Eating In Translation

Pão da Vida Bakery

Homesick-student hunger pains, or so the story goes, were the inspiration for the Bauru sandwich, which takes its name from a city in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. Though the original recipe calls for roast beef, a common variation (and the only style I've found in Newark) features ham as well as mozzarella, tomato, and oregano. This bakery-restaurant does offer a Bauru on the typical sliced French loaf, but the option of pão de queijo, or cheesebread (shown, $4.25) serves better as the salty centerpiece of a savory and sweet breakfast.

Also shown, a trio of cakes ($2.50-$3 each) in approximate order of increasing sweetness: bolo mandioca, made from cassava; bolo sabor vida queijo, which weds corn and cheese; and bolo gelado, a coconut-covered "chilled" cake that may remind you of a less-runny tres leches.

Pão da Vida Bakery
331 Oliver St. (Pulaski St.-Elm Rd.), Newark, New Jersey
973-810-3595
www.Facebook.com/pages/Padaria-Pao-Da-Vida/336634883145930

Caseiro e Bom

Compliments of the butcher: Ruffles sabor a presunto, Portuguese-made potato chips with dry-cured-ham flavor, which faintly echo his most celebrated stock in trade. We sampled that, too.

Caseiro e Bom
70 Pacific St. (Nichols-East Kinney Sts.), Newark, New Jersey
973-900-5385
www.CaseiroGourmetHouse.com

Brazilian Pizza

What can be a crazy quilt of curious toppings, and not the crust, distinguishes Brazilian pizzas from their New York counterparts. One of this pizzeria's 40-some named varieties, the Baiana — named for a state of northeast Brazil — was to our surpise rather modestly colored, primarily because the green olives, hardboiled eggs, and linguiça Calabresa were largely shrouded by mozzarella. In retrospect, our addition of catupiry, creamy cheese that was squiggled over half of the pie, might have been an overreach even by exuberant Baiano standards. Large pie ($19, plus $2 for the extra cheese).

Brazilian Pizza
97 Wilson Ave. (Hensler-Darcy Sts.), Newark, New Jersey
973-817-9400
www.BrazilianPizza.com

Shaved-ice cart

"Whatever you call it, I've got it" is the message implicit in this vendor's handwritten sign. As you might gather from the decal at lower right, he's from Colombia, where "raspado" is one common name for his icy confection. Raised among Puerto Ricans, he also knows it well as a "piragua"; when catering to the local Dominican community, he readily identifies his stock in trade as "frio frio".

All of his confections are built on the same granular bed of shaved ice; variations are minor. For example, the "diablito" — note the devil-horns D — is laced with a chile-spiked sauce. My "minuta" could also have taken the enchilado treatment, but the default (shown, $2) is simple: ice, tamarind, lemon.

Shaved-ice cart
Van Buren St. near the southeast corner with Ferry St., Newark, New Jersey

Las Americas Food Center

In and around New York, the most widely available style of the beverage horchata (or-Chot-ah) is made from rice, scented with cinnamon, and sweetened with sugar. But horchata isn't uniquely Mexican, and it needn't be rice-based; a recently vogueish Old World variety employs tiger nuts.

Still another variety relies on trees in the genus Crescentia, whose common names include morro, Mexican calabash (no relation to the gourd), and jícaro (Hee-cah-row). The fruit, jícara, when ripe has a thin hard shell that often is transformed into a decorative bowl or drinking vessel. The pulp is reportedly unpalatable, except to horses and cattle, but the seeds, when dried and ground, are the namesake of Gran Nevada brand horchata de morro (11 fl. oz., $1). Perhaps because this commercial product, like many homemade horchatas, incorporates cocoa and cinnamon as secondary ingredients, my overall impression was of a thinner Nesquik. For a sweltering day, it's an easygoing choice.

