Eating In Translation

Queens Village Community Fridge

Hand-painted artwork (Brandi Jones, Black Village Arts, 2020)
Outside God's Gospel Cafe
19011 Hollis Ave. (99th Ave.-191st St.), Hollis, Queens
718-413-7177
www.GGCafe.org
www.Instagram.com/QVCommunityFridge

Elyon Restaurant

At a Haitian restaurant, an order of "legim" (in Haitian Creole) or "légumes" (in French), is not simply a request for mixed "vegetables." It's understood that these will have been braised with meat, removed and mashed, then remarried. Elyon's eggplant-heavy medley was well-stocked with chunks of beef.

Alongside: mayi moulen and sòs pwa nwa, thick cornmeal porridge and black bean sauce. The latter, a runny condiment for the corn, hid a chile pepper, perhaps a Scotch bonnet, beneath the surface. It should also be understood that the sauce becomes spicier if the pepper, too, is mashed.

From beneath my tray: a lovely hand-painted placemat. No two the same.

Elyon Restaurant
21221 Jamaica Ave. (212th St.-212th Pl.), Queens Village, Queens
929-206-5060

Fazee's Delight

William Bligh sailed halfway around the world to transport breadfruit plants to the West Indies. (Twice, in fact; his first voyage went poorly.) With much less notoriety, breadnut — the wild seeded ancestor of breadfruit — has also been resettled in tropical lands around the world, under many names. It's called katahar in Guyana, the previous home of Fazee herself; I paired her curried mash with an oil roti. Utensils were neither offered nor needed.

Fazee's Delight
21521 Jamaica Ave. (at 215th Pl.), Queens Village, Queens
718-413-5266

Roti Paradise

Already two lunches to the good, I passed up an attractive steam table — I'll return for the mixed-offal curry called pachownie — but spotted a curious dessert. Vermicelli cake, like Indian payasam and similar sweets in Pakistan and Trinidad, is prepared with noodles that have been simmered in milk and sugar, and flavored with spices or extracts. This Guyanese confection, however, is cooked down to a thicker consistency, then cooled until firm enough to cut, and to carry away on an afternoon walk. Some versions incorporate raisins or currants; mine took on a pinkish cast from maraschino cherries.

Roti Paradise
21151 Jamaica Ave. (Hollis Ct. Blvd.-212th St.), Queens Village, Queens
718-776-1112
www.Facebook.com/Roti-Paradise-Restaurant-986106931598425

Caribbean Delights

The unusual crust caught my eye. Fashioned from a stiff dough that binds grated cassava to grated coconut, and baked, cassava pone has a moist, dense, starchy body and, typically, a smooth, lightly browned, humdrum topside. This rugged Guyanese version ($2) offered a little textural adventure as well as a livelier-than-usual dose of black spices, pepper among them.

Caribbean Delights
215-21 Jamaica Ave. (at 215th Pl.), Queens Village, Queens
347-894-8521
www.CaribbeanDelightsQV.com

Portuguese American Deli

Things that say "Portugal": sun-faded stripes, in national green and red, to the left of the entrance. A short stack of Portuguese-language newspapers, on the ledge inside the window, side-by-side with the New York tabloids. Jars of honey and bottle of olive oil imported from the old country, and lupini beans packaged in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a magnet for Portuguese immigrants since the whaling days of the 19th century. And presunto, a dry-cured ham, which like all the sandwich meats can be served on a hero — but why would you pass up a Portuguese roll ($4.50)?

Portuguese American Deli
220-17 Jamaica Ave. (220th-221st Sts.), Queens Village, Queens
718-464-8321
www.AllMenus.com/ny/queens-village/364199-portuguese-american-deli/menu

Russell Stover and Loft's

Two confectioners are advertised on this old second-floor signage. One you'll probably recognize immediately: Russell Stover, founded in 1921, still makes candy under its own name and also produces Whitman's samplers as well as the Texas-born Pangburn's Millionaires. The company's namesake was a pioneer of frozen confections, too; in the early 1920s he rebranded a chocolate-covered ice cream treat as the Eskimo Pie.

Loft's, despite a candy-making history that began in Civil War-era New York, is less well-known today. At the company's centennial, its Long Island City factory supplied several hundred Loft's stores in the five boroughs, New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and beyond. Candy lovers still salivate at the thought of Loft's butter crunch and its Parlays, advertised in 1961 as "heavenly honey nougat dipped with creamy caramel, rolled in crisp chopped pecans, covered with Loft's rich milk chocolate."

For reasons much more difficult to research online, Loft's fortunes fell over the next three decades. The candy maker ceased operations in 1990, several years after this convenience store's current, Guyanese proprietor went into business.

Russell Stover and Loft's
Surviving signage at the Gemini Card Store (also known as Subha Cards)
217-03 Jamaica Ave. (217th-218th Sts.), Queens Village, Queens
718-465-6500

Wonderful Chinese Restaurant

(This venue is closed.) A-little-learning-is-an-embarrassing-thing department: If you'd been standing by my side when I spotted the legend "sub & Chinese food eat-in and take out," I would have told you about "subgum." The word is a romanization of characters that, in Cantonese, mean "assorted," or "mixed," or "numerous and varied." Like another famous item on American Chinese menus, chop suey, subgum dishes often combine multiple meats and vegetables with rice or noodles.

Apparently not at Wonderful Chinese, however. On crossing the street and examining the menu in the window, I found no subgum dishes (at least under that name) but did note an entire category titled "submarine fleet." The menu is more Americanized than I'd imagined: In addition to Chinese food, served at a lunch buffet and a la carte, the restaurant makes sandwiches, too.

Wonderful Chinese Restaurant
215-47 Jamaica Ave. (at 216th Sts.), Queens Village, Queens
718-217-1189

Deli for Big Belly

Shown purely for the name. See also this departed deli, which used contrary wording to similar effect.

Deli for Big Belly
212-15 Jamaica Ave. (212th-213th Sts.), Queens Village, Queens
718-465-2008

Abu Bakery

(This venue is closed.) Vanilla-flavored AK 100 ($1.25). Even with this spelling, the creamy cornmeal drink is pronounced "acassan" in Haitian Creole; Mrs. French's is the best-known commercial brand. The refrigerator cases of several neighborhood shops displayed seemingly identical bottles bearing their own private labels, but if there's a common source, I haven't tracked it down.

Abu Bakery
210-23 Jamaica Ave. (210th-211th Sts.), Queens Village, Queens
718-464-8300