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.

Mom's Kitchen

After an hour-plus of grazing, a final food-court nibble: red-bean-paste-filled sesame balls, two for a buck-fifty.

Mom's Kitchen
Super HK food court, stall 18
3711 Main St. (37th-38th Aves., beneath the Super HK supermarket), Flushing, Queens

New York-area food events, November 15-22

The Serious Side of Food Reading: The Jungle
Thursday, November 15, 5:30-7:00; continues monthly through March 2019
NYC Department of Records and Information Services, 31 Chambers St. (Elk-Lafayette Sts., in the Rebecca Rankin Reading Room), Manhattan
www.Eventbrite.com/e/the-serious-side-of-food-reading-series-w-jane-ziegelman-and-andrew-coe-tickets-49503054970
Free admission with online registration

Taste of Ridgewood
Thursday, November 15, 6:30-9:30
Ridgewood YMCA, 69-02 64th St. (at Catalpa Ave.), Ridgewood, Queens
www.YMCANYC.org/ridgewood/pages/Taste-of-Ridgewood2
Tickets: general admission, $50; proceeds benefit the Ridgewood YMCA

Kindness & Salt
Thursday, November 15, 7:30-8:30
Books Are Magic, 225 Smith St. (at Butler St.), Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
www.Facebook.com/events/276348339530992
Free admission

Brooklyn Bugs
Continues Thursday and Friday, November 15-16, various times
Brooklyn Kitchen, 100 Frost St. (at Meeker Ave.), Williamsburg, Brooklyn
www.BrooklynBugs.com
See website for ticket details

Shaanxi Tasty Food

It's not just one long bespattered noodle, but I did lift my first nearly a foot before I cleared the lip of the bowl. At this new food court some two dozen stalls serve food from Jiangnan, Shaxian, Wenzhou, Lanzhou, Shanghai, Sichuan, and Taiwan as well as Shaanxi; these ribbonlike, chewy "oil spill" noodles were an early standout.

H/T @garsleat, who supplied word of the food court's long-awaited opening

Shaanxi Tasty Food
Super HK food court, stall 27
3711 Main St. (37th-38th Aves., beneath the Super HK supermarket), Flushing, Queens

Wat Buddha Thai Royal Kathin Celebration

At the end of Thailand's rainy season — in not-so tropical New York, this falls sometime in mid-autumn — lay Buddhists present the monks at their local temple with the saffron robes called kathin (sometimes, katin). The offering of respects to the monks, and to the temple, is accompanied by food prepared by congregants and by Thai restaurants. All are welcome to partake, bearing in mind the spirit of the occasion — not so much food frenzy as good fellowship. A donation to the temple is welcome, too.

At the most recent celebration, I arrived as the food stations were still setting up and was treated to a golden sticky rice cake, impregnated with sweet beans, while it was still warm from the grill. Perhaps next year I'll have a chance to try one of its purple cousins. For more photos from multiple years of this celebration, see my album.

Wat Buddha Thai Royal Kathin Celebration
Wat Buddha Thai Thavorn Vanaram, 76-16 46th Ave. (76th-78th Sts.), Elmhurst, Queens
www.WatThaiNYC.com
(The 2018 celebration was held on November 11)

Bravo African Restaurant

Ceebu yapp (Cheh-boo Yap), literally "rice with lamb" in the Wolof language of Senegal, is served with brown rice, the menu declares. Not the brown, however, of hulled whole-grain rice — this is the brown of broken rice that has patiently soaked up lamb flavor from the cooking liquid.