Las Americas Food Center
43 Fleming Ave. (at Lexington St.), Newark, New Jersey
973-589-7661

Cucuzzella's Bakery

My crumb cake ($2) was not one of the squares already cut free; given a choice, I always ask for an edge, if not a corner. Also shown: an apple turnover, courtesy of the counterman. Although summer weekends are slow, he noted, Monday through Friday remain big days for bread. Not in the morning — in late afternoon and evening, when fresh-from-the-oven Italian loaves welcome customers headed home for dinner.

Cucuzzella's Bakery
196 Jefferson St. (Warwick St.-New York Ave.), Newark, New Jersey
973-589-1646
www.Facebook.com/CucuzzellasBakery

No Pão

On wheels (from a truck) and on bread ("no pão"), flavors of Portugal: pork cutlet with smoked pork loin ($7); blood sausage pressed with tomatoes, cheese, and sauteed onions ($9). Both take well to the chef's aioli, but a dash of his housemade hot sauce is the clincher.

No Pão
Various locations in Jersey City and Hoboken, New Jersey
201-803-5209
www.Facebook.com/MyNoPao
On this afternoon, at the Rotary Club of Jersey City Food Truck Festival
Grundy Pier, at the foot of Montgomery St. near Exchange Place, Jersey City
www.JerseyCityRotary.org /Stories/ftf2016
(The 2016 festival was held on August 6)

Bobby's Restaurant

Two contrary maxims whispered in my ear as I surveyed the countertop display of desserts. Look for the latest arrivals, said the first, but under their glass domes four other cakes — pound, yellow chocolate, German chocolate, an as-yet-unsliced coconut — seemed equally fresh. Well then, said the second, why not follow the lead of the locals? Here's where they'd left their marks: lemon cake (slice, $3.75).

Bobby's Restaurant (a.k.a. Bobby's Authentic Southern Cuisine)
272 Lyons Ave. (Aldine St.-Clinton Pl.), Newark, New Jersey
973-923-2425
www.BobbysFamousSoulFood.com
Closed Monday

Ziana Bu African Restaurant

Plate meals would be ready later. When I stopped by Ziana Bu in late morning, the restaurant was doing brisk business in koko and togbei, the Ghanaian equivalent of a coffee-and-donuts breakfast, but less sugary and more substantial. (And, in my case, on the house.) Togbei (toe-Bay) — the Ga name for what are better known by the Ashanti name bofrot (Beau-fruit) in other parts of Ghana — resemble Italian zeppole and Nigerian puff-puffs, though these were hardly puffy. In the first photo, four togbei are stacked like cannonballs; their crisp, oily shells were still too hot to handle.

Meantime, I sipped a little koko, which contains no coffee nor, for that matter, cocoa. This smoothly blended millet porridge does contain a kick, however, most notably from ginger but also from a touch of dried chile. Those flavors aren't particularly intense; even so, you might prefer to temper them with something comparatively sweet. The dense togbei, once they've cooled to the touch, are the perfect foil.

Ziana Bu African Restaurant
1006 Bergen St. (Shephard-Mapes Aves.), Newark, New Jersey
973-688-8761
Closed Monday

Yesi Supermarket

Above this deli-grocery's awning, the green fascia that wraps around the corner is a so-called privilege sign. Especially during the decades following World War II, big businesses supplied many mom-and-pop stores with signs like this. In exchange for "instant brand recognition," the businesses "enjoyed the privilege of weaving their marketing campaigns right into building facades."

Nowadays, when a storefront changes hands, old privilege signs occasionally resurface during renovations. Others have survived in plain sight since the day they were installed, which seems to be the case at this market in Newark's isolated South Ward. Inside you can still find candy and sodas, probably cigars, and several brands of ice cream (though I didn't look for Breyer's). But for stationery, let alone fountain service, you'll need to look elsewhere.

See also this heavily carbonated slideshow of privilege signs I've happened upon over the years.

Yesi Supermarket
325 Osborne Terr. (at Shephard Ave.), Newark, New Jersey
862-237-7432