Eating In Translation

Flower Brook Mifen House

Flower Brook features mifen, thin rice noodles served umpteen ways after the fashion of Guizhou, in southwestern China. But on a brisk day I had a taste for northern-style wheat-based "fried sauce noodles," the menu's literal translation of zhajiangmian. Not the specialty of the house, yet nicely kitted out.

Note also the condiments. One, vermilion and oily, seemed to be Guizhou's classic Lao Gan Ma "spicy chili crisp"; the other, pale and dry, suggested a potpourri that was leading a double life. It's a mystery to me.

Flower Brook Mifen House (aka Huaxi Wang)
41-42A Main St. (41st Rd.-Sanford Ave., a stall in the hallway of Friendship Shopping Plaza), Flushing, Queens
631-530-8888
Also, as its own storefront, at 4435 Kissena Ave. (at Elder Ave.)
516-345-4145
www.Facebook.com/FlowerBrookMifen

200 Gram Noodles

Street vendors in Chongqing, said my server, often serve noodles "200 grams" at a time. Customers call out this order from their seats, he added, pointing to a photo that depicted precarious plastic stools (I remember them well from Vietnam). At this recently arrived Flushing restaurant, "local flavor noodles" evoke the chef's previous home; sturdy tables and chairs are a welcome modification. Also shown: an amuse-bouche of duck foot and necks; condiments; brown sugar jelly.

200 Gram Noodles
36-26 Union St. (37th Ave.-Northern Blvd.), Flushing, Queens
347-732-4419
https://200-Gram-Noodles.business.site

Max and Mina's Ice Cream

A little salty peanut butter ice cream is delicious. More can seem too much; I split my small serving with a palate-freshening cardamom pistachio, held in reserve at the bottom of the cup. More recently: peanut butter pie partnered with blackberry and eggnog, procured by Ethnojunkie.

Max and Mina's (Minn-ahs) Ice Cream
71-26 Main St. (71st Rd.-72nd Ave.), Kew Gardens Hills, Queens
718-793-8629
www.Facebook.com /MaxAndMinas
Open most afternoons and early evenings; closed from late afternoon Friday until Saturday after sunset

You Garden Xiao Long Bao

"Too many desirable dishes, too few hungry tablemates" might be one interpretation of our yin-yang soup: Shanghai chives and chicken chowder. More traditionally, the symbol depicts seeming opposites that — in the second photo, swirled together and much depleted — are in fact interconnected and complementary. Even so, we overordered. See more on Facebook.

You Garden Xiao Long Bao
4107 Bell Blvd. (41st-42nd Aves.), Bayside, Queens
718-229-3388
www.YouGardenXiaoLongBao.com

Legend Chicken

Cayenne does build on you. After a dozen or so skewers of Taiwanese fried chicken — for this serving, white-meat "Legend pops" — medium spicy seems plenty spicy.

Legend Chicken
135-15 40 Rd. (Main-Prince Sts., stall 2), Flushing, Queens
516-388-6888
www.LegendChicken88.com

OK Canaan

This casserole of eggplant and vermicelli might never look lovely, but it shimmers with the appeal of spicy, seafood-charged XO sauce. As for the use, on a Taiwanese restaurant menu, of the Italian word "vermicelli" when reaching out to English speakers, nowadays this is de rigueur.

Other tempting dishes: string beans and bean curd; salt-and-pepper chicken; smoked duck.

OK Canaan
4318 Main St. (Cherry-Dahlia Aves.), Flushing, Queens
718-886-8844
www.Facebook.com/OKCanaanTW

Joe's Steam Rice Roll

On a recent visit, for cheong fun with shrimp and egg and with roast pork, we marveled anew at the silkiness of the scratchmade noodles. Even a plain (that is, unfilled) rice roll could be a good first course in a Flushing food crawl.

H/T (from some time ago) Joe DiStefano, Chopsticks and Marrow

Joe's Steam Rice Roll
136-21 Roosevelt Ave. (Main-Union Sts., inside a mini-mall), Flushing, Queens
646-203-7380
Also inside the Canal Street Market, 265 Canal St. (Broadway-Lafayette St.), Manhattan
347-379-6961
www.Facebook.com/JoeSteamRiceRoll

Szechuan House

The fetchingly named tián shāo bái (甜烧白), "sweet burnt white," was also dispassionately described on the tabletop specials menu as "steamed pork with glutinous rice and red bean paste." Judging by online recipes, the platform of rice was probably prepared with brown sugar; the bean paste was sandwiched between thin slices of pork belly. The crown of granulated sugar is an option that seems to be as often omitted as observed — but for diners unfamiliar with this traditional Sichuan dish (like me), it certainly sent a signal. Pork belly for dessert, anyone?

Previous lessons from a Sichuan lunch: Cumin, beguiling as a complement to lamb with chile pepper, was even more enticing when liberally applied to crisp-skinned, tender cubes of fried tofu. We scarfed up the leavings with torn shreds of lettuce.

Szechuan House
133-47 Roosevelt Ave. (College Point Blvd.-Prince St.), Flushing, Queens
718-762-2664

Northern Wangmandoo Dumpling

The name "mandoo" (or "mandu") might bring to mind the image of thin-skinned Korean dumplings that are boiled, steamed, or pan-fried. A "wang" ("king"-sized) mandoo, by contrast, generally resembles a bun; here the English language signage calls it just that. Shown: kimchi with pork.

For the evocation of eating "inside a small dumpling factory to get an intimate look at the process while you wait," H/T Wander Sauce, whose very name suggests napkins at the ready.

Northern Wangmandoo Dumpling (aka Northern King Dumpling — Wang Mandu)
14944 Northern Blvd. (149th Pl.-150th St.), Murray Hill, Queens
718-461-8878

Yummy Tummy Asian Bistro

In the Hokkien dialects of southeastern China that are also widely spoken in Singapore, cai tow kueh (chai tau kway) can be translated to English as "carrot cake." As you might guess from the color, however, this Singaporean carrot cake contains no carrot. The menu describes the featured ingredient simply as "radish," but the more precise name is "daikon." The mild-flavored root is shredded, mixed with rice flour, steamed, and sliced into chunks, then stir-fried with egg and, in this instance, a mildly spicy sauce. Yummy Tummy prepares a version with sweet soya sauce, too; next time, I'd kick up the heat and ask for a bespoke stir-fry that's both sweet and spicy.

Yummy Tummy Asian Bistro
161-16 Northern Blvd. (near 162nd St.), Murray Hill, Queens
718-888-0220
www.Facebook.com/YummyTummy-Asian-Bistro-539131056529830