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(This venue is closed.) "Pitha" (Pit-uh) describes many Bangladeshi and Bengali cakes that may be savory or sweet, fried, baked, or steamed. For this sticky-sweet batch ($3.99), a home-printed label identified the ingredients as rice flour, oil, and sugar and gave the name kori pitha. Jhinuk, or seashell, seems to be a much more common name for this variety; perhaps kori specifies cowrie.
Kacha Bazar
168-25A Hillside Ave. (at 168th Pl.), Jamaica, Queens
718-725-0277
(This venue is closed.) Ms. Rita opened her doors in late summer; her Southern-influenced comfort food seems perfectly timed for fall. Baked chicken (with two sides, $10) is moist and mild in the company of collard greens, which are piquant with bits of red pepper. Mac 'n' cheese, very creamy except at the pan edges, is superb. Shrimp await a return visit — perhaps fried for a po' boy, perhaps (during weekend brunch only) well-spiced atop cheddar grits.
Also shown: the approach to Ms. Rita's, just down the block from a prominent if faded ad for an automatic washer. The tagline, "For cleaner clothes Bendix prescribes All," dates to the mid-'50s.
Ms. Rita's Place
349 East 109th St. (First-Second Aves.), Manhattan
646-918-7296
What would you think about splitting a plate of "sauteed lamb bellies with hot pepper" ($13.95)? My buddy and I were doubly cautious as we considered our order, in particular because this lamb was listed, for some reason, with the seafood dishes but above all because we were meeting over lunch at a Fujianese restaurant. New York menus that feature the cuisine of Fujian province, on the southeast coast of China, are often annoyingly opaque in translation. (Mysterious and poetic, by contrast, can be charming, especially with appropriate literal context for the figurative language.)
In this instance the original Chinese seemed a match for the English translation; I was readily able to identify the characters for "lamb belly." Until the dish arrived, however, I had no inkling that the intended meaning was "of the belly" or "from the belly." In a word, tripe. Chewing diligently, we enjoyed it nonetheless.
Chang Le Xin Fan Zhuang
36 Eldridge St. (Hester-Canal Sts.), Manhattan
212-219-2228
Burger, medium rare ($4.50): deconstructed, as brought to the table; assembled, and already oozing in anticipation; disappeared, except for juices and ketchup.
Joe Junior Restaurant
167 Third Ave. (at 16th St.), Manhattan
212-473-5150
Shown: decorative twinned fish above a doorway; an iconic caution against dumping waste that would befoul nearby waterways; the maker's mark of a concrete contractor; fishermen trying their hands from the breakwaters that extend into Absecon Inlet, near the remains of a boardwalk destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. Their efforts this afternoon had less the appearance of sport fishing than of subsistence fishing.
Fishes and fishing
Atlantic City, New Jersey
For preservationists who decry new construction that's out of keeping with a neighborhood, here's a worst-case scenario. In this view toward the southwest, the Revel Casino Hotel literally blocks out the sun for a row of homes and small businesses. Less than half of this behemoth fits into the photo; the Revel's crowning ornament is easier to see from afar. For the deli-groceries in its shadow, there's not even the consolation of possible customers; the short-lived Revel opened in 2012 and closed in 2014.
My midafternoon pick-me-up, a three-pack of Philadelphia-made Tastykake peanut butter Kandy Kakes (2 oz. total, $1), are much easier to track down in AC than in NYC. I found them at Alpha & Omega, whose entrance is just out of frame of the first photo, to the far right, and whose long lunch counter was deserted when I stopped in. Make what you will of the food market's name.
Alpha & Omega Food Market
404 Oriental Ave. (at South Metropolitan Ave.), Atlantic City, New Jersey
609-449-8321
Above and beyond that faded sign for a long-forgotten produce market is another sign, to all appearances a giant golf ball. It's teed up atop the Revel, a half-mile in the distance, at 47 stories the tallest structure in Atlantic City. When the hotel-casino opened in 2012, that distinctive illuminated spheroid was dubbed "The Pearl," in recognition of the Revel's reward program for high rollers. Little more than two years later, it went dark: The Revel was one of four Atlantic City casinos to shutter in 2014. Looking ahead, which of these two signs will outlast the other? My money's on the greengrocer.
Fruits, vegetables
Surviving signage, 1200 Atlantic Ave. (Chalfonte-North Carolina Aves.), Atlantic City, New Jersey
A banh mi, or in regional parlance a "Vietnamese hoagie," is rarely a massive sandwich. This top-of-the-line special combo, sprightly with pickled vegetables and featuring chả lụa, giò thú, and thịt nguội (pork roll, head cheese, and cured pork), falls short of truck-stop proportions, but it costs a mere $4.50. Order two if you must.
Or, in my case, look inquiringly at an off-menu lunch and receive a lagniappe from the counterwoman and a fellow — he might have been family, friend, co-worker, or some combination of the above — who arrived toward the end of my meal. His rice plate, from which he portioned out a sample, included juicy grilled pork and a torta-like wedge of fried egg. I see potential for a pork-and-egg breakfast banh mi.
A.C. Sandwiches (Banh Mi A.C.)
3023 Atlantic Ave. (Morris-Chelsea Aves.), Atlantic City, New Jersey
609-541-3041
Who needs a tray? My buddy's meatball submarine ($6.90) was soaked in sauce, and my White House Special (7.80), heavy on the salami, provolone, ham, and capicola, was wet with dressing, but our deft server handed them off using nothing more than paired-up paper plates. I would've liked to see how she managed whole sandwiches; both these subs, do note, were merely half-orders.
White House Sub Shop
2301 Arctic Ave. (at Mississippi Ave.), Atlantic City, New Jersey
609-345-8599
Also inside the Trump Taj Mahal
609-245-7827
www.WhiteHouseSubShop.com
For many centuries, the soft inner bark of Broussonetia papyrifera has provided raw material for paper-making and cloth-making, especially in East and Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Often planted as an ornamental, the tree has been naturalized in New York thanks to its tolerance for pollution in less-than-gracious urban settings such as the roadside verge shown here.
Originally identified as a member of the genus Morus, which includes the familiar finger-staining mulberries, the paper mulberry is in fact only a close relative. Even so, the ripe red fruits are reported to be edible; if you know someone who's actually tried them, clue me in.
Paper mulberries
Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Thank you!
