Eating In Translation

St. Lucia House Foundation Jounen Kwéyòl

"Fish eggs": caviar of the Caribbean?

Consumers Park Brewery

The brewery was organized in 1897 and opened this complex with much fanfare three years later. With the advent of Prohibition, in 1920, the beer barrels went dry; they never recovered.

Consumers Park Brewery
Surviving structures and signage at the intersection of 946-978 Franklin Ave. with 124-150 Montgomery St., Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Yoz Shanghai Restaurant

Yoz serves two dishes with guihua duck, though I'm unclear whether either one contains guihua, or osmanthus.

E-Pie

(This venue is closed.) The Chinese flatbreads called xian bing are often lumped together as "meat pies." Indeed, this tiny takeout shop fills them with lamb, pork, chicken, and "juicy" beef — which is aptly named, according to several early cautionary accounts. But xian bing can also denote "sweet pies," filled with red beans or sticky black rice (shown, $1.50). The rice is, in fact, only modestly sweet, and even if you give this xian bing a healthy bite, the filling keeps its place. If time is not pressing, you'll appreciate a fresh, hot bing much more than one off the rack.

E-Pie
135-43 Roosevelt Ave. (Main-Prince Sts.), Flushing, Queens
347-348-7049

Zuppardi's Apizza

Clam pie, cheeseless, featuring shucked-to-order littlenecks (medium, $30.50). With other toppings I'd be inclined to order well-done, but why risk overcooking and toughening the shellfish or drying out the juices that soak into the crust? The house got this one just right. Two small slices remained only because this was the fourth of four stops on a pizza crawl; I understand that leftover clam pie, too, is quite good.

Also shown: Iron Brew, the most enigmatic of the Foxon Park sodas found in all respectable New Haven-area pizzerias. Its flavor, the company's website acknowledges, is "tough to describe. ... Do you like Kola? Do you like Cream? Do you like Root Beer? Then Iron Brew is the drink for you!" I preferred the white birch flavor, and its hints of wintergreen, which we paired with another pizza earlier in the day.

Zuppardi's Apizza
179 Union Ave. (Main-Brown Sts.), West Haven, Connecticut
203-934-1949
www.ZuppardisApizza.com
Closed Monday

Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana

The classic version of Pepe's celebrated white clam pizza relies principally on garlic and olive oil, as well as oregano and grated cheese, to coax out extra shellfish flavor. A mozzarella-laden version is available, but frowned on; tomato sauce is out of the question, hence the designation "white" clam. When one member of our pizza-crawl crew insisted on bacon, all sorts of permutations presented themselves. The most concise solution: half bacon with mozzarella (shown above), half white clam, with garlic and olive oil, and more bacon (shown below; large, $25.75).

Also shown, from a previous visit: a small white clam pie (currently $12.75). The slightly irregular shape is typical of New Haven pizzas, which often are oblong rather than round; the camera angle exaggerates this only a little. If you enjoy the chewy crust at Pepe's, the proportions are perfect.

Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana
157 Wooster St. (Depalma Ct.-Chestnut St.), New Haven, Connecticut
203-865-5762
(One of many locations)
www.PepesPizzeria.com

Modern Apizza

Despite the puffy lip and the blackened, burst air pockets, most of this crust was not only thin and chewy but also floppy. (A member of our pizza-crawl crew with knowledge of the situation said this is standard at Modern.) Our large pie ($17) exhibited topping slippage, less on the half with slices of hot cherry peppers (not shown here) than on the half with sausage, which had been crumbled atop the mozzarella and sauce in generous, irregular chunks. That's what fingers are for.

Modern Apizza
874 State St. (Clark-Humphrey Sts.), New Haven, Connecticut
203-776-5306
www.ModernApizza.com
Closed Monday

La Lomita del Barrio

In past years this slender but well-stocked grocery somehow shoehorned a small kitchen into the space by the window. More recently the kitchen migrated to the sidewalk, where a Pueblan lady prepares tacos, quesadillas, gorditas, and the like "todos los días."

Name This Restaurant

The shapes of the lettering above the door evoke the era of this restaurant's founding. Evidently the letters were fashioned from fiberboard, to which a colored veneer was applied; now that the business has closed, one has fallen into a state of déshabillé. Can you name this restaurant? (Please post your answer on the Eating In Translation page on Facebook.

Park Side Restaurant

Italian-American seafood in spicy red sauce has been a grail for me since childhood. At some restaurants these dishes are branded "alla arrabbiata"; they're made "angry" with chile peppers that are cooked with tomatoes and garlic in olive oil. Other restaurants apply the name "fra diavolo," or "brother devil," to a loose confederation of spicy recipes. Park Side serves dishes under both names, but it was a family-style plate of scungilli and calamari ($23.95) in a "hot marinara" sauce that came closest to my ideal.

Also shown: the well-larded bread basket. I don't recall what was left, at the end of our meal, for sopping up sauce.

Park Side Restaurant
107-01 Corona Ave. (at 51st Ave.), Corona, Queens
718-271-9274
www.ParkSideRestaurantNY.com