, that's my count — but sometimes I skip breakfast, and rarely do I eat breakfast cereal or watch Saturday morning TV. Perhaps you can spot mascots I've missed; click on the photo for a closer look.

"Cereal Killers"
Wythe Ave. at North 13th St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn