Eating In Translation

Lucky Pickle Dumpling Co.

Despite the name, more like cucumber, perhaps for the best: pickle soft-serve ice cream.

Lucky Pickle Dumpling Co.
513 Amsterdam Ave. (84th-85th Sts.), Manhattan
www.LuckyPickle Dumpling.co

Sherman's

Noted while passing through the easternmost reaches of Manhattan's Chinatown: a skewers joint with a curious approach to typography. From a distance, the large characters 鐵板燒烤 (tiě bǎn shāokǎo, roughly "iron plate barbecue") reinforce the message of the twin-skewers artwork. Up close, the menu is printed in English, and rendered in one of those Orientalist typefaces meant to suggest, to Western eyes, that "this is Chinese" — but items including souvlaki, bifteki, and tzatziki, and maps that decorate the dining area, make clear that the food hails from the Peloponnese. Rather than assert identity, the typeface seems to gesture toward a sense of neighborhood belonging instead.

Sherman's
121 Division St. (Orchard-Pike Sts.), Manhattan
646-861-2726

Family Fun Night at the Mother Seton School

Timely chance encounter with a plate of pernil — roast pork shoulder, including generous slabs of crispy skin — with rice and beans, and green salad autographed in purple onion. A day later, on the same side street, I would have happened on a car-wash fundraiser instead.

Family Fun Night at the Mother Seton School
1501 New York Ave. (at 15th St.), Union City, New Jersey
201-861-8433
www.MotherSetonSchool.com/calendar.html
(The 2018 event was held on June 15)

Dumpling Galaxy

In a galaxy not so far, far away ... dumplings for dinner, dumplings for dessert, dumplings (and other good things) in between!

Dumpling Galaxy
42-35 Main St. (Franklin-Maple Aves., inside the Arcadia Mall), Flushing, Queens
718-461-0808
www.Facebook.com/Dumpling-Galaxy-591436280965409

D'Angelos: Drive-In Sausage

"New York's street food vendors usually ply their trade where potential customers congregate. On side streets in midtown Manhattan, they set up four and five abreast for the weekday lunch rush. During warm-weather weekends, they feed footballers and their fans outside ball fields in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Red Hook and East New York. In Queens, they do business beside a miles-long stretch of Roosevelt Avenue where it passes through Woodside, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, and Corona; they cluster thickly near station stops of the elevated 7 train."

"The setting of the D'Angelos Italian Sausage truck presents a dramatic contrast." Read more on Culinary Backstreets.

Sifu Chio

Scallion and ginger lo mein Hong Kong style, once mixed, is a literal as well as a figurative golden oldie. The menu header is one of the few rendered only in English; perhaps native Chinese speakers need no such blandishment.

Sifu Chio (aka Prince Noodle and Cafe)
40-09 Prince St. (at 40th Rd.), Flushing, Queens
718-888-9295

Duzan

Deeper than it looks: The pool of mashed fava beans in my Jerusalem hummus extended nearly to the bottom of the bowl.

H/T Dan Pashman (via his podcast, The Sporkful) and Robert Lax

Duzan
2411 Steinway St. (Astoria Blvd.-25th Ave.), Astoria, Queens
718-204-7488
www.Facebook.com/Duzan.NYC

First Hand Food

A red dot meant pork; a green dot at the peak of the bun, as shown here, more pork, but with celery. Yellow was cabbage. Another steamer held baozi filled with mixed vegetables, but I didn't see where they fell on the spectrum. In the display case I've also noted, but haven't sampled, the Chinese charcuterie, particularly a portionable party loaf fashioned from smoked chicken with pine nuts.

First Hand Food
142-54 Roosevelt Ave. (Union-Bowne Sts.), Flushing, Queens
929-391-0706

Sugaree's Bakery

Counterpoint to salty 'cue: caramel cake. Unlike the wrapped, shelf-stable candies that sometimes attain the hardness of table-top hockey pucks, the caramel frosting was just as meltingly luscious as it looks. Alas, at dessert-time, a decision had to be made, and in hindsight the red velvet looked ever more tempting once out of reach. The same had been true for the strawberry cake — a regret since remedied (bottom photos).

Sugaree's Bakery
110 West Bankhead St., New Albany, Mississippi
662-534-0031
www.Sugarees.com
At the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party
In and around Madison Square Park, Manhattan
www.BigAppleBBQ.org
(The 2018 event takes place on June 9-10)

Qebaptore Dardania European Grill

For comfort: chicken soup, with bread, dessert.

Qebaptore Dardania European Grill
1009 Mace Ave. (Williamsbridge Rd.-Paulding Ave.), Laconia, Bronx
347-964-6942
www.Facebook.com/QebaptoreDardania
Closed Monday