Eating In Translation

Malagueta

(This venue is closed.) Black-eyed-pea cakes were too prim.

Diner

Diner's menu changes often — famously, for each party, the bill of fare is handwritten on the paper table-cover — so dishes enjoyed one day may disappear the next.

Motorino

Good thing the pizza arrived well-done; we hadn't thought to ask.

McElraevy & Hauck

"Breweries" caught my eye, but only after several years. In April 2010, when I first photographed this overlapping set of signs for a custom supplier of pipe and fittings, it was difficult enough just to make out the company name. Appliquéd artwork and spray-painted tags have since added to the visual hubbub. On a recent return visit, I saw this building in a different light, literally.

It's fascinating to imagine a time, a century ago, when many breweries were opening and expanding nearby. So many, in fact, that they would be called out in business-to-business advertising — not only in the papers but also in public, painted signs.

McElraevy & Hauck
Surviving signage at 440 Broadway (at Hewes St.), Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Arco Cafe

Malloreddus are a simple sort of gnocchi, native to Sardinia, made from a plain dough of flour and water. They're "pressed with the thumb against a textured surface, The Oxford Companion to Food observes, "so that when cooked they curl up into the form of giant woodlice." That's a bit unkind toward a humble dish that's not trying to climb above its station. This hearty version, alla Campidanese ($15), named for a province in the south of the island, incorporates sausage in the traditional tomato sauce.

Arco Cafe
886 Amsterdam Ave. (103rd-104th Sts.), Manhattan
212-665-0033
www.Facebook.com/arcocafe886

Ads for GrubHub and Seamless

How it must rankle the media buyers to rely on telephone kiosks! The second ad does make an attempt, it seems, to shake off the landline legacy by using the grammar and stacatto text associated with doge, an internet meme that subverts conventional grammar by pairing nouns and modifiers in dissonant phrases. However, by the time this campaign was conceived, approved, executed, and placed, doge had already lost much of its currency. In short: So last year.

Ads for GrubHub and Seamless
"Outdated paper menus are full of lies. Lies, I tell you!"
Tremont, Bronx
"Such takeout. No calls. Very amaze."
Flushing, Queens

Antiguan vendors

This husband-and-wife team does business one day a week, with only two items, beef tripe soup and this beef-based black pudding. Many varieties of blood sausages, as they are also known, are prepared throughout the Caribbean. The texture of this Antiguan version, stuffed with chile-and-scallion-inflected rice, was reminiscent of a just-boiled Cajun boudin.

Since mine had been withdrawn from the pot immediately before serving, the contents could be squeezed from the casing with only light pressure from my fingers — no utensils needed. One link, scored for easy tearing and sharing, will set you back $5; the extra piece in the center was the proprietors' lagniappe.

Antiguan vendors
Inside Cholo & Sons Bakery, 3825 White Plains Rd. (at 220th St.), Olinville, Bronx
Saturday only

Sugar City Bakery

(This venue is closed.) The bakery's name isn't simply a generic nod to sweets, as I'd assumed.

Rockville Market Farm

Any excuse is a good excuse for butternut squash (doughnut, $1.50). Rockville's recipe uses the farm's own eggs, too.

Rockville Market Farm
Starksboro, Vermont
www.RockvilleMarketFarm.com
At Smorgasburg, April till mid-November
Saturday: 90 Kent Ave. (North 7th-North 8th Sts.), Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Sunday: Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 5, Dumbo, Brooklyn

El Quinto Pino

Paella without rice: Short strands of thin noodles are the foundation of this Valencia-style fideuà (fee-day-Wah). In many recipes the noodles are toasted before squid and shrimp are added, so the shellfish are lightly cooked, not overcooked as they sometimes are in paella. Served here with aioli.

El Quinto Pino
401 West 24th St. (at Ninth Ave.), Manhattan
212-206-6900
www.ElQuintoPinoNYC.com
At the Grub Street Food Festival
Vicinity of Hester and Essex Sts., Manhattan
www.Facebook.com/events /1572726842955572
(The 2014 festival was held October 5)