Eating In Translation

The Snack Bar

Many eateries in East Cambridge wear Portuguese colors; this one also brandished the golden goshawk of a North Atlantic archipelago.

Bom Cafe

"Rocambole," in Brazil, denotes a sponge-cake roulade more widely known as a Swiss roll. One traditional filling is guava paste. In temperate New England, another local fruit is more readily available, hence this Brazilian-Bostonian "cranbole" ($3.50).

Bom Cafe
1093 Cambridge St. (at Elm St.), Cambridge, Massachusetts
617-864-0395
www.BomCafe.biz
(From a September 2011 visit)

Brown Food Market

India brand grape soda (12 fl. oz., $1), from Puerto Rico.

Brown Food Market
559 Dudley St. (West Cottage St.-Brook Ave.), Boston
617-445-0070
(From a September 2011 visit)

Kam Man Marketplace

If I'd been shopping for produce and not a backpack snack, Kam Man would have been just the place to pick up wing beans, or murcuots, or generous plump sapotas. As it were: K Fat brand "sweet and sour sesame peanut candy" (12 oz., about $2), from Vietnam, lists soursop as its first ingredient. Without the label, you might not identify the fruit, but you'd have lots of time to chew it over the possibilities; they're very firm.

Kam Man Marketplace
219 Quincy Ave., Quincy, Massachusetts
617-328-1533
(From a September 2011 visit)

Jo Jo Taipei

These crispy pig intestines ($7.59) seem to encircle scallions.

Mu Lan Taiwanese Restaurant

Chinese squash with mountain nagaimo and bamboo ($10.95); fish filet with chili pepper and soft tofu ($13.95).

Mu Lan Taiwanese Restaurant
228 Broadway (Moore-Clark Sts.), Cambridge, Massachusetts
617-441-8812
www.MuLan.4t.com
Closed Monday
(From a summer 2009 visit)

Gamsun Restaurant

Gamsun ("Gold Mountain") operated at 21 Hudson St. during the 1940s and '50s, according to Chinese in Boston, 1870-1965, before being sold to make way for what is now New Shanghai Restaurant.

Gamsun Restaurant
Surviving painted sign on Kneeland St. at Hudson St., Boston
(From a September 2011 visit)

Vietnamese-American mural

This sort of open-air market and street-food scene (click for a closer look) is still found back in the old country, but, sadly, it's absent from Boston.

Vietnamese-American mural
Adams St. just north of Dorchester Ave., Boston
(From an August 2009 visit)

The South Vietnamese flag

On first sight, it's not one I recognized. When I visited Vietnam in 2006, it was understandably absent from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, which, almost without exception, was still called Saigon by the locals. But it's still widely flown above the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester, home to the city's densest concentration of Vietnamese-Americans.

The South Vietnamese flag
Flying above Pho So 1 Boston, 223 Adams St. (at Dorchester Ave.), Boston
(From an August 2009 visit)

Anh Hong

Bun mang vit ($7), rice noodle soup with bamboo shoots and duck leg. Generous fixings on the side; generous duck, too.

Anh Hong
291 Adams St. (at Park St.), Boston
617-265-8889
(From an August 2009 visit)