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 thousands of 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.

Back off!

This very New York example of social-distancing signage appears in a Brooklyn pizzeria's service window. The photo is one of seventeen (numbers 032-048) now included in New York University's Food and Covid-19 NYC archive.

Back off!
Di Fara Pizza
1424 Ave. J. (at East 15th St.), Midwood, Brooklyn
718-258-1367
www.DiFaraPizzaNY.com

Puebla Sea Food

In Mexico, "atole" is a more common spelling for a hot sweetened drink with a cornmeal base, such as atole de chocolate, better known as champurrado. This restaurant pays homage to Mesoamerican roots with the Nahuatl spelling "atolli" — and to its home away from home with "I [heart] the Big Apple" to-go cups.

Puebla Sea Food
9527 Roosevelt Ave. (95th-Warren Sts.), Jackson Heights, Queens
718-672-3556
www.Facebook.com /Puebla-Sea-Food-134379806632340

Grin

Even discounting numerous bones (in numerous shapes, not all of them familiar), this Ivorian lamb head soup offered a lot of meat, plus a generous helping of tripe. Like many a West African soup, this was very nearly a stew. Factor in the plate of rice, and it was an entree for two, easily.

Does anyone have a local lead on lamb head posole?

Grin
454 East 168th St. (Washington-Park Aves.), Morrisania, Bronx
718-292-8764
www.Facebook.com/RestaurantGrin

Yellow Rose

There's more meat than meets the eye in this carne guisada taco, cradled in a supple, griddle-spotted flour tortilla and adorned with salsa verde. You'll get a better sense of the hefty fillings in the photos that follow, showing three tacos as served: carne guisada, papas rancheras, and pinto beans and cheddar. I've never made room for more than two of these tacos at any one visit.

The final photo — the leavings of a recent lunch at a sheltered outdoor table — includes one of the plastic table tents that help the waitstaff match up orders with diners. Whataburger is a chain rooted in San Antonio, like the founders of Yellow Rose; my number, 73, was also the vintage, more or less, of the music playing that afternoon.

Yellow Rose
102 Third Ave. (12th-13th Sts.), Manhattan
212-529-8880
www.YellowRoseNYC.com
Closed Monday and Tuesday

E Pluribus Flags

Muriel Stockdale, 2003 and after
From a series "celebrating diversity in the United States," these 12 hang in a window of Desigual, 594 Broadway, Manhattan; another 16 are installed in the lobby of 315 Hudson.
www.MurielStockdale.com