Eating In Translation

Las Conchitas Bakery

Tacos al vapor, "steamed" tacos, are another name given to the tacos de canasta sold by street vendors from a cloth-draped "basket." Tacos de canasta are filled in advance, folded in two — they tend to be slim — and fitted, with several hundred of their fellows, into a basket that is carried to the vendor's place(s) of business. Their collective warmth has also prompted the name tacos sudados, since the texture of the tortillas is consequently "sweaty."

By contrast, at Las Conchitas — which functions more as a restaurant than as a bakery — the tacos al vapor never see the inside of a basket. Fillings of cabeza de res and lengua (beef head and beef tongue, $2.50 each) await at a windowside steamer, and tortillas for each order are warmed directly atop the meats. The assembled tacos al vapor don't have time to develop the enticing juice-soaked texture of some tacos de canasta, true, but the tortillas are soft and warm, the fillings, ample for the price.

Also shown: condiments, one of them mislabeled; atol de granillo (small, $2), a hot beverage made from cooked, dried, roughly ground kernels of corn; the check presentation.

H/T Ike Hull (via private communication)

Las Conchitas Bakery
48-11 Fifth Ave. (48th-49th Sts.), Sunset Park, Brooklyn
718-437-5513
Tacos al vapor available Monday through Saturday after 3:00

Zhun Yi Beef Noodle

(This venue is closed.) A menu item called "sour cabbage fry sweet dumplings" demanded investigation; we were only more intrigued by our receipt, which listed "tang-yuan w/pickle" ($6). Glutinous rice dumplings like these, filled with a sweetened black sesame paste, typically are boiled, then served without ornament in a little of the cooking water. For our dish the Sichuanese cook stir-fried them lightly, then plated the tang yuan with the surprisingly apt pairing of pickled cabbage. Two bites of sweet, then a nibble of sour, and we were hungry for another.

Also shown: crispy (and chewy) Guizhou pork ($2.50); Chengdu za jiang noodles (small, $7). The latter is bland, even when sauce and noodles are mixed. But it can be considerably improved, my dining buddy observed, if you pour on a little of the accompanying thin salty soup (not shown) and perhaps mix in some crispy pork and pickled cabbage, too. Then you've got something.

Zhun Yi Beef Noodle
Fei Long Shopping Center food court, stall 7
6301 Eighth Ave. (63rd-64th Sts.), Sunset Park, Brooklyn

Loft's Candies

This old neon sign came to light again in 2016, when a narrow 19th-century storefront — once home to a location of the Loft's candy empire — began its transformation from boutique to pizzeria. The newly uncovered glass tubing was intact but (presumably) no longer functional; after the tubing was removed, the open metal channels were dingy, to say the least. Since then the sign has been spiffed up considerably.

It's unclear whether the Loft's sign will remain here or move elsewhere. One report maintains that the new pizzeria, part of the Two Boots chain, "will pay homage to the original neon sign outside with its own neon lettering." But a coppered ceiling — hidden away until recently on a second floor used only for storage — should find new admirers in the pizzeria's upstairs lounge.

Loft's Candies
Surviving signage, 86 1/2 Nassau St. (Fulton-John Sts.), Manhattan

Foteh's Tandoori

My other samsa is fatty lamb. Fresh and hot from the tandoor of this Uzbek cafe and chayhana, or teahouse, a healthful change of pace: the samsa with greens ($2).

Foteh's Tandoori
2650 Coney Island Ave. (Crawford Ave.-Ave X), Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn
718-975-8787

Golden Steamer

Sunshine on a cloudy day: egg tarts (three for $1.25).

Golden Steamer
1964 86th St. (Bay 23rd St.-20th Ave.), Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
(one of several locations)
718-996-7888

K.Y. Grocery

Previously the soups of the day were served in rotation — literally, as the lady of the shop demonstrated by swiveling the golden pointer in the center of the sign — but lately it always seems to be time for odengguk. As at many such small markets, this Korean fish cake soup (pint, $3.50) is self-service, which might entice you to overstuff your container. Do scoop up some radish, kelp, and onion, too, but don't neglect the broth, made flavorful by a sachet of small, anchovy-like fish and suffusing all it touches. When you've eaten up, drink up.

K.Y. Grocery (a.k.a. K.Y. Fruit & Vegetable)
1578 York Ave. (East 83rd-East 84th Sts.), Manhattan
212-861-8466

Fish hung out to air-dry

This small batch-in-process was strung from the supports to a canopy, which shelters the stairs leading down to a basement seafood wholesaler. Possibly the fish were being prepared in anticipation of the Year of the Rooster, whose arrival will be celebrated on January 28, 2017. In New York, I don't recall such a sight in any other season.

Fish hung out to air-dry
Chinatown, Manhattan

Schorsch & Co.

Founded in Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century, Schorsch & Co., "paper bag manufacturers," relocated in 1913 and operated here, in the Bronx, until going out of business in 1951. The company's kraft-paper sacks were marketed to the trade for packing items in bulk: "coffee, spices, rice, beans, nuts, or any loose groceries." On a more personal scale, smaller sacks were, and still are, useful for brown-bagging lunch if things head south.

Schorsch & Co.
Surviving signage, 120 Bruckner Blvd. (at Brook Ave.), Mott Haven, Bronx

7 Express

(This venue is closed.) "Yi kuai! Yi kuai!" This continual call to passersby reflects the shop's budget-minded prices as a whole, but it pertains to one menu item in particular: oversized, well-stuffed steamed buns. In the first photo, they command a keep-warm display all their own, at far left. The buns come in two varieties, each marked on top with a single dot, red for pork or green for vegetable, like the one that fills my not-inconsiderable grip. Cost: yi kuai (Ee Kwhy) — one buck.

7 Express
135-42 Roosevelt Ave. (Main-Prince Sts.), Flushing, Queens

3 Aunties Thai Market

Like their predecessors in this snug storefront, most recently Inthira, the aunties make room for a delightful variety of goods on the shelves, in the fridge, in the freezer case, and on the countertops, too. The featured ingredients of their freshly steamed toddy palm cakes (four for $3.50) are, I believe, the seeds of the nipa palm, which you might easily mistake for translucent sweet gummies the size of fat almonds.

The gumminess is gone from these cakes, thank goodness; most likely they were made from a palm-seed paste that has been given a golden color. Compare what I identified as palm sugar desserts at a Khmer celebration in the Bronx. The cakes, whose other ingredients include rice flour and coconut milk, have little flavor that can be pinned specifically on toddy palm, but the darker batch beside them taste decisively of banana.

3 Aunties Thai Market
64-04 39th Ave. (64th-65th Sts.), Woodside, Queens
718-606-2523
www.Facebook.com/3AuntiesThaiMarket