Eating In Translation

Noisette: An Iftar Grows in Astoria

(Note: In 2019 Noisette changed its name to Paris Oven.) "We'd passed Noisette many times in the (not quite) year that it had been open. But whenever we'd walked down those sometimes clamorous blocks of 30th Avenue in Astoria, Queens — not far from a bagel shop, a pizzeria, a comfort-food hotspot and a New Orleans-themed bar-restaurant, whose windows open wide toward the street during happy hour — we'd given little notice to the quiet bakery-café with the French name."

"That changed during one recent stroll, not long before dark, when a hand-drawn signboard beside the door wished us 'Ramadan Kareem' and beckoned us to come inside." Read more on Culinary Backstreets.

Bella Roza

(This venue is closed.) This bichak samsa was one of three varieties on offer. The other samsy, filled with lamb and beef, each had been given a different shape, a common practice to help staff keep track of what's what.

In response to my question "What is bichak?", the counterman did not explain that the word denotes a baked tricorner, known from the cuisines of North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia and here prepared by a Bukharian Jewish baker of Uzbek descent, with various fillings. Instead — apparently addressing what he perceived was my immediate question, and not incidentally saving himself the time and trouble of a comprehensive culinary overview — he identified the filling, "butternut squash." Come to think of it, at the moment, that's just what I wanted to know.

Bella Roza
63-52 Booth St. (63rd Dr.-63rd Ave.), Rego Park, Queens
718-275-0777
http://Bella-Roza-restaurant.business.site
Weekend hours unclear; best to call in advance

Hot dog vendor

I'd forgotten, but Chowhound remembers: A seven-year-old thread on "best Bronx cheap secrets" describes what seems to be the same fellow, on the same Hunts Point corner, still slinging his superlative hot dogs. Although I can't vouch for the cooking liquid ("veggie broth," wrote the OP), the price with everything ("con todo"), now $2.75 (up from "two bucks"), still includes chili, jalapeño relish, a slab of queso fresco, and plenty of napkins. Boy, I miss the old Chowhound.

Hot dog vendor
On the sidewalk outside Abarrotes Mexicano Wholesale, 1170 Randall Ave. (at Worthen St.), Hunts Point, Bronx
Weekdays and the occasional Saturday

Kam Hing Coffee Shop

Cheap eats usually means quick eats. Not so these chicken feet, which are marinated, steamed, then further tenderized when steamed together with rice. Freeing every bit of meat from the many tiny bones was the work of half an hour. More time for coffeehousing!

Kam Hing's Chinese owner retired a number of years ago, and a Mexican-American staffer took up the mantle. Little has changed. True, the steamed, eggy specialty of the house is now also prepared in newer, pricier, flavored variations — subtle green tea, overambitious chocolate chip — but the original sponge cake, shown at bottom, is as good as ever.

Kam Hing Coffee Shop
118 Baxter St. (Canal-Hester Sts.), Manhattan
212-925-0425
www.Facebook.com/pages/Kam-Hing-Coffee-Shop/113881975310475
Also at 81 Bayard St. (Mulberry-Mott Sts.)
917-868-0763

Piñas Locas Quetzaly

Hot enough for you? Considered in light of my recent mango diablito, this chamarindo was a distant cousin. The ice was ground more finely, though it still clogged the tamarind-candy-coated straw, and the cubes of pale jicama and golden mango were overmatched by tamarind and chamoy, a Mexican salty-sour-spicy-sweet sauce. Customers who find such concoctions still too mild can visit the condiments bar; I did so only for the photo opportunity.

Piñas Locas Quetzaly
80 Broadway (Irving Pl.-Grove St.), Passaic, New Jersey
862-238-8880
www.Facebook.com /pinaslocasquetzaly1

Sal & Dom's

Sal & Dom's was born in the mid-'50s, but this current location is just a couple of decades old. So is the countertop, which gives evidence of the many small retail transactions that are the lifeblood of a neighborhood bakery. The once-rosy surface shows lots of wear, but — unlike my cinnamon raisin danish — it's not yet ready to fall to pieces.

Previously: They're firm, but they're not really crisp, said the countergal when I asked about quaresimali. Almond is the flavor, she added, and, yes, they're good for dunking. The lady in charge was otherwise occupied at the moment, or else she might have chimed in with the skinny on these biscuits: "Quaresimali" is synonymous with "almond biscotti." I suspect these are made with a touch of anise, too.

Sal & Dom's
1108 Allerton Ave. (Laconia-Yates Aves.), Laconia, Bronx
718-515-3344
www.SalAndDoms.com
Closed Monday

A Taste of Sugar

Rhymes with tradition: At the most recent Ninth Avenue International Food Festival, two stalls wore the colors of St. Kitts, the Caribbean island nicknamed Sugar City. As my order was being filled at one stall, I asked about their rival several blocks to the south and was told, "That's the mom." Who, I wondered too late, makes the better Kittitian curry goat?

A Taste of Sugar
Various pop-up locations
646-567-3633
At the Ninth Avenue International Food Festival
Ninth Ave. between 42nd and 57th Sts., Manhattan
www.NinthAvenueFoodFestival.com
(The 2018 festival was held on May 19-20)

Al-Mazaq Bakery

Bagila (Bah-gee-lah) — in common with North African, Middle Eastern, and Arabian dishes such as rifissa and fatteh — allows for the use of day-old bread to line the serving dish and soak up good flavors. At this Iraqi-American bakery and restaurant, the bread is abundant, and so some of that morning's batch lined a bowl mounded with fava beans (the namesake bagila) and, for good measure, scrambled eggs. Another hefty round of bread, folded in two, arrived at its side. Translation: leftovers after all.

Also shown: gaymar, a sort of clotted cream drizzled with what our waitress identified as black honey, and kahi, gaymar's companion bread, tenuously clinging to crispness despite a shallow pool of syrup. These we finished.

H/T Peter Cuce, Bao and Butter Blog

Al-Mazaq Bakery
46 East Railway Ave. (Kentucky-Iowa Aves.), Paterson, New Jersey
862-239-9444
www.Facebook.com/مخبز-و-مطعم-المذاق-العراقي-Al-Mazaq-Bakery-Restaurant-1772278093034471
(Note: This post is based on a visit before Ramadan; call ahead to confirm the current menu and hours.)

St. George Ukrainian Festival

Rainfall stimulates mushroom growth; chocolate-dipped, poppy-seeded marshmallow mushrooms stimulate the appetite; this annual festival carries on, rain or shine.

Previously: At the movies, whether you're watching a big-screen blockbuster or an art-house comedy, the order in which images appear onscreen rarely matches the order in which they were recorded. A film might be shot "out of sequence" for many reasons, but particularly to rationalize the use of locations and talent, and to allow for their availability. For example, if an actor appears only in a climactic closing scene but also is contracted to begin work immediately on another project, that actor's scene might be shot first even if, in the finished film, it is saved for the last.

Fuding Wok

Fuding sliced meat, which takes its name from a small Chinese municipality on the northeast coast of Fujian province, isn't actually sliced, nor is it purely meat. This homespun dish is prepared from a paste — composed, typically, of three parts well-pounded pork leg to two parts mashed sweet potato — that is spooned into boiling water, where it quickly sets into irregular shapes. Fuding meat is often served in soup, sometimes with a local variety of wontons, inevitably with a host of condiments close at hand.

Fuding Wok
5216 Seventh Ave. (52nd-53rd Sts.), Sunset Park, Brooklyn
718-851-5415