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.

The fish of Ewen Park

If the climb through the park seems long, imagine that you had to swim it. Beside the stairs that rise from Riverdale Ave. are a series of sculpted fish — more than a dozen, perhaps as many as a score, their exact number concealed by soil runoff, leaf litter, and new growth. They appear to be northern pike.

Cast in metal from three slightly varying molds, the fish were added to the park when the 1915 staircase was rebuilt in 2000. According to an NYC Parks official, who recalls that the sculptures were not commissioned but, for reasons of thrift, procured from a supplier of outdoor ornaments and furnishings, they were probably meant to evoke salmon. The siting of the sculptures helps considerably — pointed toward the head of the stairs, relentlessly they swim upstream.

The fish of Ewen Park
Geraldine Lewis for Kenneth Lynch and Sons, date unknown
Beside the stairs that rise from Riverdale Ave. (at 231st St.), Spuyten Duyvil, Bronx

Friendly fridge

"Coje algo, deja algo," encourages the small print — "Take something, leave something." This is one of many refrigerators stocked by community contributions to help fight food insecurity and feed the less fortunate. Here's another, in Harlem.

Friendly fridge
Hand-drawn artwork (Laura Alvarez, 2020)
The Last Stop, 5977 Broadway (at West 242nd St.), Riverdale, Bronx
347-449-6679
www.TheLastStop242.com

Kingsbridge Social Club

"Social club" is just a name — the dining room, and the canopied outdoor patio, are open to all. And the wood-fired oven isn't restricted to pizza, it seems, judging by the charred appearance of my eggplant parm.

H/T Chicharronasaurus

Kingsbridge Social Club
3625 Kingsbridge Ave. (236th-238th Sts.), Kingsbridge, Bronx
347-346-5180
www.KingsbridgeSocialClub.com

Nneji: The Nigerian Connection

"We've tried our best to return to deeper ways of cooking,” says Beatrice Ajaero. "Beatrice and her mother have wanted to share West African culinary culture with their friends and neighbors for many years," and in June her grocery and takeaway restaurant Nneji (nn-Nay-jee) "brought the rare and tempting prospect of Nigerian food" to Astoria, Queens. Read more on Culinary Backstreets.

New Yee Li

Taishan cauliflower with onion, a simple stir-fry, posed on a gaming table across the avenue in Leif Ericson Park. (The game at the next table was dominoes; the players spoke a language, not native to Southern China or Latin America, and certainly not to Scandinavia, that I couldn't place.) While waiting for my stir-fry, though a kitchen door I watched a fellow tend the roasting cabinets that won Yee Li so many regular customers at its previous location, in Manhattan's Chinatown. Also shown, from that earlier incarnation: a portion of roast pig.

New Yee Li
6619 Fort Hamilton Pkwy. (66th-67th Sts.), Dyker Heights, Brooklyn
718-833-8373
www.NewYeeLi.com