Eating In Translation

Crooked Tail Cafe

(This venue is closed.) There's the beef.

Peacefood Café

The pumpkin is mashed mighty thin.

Piccola Cucina Focacceria

(This venue is closed.) Supremely creamy arancini — just wait till you see inside.

Pizza Box

(This venue is closed.) "Garden in rear..."

Panaderia Chapina

A couple of bites in, I realized I was a marked man.

Giovana's Gourmet Deli

Veal parm wedge ($6.50). Three slabs of meat — no quarrels there — but I wished it were cheesier, much saucier, and sheathed in crustier bread.

Giovana's Gourmet Deli
1492 High Ridge Rd. (opposite Meredith Ln.), Stamford, Connecticut
203-322-3618

Polo Club Quality Beverages

It's no surprise that there's no information online about a business seemingly as old as the "West Side Variety Shop," but that there's next to nothing about a featured product like Polo Club — is a puzzlement.

I did stumble upon one mention in a 1939 edition of the Manlius, New York Thrift-News, where a grocer called the Red & White touted 28-oz. Polos at four for a quarter, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Look for that notice below the ad promoting Sweeney's Poison Wheat.

Surviving painted ad for Polo Club Quality Beverages
Stillwater Ave., Stamford, Connecticut

Thanksgiving sale on paticas de cerdo

Only two drumsticks per turkey, but four paticas per porker — it adds up, if you're partial to pig's feet.

Thanksgiving sale on paticas de cerdo
At Stamford Market
181 Stillwater Ave. (Liberty St.-Finney Ln.), Stamford, Connecticut
203-316-0661

Salumeria Rosi

Not cranberry.

Gulluoglu

My dining brief on this Turkish bakery and cafe appears in the November 25, 2009 edition of The New York Times.