Eating In Translation

Son D'licias

This former ice cream truck now serves Colombian snacks; note the national colors below the service window and the flag, one of two, at the windshield. Among those snacks is a mashed-yuca fritter filled with rice and beef. While the menu labels it a pastel de yuca, Esneider Arevalo, who leads food tours in Queens for Culinary Backstreets, calls it a carimañola. I'd always thought that was a Panamanian name — but Colombia and Panama are neighbors, no?

Son D'licias
Truck parked on 82nd St. near the northwest corner with Roosevelt Ave., Jackson Heights, Queens
929-366-3738
www.Instagram.com/SonDelicias82St

Prince Kabab & Chinese Restaurant

At our sheltered table outside this Bangladeshi-Chinese restaurant, bitter melon was the most glamorous dish; a lamb shank, the most uncompromising; goat biryani and spinach, the most indifferently plated. The potatoes were very good; indeed, they were my favorite.

Prince Kabab & Chinese Restaurant
3756 74th St. (37th Rd.-37th Ave.), Jackson Heights, Queens
718-406-9206
www.Facebook.com/pages/Prince%20Kabab%20&%20Chinese%20Restaurant/795409224161599

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

Empanadas Mix

A Venezuelan hot dog — with onion, cabbage, carrot, corn, potato, pecorino, pink sauce, ketchup, and mayo — at a sidewalk table. Actual hot dog not shown.

Empanadas Mix
8103 Northern Blvd. (81st-82nd Sts.), Jackson Heights, Queens
347-935-3777
www.Instagram.com/EmpanadasMixNY

Angel Indian Restaurant

Angel has expanded its all-vegetarian menu to include meat — but at our outdoor table, we never gave a thought to passing up the kale pakoda (shown above and in the first photo that follows).

Kabu Lounge

Spanish-to-Spanish translation notwithstanding, the salteñas of Bolivia are not the empanadas of Argentina, or Colombia, or Ecuador, or anywhere else. Almost always the filling takes longer to prepare, and invariably it requires some caution to consume. In my salteña de carne, this jigote (he-Go-tay), as it's called, resembled a wet beef stew. The consistency was typical, and, for me, so was the spill; I hope my aim is always this good.

Kabu Lounge
8509 Northern Blvd. (85th-86th Sts.), Jackson Heights, Queens
718-429-0321
www.Facebook.com/Kabu.BarLounge

Cannelle Patisserie

It doesn't look like much, but surely this is the city's best strip-mall French bakery.

La Tamaleria Colombiana

Earlier the same day in Jackson Heights, Queens, this delivery cart had flitted past me twice, like a butterfly, before settling down briefly, long enough for a photo.

La Tamaleria Colombiana
929-293-4652
www.LaTamaleriaColombianausa.com

Tamales Jarochos

(This venue is closed.) The proprietors of this recently opened tamales kiosk — "Jarocho" means "from Veracruz," a large port city in the Mexican state of that name — fashion a half-dozen or so varieties overall. Rarest, in New York, are the two tamales Veracruzanos, with chicken (shown) or with pork, wrapped in and scented by banana leaf, and more substantial than their corn-husk-wrapped cousins. Also shown: atol de nuez, sporting bits of crunchy walnut.

Tamales Jarochos
8814 Roosevelt Ave. (Britton-Elmhurst Aves.), Jackson Heights, Queens
Daily, 8am-2pm

Spicy Fatty Burger

I can't pin down the seasoning for the namesake Bangladeshi burger, but both "spicy" and "fatty" were fair enough. And I don't have so much as a worthy photo of the fries, only of their lingering masala.

Spicy Fatty Burger
Truck on 37th Ave. near the northeast corner with 74th St., Jackson Heights, Queens
646-420-2237
www.SpicyFattyBurger.com