(This venue is closed.) Fanesca, an Ecuadorian specialty served during the week before Easter, traditionally includes 12 varieties of beans and grains (for the 12 apostles) as well as salt fish, sliced egg, and some sort of tuber. This is the tuber.
Fanescas in Queens may be more diverse than finches in the Galapagos — much more, allowing for all the versions of this hearty soup provisioned at specialty grocers and served in home kitchens. This rendition (special; $10), filled out by a plate of white rice and braced by hot sauce, featured salted slabs of the "sea trout" called corvina and an assortment of familiar vegetables and legumes.
It also contained several specimens of what the counterwoman identified as melloco (shown above), an Andean fingerling potato sometimes known as ulloco or papa lisa. Many cultivars are known, and it would be only a guess to identify these with "the slightly curved yellow variety...called 'cradled baby'." They didn't have any aroma to speak of, but my first bite of melloco suggested nothing so much as fresh-mown grass.
See also "Speaking of Soup," Calvin Trillin's account of his "culinary approach to Spanish."
Mi Pequeno Almavar
104-40 Corona Ave. (at 50th Ave.), Corona, Queens
718-271-4260