Eating In Translation

Song Song Kimbab

Kimbab seems to be a Korean take on makizushi.

Ponji Juice Bar

(This venue is closed.) Taro and mixed bean snow ice ($5). On my first visit the snow, thickened with milk and lightly flavored with taro, was scarcely less substantial than that scoop of vanilla or those chunks of tuber. My second time around, the only suggestion of taro was in the color and flavor of the snow. Beans and other toppings are also subject to availability.

Ponji Juice Bar
New World Mall Food Court, stall 1
136-20 Roosevelt Ave. (Main-Union Sts.), Flushing, Queens
718-838-0886

Mango's New York

(This venue is closed.) Absent visual evidence, you might imagine that sojouk in pita ($4) would involve a pocketed bread filled with chunks of heavily seasoned sausage. I'd already perused the display case at this Lebanese joint, so the appearance of the sojouk — ground "marinated spicy beef" that probably had never seen the inside of a sausage casing — was no surprise.

But the pita, I soon saw, was a broad pocket-free flatbread that was rolled around the beef, and tomatoes and pickles, too. At this point, unlike Mango's other pitas, it was toasted under a sandwich press — a nontraditional touch, acknowledged a co-owner, applied simply because it "tastes better." Toasting can do that.

Mango's New York
25-89 Steinway St. (25th-28th Aves.), Astoria, Queens
718-777-0600

No. 7 Sub

(This venue is closed.) No parmigiano in the zucchini parm? No problem.

St. Andrew Avellino International Fair

Rice Krispies treat, Cocoa Krispies attitude (50 cents).

St. Andrew Avellino International Fair
At the St. Andrew Avellino School
35-50 158th St. (Northern Blvd.-35th Ave.), Murray Hill, Queens
718-359-2625
(The autumn 2011 fair was held November 27)

Souvlaki cart

Carbs included.

South China Garden

(This venue is closed.) There's an orthodoxy to the ordering at this Cantonese restaurant; our table deviated from it, for the worse.

212 Grand Food

This is the new incarnation of Kong Kee Food, which until recently sat for many years on the northeast corner of Grand and Bowery.

Pure Thai Cookhouse

The kitchen, too, can adjust the seasoning, even before you reach for the fish sauce.

Noshi

The name is a portmanteau of "Nordic" and "sushi" that reflects the first homes of the husband-and-wife business partners, Copenhagen and Yokohama. Flatbreads decorated with cured seafood have a long tradition in Scandinavia, but each of Noshi's creations also bows to the East. Shown: cured cod with beet gel, cauliflower spread, and kombu, and cured salmon with cucumber, wasabi, and nori (set of two, $6).

Noshi
Fort Greene, Brooklyn
917-545-2648
www.NoshiBrooklyn.com
At Smorgasburg, North 7th St. at the East River, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Saturdays during the warmer months