Eating In Translation

B&B African American Restaurant

Jamaican-Guinean combo meal: jerk chicken and lafidi. The latter is a West African dish of seasoned rice accompanied by one or more sauces. At B&B — whose owner comes from Guinea, and whose customers this afternoon spoke mostly in French — it was one of the few unlabeled dishes at the steam table. Until I confirmed its identity with an attendant, I wasn't sure I was looking at lafidi, in part because the sauces were largely depleted and the rice, hollowed out. The regulars must have spotted it at a glance.

B&B Restaurant
165 West 26th St. (Sixth-Seventh Aves.), Manhattan
212-627-2914

Caridad Restaurant

Concon (cone-Cone) is the scorched rice from the bottom of the pan that adds crunch to Dominican dishes, even when paired with pollo guisado and doused with extra gravy. My $6 portion of stewed chicken and concon — shown, on a tolerably mild day, atop a concrete chess table in a nearby playground — probably would not qualify as what the restaurant, on its awning, calls "light food."

Caridad Restaurant
967 East 165th St. (Tiffany-Fox Sts.), Foxhurst, Bronx
347-862-3128

GT Kingston Diner

(This venue is closed.) Two Caribbean capitals are called out, separately, in the restaurant's name: "GT" as in Georgetown, the largest city of Guyana, and Kingston, its counterpart in Jamaica. My entree was plated in similar fashion. I'd hoped (while waiting in the heated, but perhaps overly enclosed, outdoor dining area) that sweet and sour shrimp fried rice would appear as a mound of rice enjeweled with tidbits of shrimp rather that rice and shrimp side by side. True, that's a greater challenge for the kitchen; my fork took up these efforts instead.

GT Kingston Diner
10908 Liberty Ave. (109th-110th Sts.), Richmond Hill, Queens
347-561-7540
www.Facebook.com/GT-Kingston-Diner-2183915811846934

D'Still Liquors

"I cant believe this sign is still there," a commenter on Instagram told me, adding that the business closed "late 80s early 90s maybe." Even considering that the sign faces away from the sun — and not to conflate regional liquor lovers — that's Rip Van Winkle time, and then some!

D'Still Liquors
Surviving hand-drawn signage outside Lieutenant Spirits Wine & Liquor
7020 New Utrecht Ave. (at 71st St.), Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
718-232-8858

Tamales Doña Lidia

"Rajas," literally translated from Spanish to English, mean "slices" or "strips." But as surely as a deli man's cold cuts will be cuts of meat, a tamalera's rajas will be chile peppers, trimmed long and thin. In Mexico, often the pepper is a poblano; in my rajas con queso tamal, a flash of green revealed jalapeño.

Tamales Doña Lidia
Under a canopy (and beside the cart of La Esquina del Sabor, which shares its phone number), 18th Ave. at 85th St., Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
347-241-7216
Daily, except Monday, midafternoon through late night

Tarim Gourmet Food Market

Savory breakfast pastry: This "pumpkin" samsa, probably filled with butternut squash or the like and tempered with onion, was one of four hand pies heralding a Central Asian steam table (which I could not stay to see). In the second photo, which shows pastries filled with pumpkin, potato, and lamb, note the different shapes that help the kitchen to distinguish one batch from another.

H/T agog.wanderer, who reported (in a post I can no longer find) that this is the "very first #Uyghur run gourmet store in the US." The market shares its name with the Tarim Basin, which occupies the southern half of China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Tarim Gourmet Food Market
1610 Kings Hwy. (East 16th-East 17th Sts.), Homecrest, Brooklyn
347-462-1270
www.Instagram.com/Tarim_Gourmet_Food_Market_

Kenkey Hut

My lunchtime appetizer to go — after convincing the Ghanaian counterwoman I wasn't concerned that "they have their heads on." Not much trouble, and, despite appearances, not all that spicy.

Kenkey Hut
2427 Webster Ave. (East 187th-East 188th Sts.), Fordham Heights, Bronx
917-569-5458

Back off!

This very New York example of social-distancing signage appears in a Brooklyn pizzeria's service window. The photo is one of seventeen (numbers 032-048) now included in New York University's Food and Covid-19 NYC archive.

Back off!
Di Fara Pizza
1424 Ave. J. (at East 15th St.), Midwood, Brooklyn
718-258-1367
www.DiFaraPizzaNY.com

Puebla Sea Food

In Mexico, "atole" is a more common spelling for a hot sweetened drink with a cornmeal base, such as atole de chocolate, better known as champurrado. This restaurant pays homage to Mesoamerican roots with the Nahuatl spelling "atolli" — and to its home away from home with "I [heart] the Big Apple" to-go cups.

Puebla Sea Food
9527 Roosevelt Ave. (95th-Warren Sts.), Jackson Heights, Queens
718-672-3556
www.Facebook.com /Puebla-Sea-Food-134379806632340

Grin

Even discounting numerous bones (in numerous shapes, not all of them familiar), this Ivorian lamb head soup offered a lot of meat, plus a generous helping of tripe. Like many a West African soup, this was very nearly a stew. Factor in the plate of rice, and it was an entree for two, easily.

Does anyone have a local lead on lamb head posole?

Grin
454 East 168th St. (Washington-Park Aves.), Morrisania, Bronx
718-292-8764
www.Facebook.com/RestaurantGrin