Eating In Translation

Arnold Bread delivery truck

Vehicles, like buildings, can be made over to suit the needs of new owners. Often a restaurateur will leave old signage in place, especially when it has a burly, blue-collar appearance; the same is true of shopkeepers whose business has nothing to do with food but who understand that meat is chic.

The second owner of a commercial vehicle, on the other hand, is much more likely to efface signs of its previous use, or try to. (Perhaps the difference is that made-over buildings and their signage are intended to be part of historically or sociologically layered experiences, if innocuous ones, into which customers are invited, while a sign on a truck is simply a sign, and simpler is better.) In the bright light of day, I snapped a photo of this Arnold Bread delivery van; only later, onscreen, was it easy to spot the traces of "Penske truck rental."

See also this former van for Captain John Derst's of Savannah, more recently sighted in Harlem.

Arnold Bread delivery truck
Seen in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn

Min Jiang Mini Cafe

(This venue is closed.) In 2013 Min Jiang briefly occupied the former home of Yun Nan Flavour Snack, in Sunset Park, Brooklyn; a year later it left one Fujianese neighborhood for another, in the eastern reaches of Manhattan's Chinatown. From outside, the cafe's current storefront is not nearly as gaudy as before, but inside, it offers tables and chairs, not merely stools tucked under a ledge. There's elbow room aplenty to admire the virtues of overpackaging in a Shaxian-style soup, whose ten pork-filled wontons, made with extra-large wrappers, sport their own built-in broad noodles.

Shaxian, if you were wondering, is a county in the western reaches of Fujian province. Fuding — which at the cafe denotes a soup, with or without noodles, filled with irregularly shaped meat slices — is a small municipality on the province's northeast coast. Min Jiang's use of the names suggests the attainment of a Fujianese critical mass in New York, thanks to which the preparation of provincial specialties is commercially viable. Now not only can recent immigrants find the big-city cuisine of the capital, Fuzhou, but also some hometown cooking, too.

Min Jiang Mini Cafe
67 Eldridge St. (at Hester St.), Manhattan
347-446-6658

Gourmanoff

Coming soon to the former home of the Millennium Theater: Gourmanoff, an upscale sibling to Russian-European supermarket chain NetCost. It's unclear whether the kiosk stays in the picture. (Update: As of 2021 the kiosk is still in place, but Gourmanoff is now another NetCost.)

Gourmanoff
1029 Brighton Beach Ave. (Brighton 11th-Brighton 12th Sts.), Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
www.Gourmanoff.com

"American grocery"

Words to this effect sometimes appear where neighborhood demographics are changing, to assure longtime residents that the shop in question is not just an "ethnic grocery" and to encourage their patronage. In the case of New Apna Bazaar, which primarily stocks Indian and Pakistani goods, the signage is less than convincing. The lettering of "American grocery" has a South Asian cast, and it is accompanied by an Islamic star-and-crescent, what appears to be a simplified Hindu aum ("om"), and a Sikh khanda. That's no reflection of the "Americanness" of local residents who adhere to Islam, Hinduism, or Sikhism, only an assessment of New Apna's messaging regarding the likelihood that it stocks, say, Wonder Bread.

"American grocery"
Seen at New Apna Bazaar
703 Newark Ave. (Summit Ave.-John F. Kennedy Blvd. West), Jersey City
201-420-0038

Philippine Bread House

In Spain and many of its former colonies, a polvorón is a soft and heavy shortbread that — you may have guessed from the name — crumbles easily to powder. Typical Filipino recipes include toasted-wheat flour, milk, sugar, and butter. Often there's a flavoring, too: Well-known commercial confectioner Aling Conching offers a variety pack that includes melon, coconut-pandan, and strawberry.

By and large, Philippine Bread House sticks to more-standard flavors throughout the shop. This pair of polvorones (85 cents each), each a little bigger than a silver dollar, featured my favorite add-in, crispy rice. The cashew variety, alas, was not available; for that matter, neither was the Oreo.

Also shown: An ube ensaymada, or purple yam roll ($1.40 a number of years ago), fluffy, subtly flavored, and sweet.

Philippine Bread House
530 Newark Ave. (Baldwin Ave.-McPherson Pl.), Jersey City
201-659-3880

Deli Delite

Seems to date to the early 1980s.

Deli Delite
Temporarily surviving signage at 3 Maiden Lane (Broadway-Nassau St., in the Stevens Building), Manhattan

Pizza & French Taste

(This venue is closed.) The short bill of fare is half Italian, half Ivoirian. The chef, who speaks English, French, some Spanish, and at least one language of his native Ivory Coast, is not a natural-born pizzaiolo, judging by the looks of the dollar slices, but these are by far his best-selling menu item, based on observations during 20 minutes at a seat by the window. (Inside tiny Pizza & French Taste, all the seats are by the window.)

Have some chicken instead. If the slow-cooked, piquant sauce kedjenou hasn't been set out on the steam table, spice-rubbed baked chicken ($5) will do splendidly. As shown, it's served over attieke (ah-Chek-ay), a couscous-like, starchy side dish that's made from fermented cassava, and that sets off the flavors of the chicken much better than plain old white rice. Mind your way around the salty Maggi cubes (not shown, but available on request) and the mustard yellow hot sauce (lurking at upper left), but enjoy what seems to be a tomato "salsa" of some sort. It's terrific, too.

Pizza & French Taste
2021 Lexington Ave. (122nd-123rd Sts.), Manhattan
212-203-6288

Mama Isabel's Place

(This venue is closed; the owners now operate the nearby Margarita's Restaurant.) The truck shares its fenced-in corner lot with a half-dozen chairs for customers to rest their feet, but if there's a full house, no worries: pastelillos and alcapurrias (about $2-$3 each) are eminently suited to stand-up eating.

The New Little Quiapo Restaurant

Scoping out the condiments, and figuring what goes best with what, is essential to enjoying restaurants off the beaten path. At this Filipino spot the task was straightforward. English is readily spoken (though except in my immediate presence, Tagalog was the language of choice), and though the tabletop caddies are provisioned with salt, pepper, fish sauce, and vinegar, my meal was accompanied by a condiment of its own.

Garlic rice shared pride of place in a lechon kawali dinner ($6.95), side by side with the namesake deep-fried pork belly. Behind them were two eggs over easy; atsara, or pickled green papaya; and, tucked in one back corner, a deceptively unassuming dish of thick brown sauce. It goes by the pedestrian name of "lechon sauce," and commercial varieties are common, but like most everything at New Little Quiapo (key-Ah-poh) this condiment is made from scratch. With an assist from a pinch of black pepper, it's amazing what the right chef can come up with by combining liver and brown sugar.

In addition to short orders, the restaurant offers a small "turo-turo" steam table from which you "point-point" to your selections. Previously, my two with white rice (lately, $4.95) were bopis, minced pork heart in a mild reddish sauce, and the rich, slightly spicy, dark brown pig's blood stew called dinuguan. New Little Quiapo also dishes out many servings of halo-halo, the Filipino shaved ice of many colors and textures; note the depiction of the dessert glass at the center of the awning.

The New Little Quiapo Restaurant
530-C Newark Ave. (Baldwin Ave.-McPherson Pl., toward the back of a little parking lot), Jersey City
201-656-0384

"Eat-in, take-out"

Temporarily surviving signage, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn