Eating In Translation

Hotel Suites Amberes

For huevos Motuleños — a breakfast dish named for the town of Motul on the Yucatán Peninsula — soft-cooked eggs are deposited atop black-bean-covered tortillas, then cloaked in a spicy tomato-based sauce strewn with fresh cheese. This rendition added embellishments of ham, peas, and sweet plantains. Also on hand: fruit, pastries, and (not shown) juice and coffee.

Hotel Suites Amberes
Calle Amberes 64, Cuauhtémoc, Juárez, Mexico City
+52 55 5533 1306
www.SuitesAmberes.com
(From a March 2017 visit)

Bayard Bo Ky Restaurant

The dishes at Bo Ky that most deserve your attention hail from the southern Chinese city of Chaozhou, also rendered Chaochow, Chiuchow, and Teochew. The local dialect shares that name. So, to secure an order of Teochew noodles ($7), you could mimic my shaky pronunciation, "Cheeoo-jeeow." Or, since the service at Bo Ky is often gruff in the quintessential "what'll ya have" New York manner, you could just point to the menu. Pointing is certainly the best way to specify your noodles; mine were the yellow ribbonlike mee pok in the center of the menu's pictorial guide.

Atop the noodles were one or two pieces of squid, a single shrimp, and multiple cuttings of pig's liver and kidney. (The waiter, to clarify that I understood my own order and wouldn't refuse the offal, had gestured toward the small of his back. Pointing worked for him, too.) At my request, the noodles were served "dry," with soup on the side rather than ladled over. The soup, and the excellent house chile sauce that sits at every table, were added as desired.

Previously: Teochew sate noodles, layered with sprouts and thin-sliced beef, topped with a sour meat sauce, receptive to a squeeze of lemon; the house special shrimp roll, wrapped in tofu skin, sliced, and deep-fried; soy-sauce-braised country-style duck.

H/T Robert Lax and Lauhound

Bayard Bo Ky Restaurant
78-80 Bayard St. (Mulberry-Mott Sts.), Manhattan
212-406-2292
Also, as Grand Bo Ky Restaurant, at 216 Grand St. (Mott-Elizabeth Sts.)
212-219-9228

Butter, eggs, cheese, homemade salads

This space was a delicatessen "at the very least from the 1920s through the 1980s," according to a comment posted on a neighborhood website. Citing contemporary telephone directories, the commenter identified four distinct delis that operated at this address. It's unclear which business commissioned this signage or when the last of the delis shut its doors.

The old signage was uncovered in 2013 when a former hair salon was being renovated to make way for the current tenant, Acme Wines & Spirits. Rather than remove it, Acme embraced it. The lettering above the door — wines, spirits — is a respectable match for delicatessen lettering that might be a century older.

Butter, eggs, cheese, homemade salads
Surviving signage at Acme Wines & Spirits
487 Fifth Ave. (11th-12th Sts.), Park Slope, Brooklyn
718-832-5101
www.AcmeWinesAndSpirits.com

Ling Long Xuan Restaurant

(This venue is closed.) The chef's previous home was Tianjin, a neighbor of Beijing and a port city on the Yellow Sea, so we probably would have done better to order more seafood. Jumbo shrimp in hot wok ($17.95) suggested the wisdom of this approach on a return visit. Our group also noted in many dishes a prevailing sweetness, not atypical of Tianjin cuisine, even before a complimentary plate of sweet potato in syrup arrived at the table.

The hot syrup, which when cooled upon contact with the accompanying water sprouted glistening tendrils of sugar, tended to hold the chunks of sweet potato in large clumps. Our waitress attempted to pry these apart for us solely with chopsticks, but very soon she, too, resorted to a fork.

For more photos, see the EIT Facebook page.

Ling Long Xuan Restaurant
136-77 41st Ave. (Main-Union Sts.), Flushing, Queens
212-228-2972

Arraiá do Village

The intense colors of these doces de abóbora, coco, and mamão (candied pumpkin, coconut, and papaya) were matched only by their unabashed sweetness; they were heavily spiked by clove, too. Canjica, a corn porridge tweaked by peanut and dusted in cinnamon, had a humbler appeal. This dish is associated with winter festivals — which in Brazil arrive in June.

Arraiá do Village
Father Demo Hall, Our Lady of Pompeii Church, 25 Carmine St. (at Bleecker St.), Manhattan
www.CatolicosNY.org/home/699-2017-05-18-05-59-53
(The 2017 festival was held on June 10)

116th St. Festival

Cuajito con guineo — hog maws estilo Puertorriqueño, with boiled green plantain — wasn't served at the festival proper, though not for want of vendors. Except where supplanted by raucous soundstages, food and non-food vendors lined Third Ave. for three-quarters of a mile and 116th St. for two wide avenue blocks. Many of the sanctioned vendors who sold food and drink, however, did so from behind slick, professionally printed banners, and generally their fare was no more intriguing than you'd expect.

Off the main drag was another story or, one might say, many little stories. Particularly toward the southern end of the festival, homespun food stands popped up on the side streets, much as they do near the West Indian Day Parade. My bowl of cuajito, as well as pasteles and pernil, had apparently been prepped inside a private kitchen; ultimately it was served from a partially shaded mini-courtyard.

116th St. Festival
116th St. between Lexington and Second Aves., and Third Ave. between 106th and 120th Sts., Manhattan
www.116thStFestival.com
(The 2017 festival was held on June 10)

McDermott-Bunger Dairy

Surviving signage, 604 Pacific St. (at Flatbush Ave.), Park Slope, Brooklyn
See also this better-preserved example in Harlem

Primos Variedades

Tacos de canasta (three for $5) are named for the basket in which the slim tacos are traditionally transported to the vendor's place(s) of business. Though dressed just before serving, they're filled well in advance, in this case with a piquant mash of potato and chorizo, and folded in two. Ideally, keeping close company in the collective warmth of several hundred of their fellows helps them develop an enticing juices-soaked-into-the-tortillas texture. For those in the know, tacos de canasta need no written sign — the canasta itself is the come-on.

Primos Variedades
Queens International Night Market
Behind the New York Hall of Science, 47-01 111th St. (inside Flushing Meadows Corona Park), Queens
www.QueensNightMarket.com
Saturday evenings (in 2017, April 22-August 19, September 30-October 28)

Queens International Night Market: Doing It After Dark

Something special happens when the sun goes down. Night markets, whether in Southeast Asia or in the heart of Queens, inspire a thrill — we call it a sense of wonder — that brings boundless childhood summers to mind. Read more on Culinary Backstreets, and imagine the possibilities.

Romanian picnic at St. Andrew's Orthodox Church

Each was rolled, each had its virtues. The sarmale (sar-Mah-lay), or stuffed cabbages, featured a moist pork-and-rice filling; in its favor, my sarma was also accompanied by a generous portion of the chopped cabbage in which it had been slow-cooked. All the clătite (clah-Tee-tay) bore marks of the crepe pan, but my clătita — thanks to a guide who led me to the sanctuary of the downstairs kitchen — had cooled only for as long as was needed to spread it with jam. (Apricot.) And each, in its turn, vanished oh so quickly.

For more photos, see the EIT page on Facebook.

Romanian picnic at St. Andrew's Orthodox Church
90-34 139th St. (90th-91st Aves.), Jamaica, Queens
www.Facebook.com/sfantulandreiny /posts/1000639916733556:0
(The picnic was held on June 3, 2017)