Eating In Translation

Maima's Liberian Bistro

(This venue is closed.) Salon de cuisine?

Emily Mini Mart

(This venue is closed.) Previously an office of the J.J. Friel pawnbroker business, which according to the inscription near the roofline was established in 1870. Or perhaps 1880, insofar as the name of Joseph John Friel is concerned: Reportedly he began at the business as an employee, developed a financial interest over time, and earned the right to rename it for himself a decade later. Whatever the true story, your pawn ticket is no longer good: The business survived only into the 1970s.

Emily Mini Mart
171-03 Jamaica Ave. (171st-172nd Sts.), Jamaica, Queens
718-725-0090

Manhattan Liquors Store

It's a gesture you might expect from mustard at a hot dog stand, not from (presumably good) whiskey at a liquor store. Was this was an outer-boroughs allusion to carefree drinking in the big city? If so, the time to settle up has come and gone: The shop is permanently shuttered, and the signage has been taken down.

Manhattan Liquors Store
Jamaica Ave. near 89th Ave., Jamaica, Queens

Brooklyn Point Cafe

(This venue is closed.) Placek po Wegiersku ($9.50) can be translated from the Polish as Hungarian potato pie, or cake, or pancake. It's clearly kin to the massive gypsy pancake I enjoyed in Salem, Massachusetts, which sported two light, crisp discs sandwiching several layers of long-cooked goulash. In Greenpoint chunky beef stew was enfolded in a single crisp pancake; both meat and potatoes could have been more tender.

Also shown: schab duszony z cebula ($8.75), pot-roasted pork with onion; the blackboard menu. Most of those items could qualify as comfort food in any Polish workers' lunch hall, but Brooklyn Point's ethos also admits bagels, French toast, and similar morning fare, as well as wi-fi with your fresh-brewed coffee. The pop music soundtrack was in English, as were the handheld menus.

Brooklyn Point Cafe
924 Manhattan Ave. (at Kent St.), Greenpoint, Brooklyn
718-383-0012

Martin Stove

(This signage, if still extant, is no longer in plain sight.) Possibly associated with the Martin Stove and Range Co. of Florence, Alabama, which today does business as Martin Industries. The typography is appropriate for Martin's earlier stove-making days, and that could be what's left of the word "ranges" to the far right of the sign.

Martin Stove
Surviving signage on Jamaica Ave. near 171st St., Jamaica, Queens

Gross Bake Shop

These heart-shaped cookies ($9 per pound) had three cutouts for three colors, if not flavors, of stiff jam: orange, green, and red.

Gross Bake Shop
5406 16th Ave. (54th-55th Sts.), Borough Park, Brooklyn
718-851-0182

Goldberg's Supermarket

Shown simply for the "G" that evokes a shopping cart.

Goldberg's Supermarket
5007 18th Ave. (50th-51st Sts.), Mapleton, Brooklyn
718-437-8729
Open 24 hours, except from Friday midafternoon through Saturday evening

Drinking water sampling station

West 125th St., between Old Broadway and Amsterdam Ave., Manhattan
(One of 965 sampling stations in New York City)
www.NYC.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/sampling.shtml

Chestnuts King

While walking along Henan Zhonglu, Shanghai, a number of autumns ago, I came across two ladies operating roasted-chestnut carts. By all appearances they had trundled their heavy carts into position, one on each walkway of the bridge over Suzhou Creek, by human power alone. There each lady employed a long paddle to stir chestnuts and hot gravel in a broad roasting pan while calling out her wares.

Though sitting within a booth little larger than one of those carts, the lady who sets up shop on Main St., Flushing, each winter benefits from some modest technology. Her roasting pan churns chestnuts and gravel mechanically, without need for a handheld paddle (or elbow grease). And rather than tire out her lungs shouting into the wind, she makes continuous use of a headset minimike. But she doesn't break totally with Old World tradition: Reportedly her chestnuts ($3 per quarter-pound) are imported from Tianjin.

Chestnuts King
Outside Oriental Express Food, 41-40 Main St. (41st Rd.-Sanford Ave.), Flushing, Queens
718-581-9077
Colder months only

Lao Dong Bei

(This venue is closed.) These blotches you'll be happy to find on your table.