Eating In Translation

Zheng's Family Garden

Order "fish mein with soup" at this walk-down Fujianese restaurant, and you'll look in vain for slices of fish.

Panaderia Coatzingo

Many breads called "pan de arroz" employ rice flour as a gluten-free substitute for wheat. Here, the rice is used more indulgently.

Name This Restaurant

Why not duck? Here you'll find platters of pork, beef, and chicken, alone and in combination; fish, shrimp, and fried green tomatoes, too. Can you name this restaurant? (Please post your answer in the comments.)

Lucky Bloop

It's not showing love for Texas leaguers. In the back room, all eyes are fixed on a Quick Draw lottery monitor, where new winning numbers silently bubble forth every few minutes. In the front, a sundries counter serves as the current resting place of baked goods, prepared elsewhere, like this wife cake (85 cents).

The traditional filling is mashed winter melon and glutinous rice, flavored with almond paste and sesame seeds. In cross-section, my wife cake was very slim — not much more substantial than a stack of discarded lottery tickets swept up off the floor — but at this low price, not a loser.

Lucky Bloop (now with a second, larger sign reading "127 Bakery")
127 East Broadway (Pike-Rutgers Sts.), Manhattan

Los Perros D'Nico

(This venue is closed.) The color scheme of this tiny eatery, subdivided from a shipping store, suggests that both businesses are Colombian-owned. Four named dogs are on offer ($3 to $4): a Hawaiiano, which includes pineapple sauce, a Mexicano, with pico de gallo, a Romano, which features bacon, and this Iraqui. Its sole distinguishing ingredient seems to be a salsa verde, here camouflaged by other sauces. If you imagined it might be an MRE, that's not quite the case: My meal wasn't ready to eat until the dog was popped in the microwave.

Los Perros D'Nico
40-09 81st St. (Roosevelt-41st Aves.), Elmhurst, Queens
786-337-2689

Wally's Square Root

(This venue is closed.) The color of this fabled scramble comes from spinach and pesto: green eggs and, hidden between eggs and challah, ham ($8.25).

Wally's, which occupied a ground-floor space in the M.H. Renken Dairy building, was ringed by signs seemingly retained from an unknown, vintage 1950s luncheonette. Among the eclectic interior decor was a nonworking jukebox, which brandished an appropriately titled 45 in ready-to-play position. Alas, "fountain" is the only exterior sign that appears in my photo archives; Wally's itself has not survived.

Wally's Square Root
584 Myrtle Ave. (at Classon Ave.), Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
718-230-7077

Kenny Bakery

Cherry rounds off the sharper, more astringent notes of this coco Cubano ($1.25). The business, to be sure, is Dominican, and the namecards, it seems, were meant for a Chinese bakery — in one corner, each bears the character "yuan" that indicates a unit of currency.

Kenny Bakery
126 Dyckman St. (Nagle-Sherman Aves.), Manhattan
212-569-8414

Los Catrachos Restaurant

(This venue is closed.) Catrachos like caracoles. "Catrachos" is a common name for natives of Honduras, and "caracoles" — in Spanish, literally "snails" — signifies conch, or perhaps whelk. The coconut-milk aroma of sopa de caracol (weekends only, $14) was apparent even before my bowl hit the table.

Though the soup is also prepared with the snail's own juices, the color and mildly peppery flavor might come from annatto, staining most recognizable ingredients — yuca, green plantain, onion — the same orange as the chewy shellfish. Compare this greenish rendition from the former La Orquidea.

Los Catrachos Restaurant
125 Beach St. (Van Duzer-Jackson Sts.), Stapleton, Staten Island
718-448-4820

The Pirika Chocolate Co.

Designed by the prolific Williamsburg-born architect Theobald Engelhardt, 1895; chocolate-free since 1925.

The Pirika Chocolate Co.
Surviving signage at 972 Dean St. (Franklin-Classon Aves.), Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Prince St. Pizza

Tiny tiles of boiled ham — prosciutto cotto — were famously employed by Joe's Superette in its fried-to-order prosciutto balls. That venue shut its well-worn door in 2011, but a former manager, reported Chowhound, prepares them on Prince St. to the old recipe.

Mine, fresh fried, were meant to be a little cool on the inside, said the counterman, the better to show off the flavors of mozzarella, asiago, and parmigiano-reggiano. Though the going rate in Soho ($1.25 each, no minimum) is about twice the price I last paid in Carroll Gardens, it still seems like a deal.

Prince St. Pizza
27 Prince St. (Mott-Elizabeth Sts.), Manhattan
212-966-4100
www.PrinceStPizza.com