Eating In Translation

TK Louisiana Seafood

This Vietnamese-American-owned market and restaurant boils, steams, and fries seafood to order and provides the fixings for do-it-yourselfers. Gumbo, seafood po-boys, hush puppies, and even boiled pig's feet are also on the menu.

So is boudin (boo-Dan). Though I've put the squeeze on many links during visits to New Orleans, I've never ventured into Cajun country, and the estimable product made by Comeaux's had never passed my lips till now. This boudin featured fresh pork and pork liver cooked with onion, celery, bell pepper, and seasonings, then ground, combined with cooked rice and sufficient broth to create a tantalizingly supple mixture, and stuffed into a pork-sausage casing. TK's will boil up a boudin to order ($2.99) — grab yourself plenty of napkins — or sell frozen four-packs with a variety of fillings, crawfish and alligator among them. Look for them in the freezer case, next to the leaf-wrapped rolls of Vietnamese cold cuts.

TK Louisiana Seafood (previously Ta Bien Louisiana Seafood)
6730 Waters Ave. (opposite Leafmore Dr.), Savannah, Georgia
912-352-9747

Viet Huong

The front counter of this snacker's paradise features baked goods from Dong Phuong of New Orleans; the shelves are crowded with with packaged savories and sweets imported from countries throughout East and Southeast Asia or shipped from their California stand-ins. Shown: Thai tamarind balls, Vietnamese "sesame soft candy" (thickened with tapioca starch and hardly sweet at all), and Filipino cashews with garlic (about $4.50 total). I scarcely had time to explore the sizable refrigerated and frozen sections for meat and fish. Produce and herbs are surely more plentiful later in the year; fresh shipments reportedly arrive on Fridays.

Also shown: a stealthily presented table of nutrition facts. Against a backdrop of sesame seeds, it's about as easy to make out as a flounder on the sea floor.

Viet Huong
7044 Hodgson Memorial Dr., Savannah, Georgia
912-335-7849
www.Facebook.com/VietHuongSav

Bacon Park

Though much more enticing than another name for the neighborhood, Sandfly, Bacon Park seems to have been named for Augustus Octavius Bacon, a four-term U.S. senator from Georgia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Any association on my part with sizzling breakfast meat was the product of a long walk on short rations.

Bacon Park
Savannah, Georgia

Clary's Cafe

In many quarters, a dish of biscuits and gravy offers those two in more or less equal measure. For "The Victorian," the emphasis is on a thick country sausage gravy that swamps two buttermilk biscuits. Served, as a matter of course, with a oversized spoon.

Clary's Cafe
404 Abercorn St. (at East Jones St.), Savannah, Georgia
912-233-0402
www.ClarysCafe.com
Breakfast and lunch only

Callery pear blossoms

The tiny, hard fruits of the callery pear tree are more fit for birds than men. Native to East Asia, the tree was first imported to the United States in the early 20th century and widely planted as a rootstock for common pear. Since midcentury, however, the callery pear has been best known as an ornamental tree, particularly for its clusters of white blossoms that herald the arrival of spring.

Callery pear blossoms
Forsyth Park Arboretum, Savannah, Georgia

Peking House

Shown purely for its amusing assertion of "New York style."

Peking House
1216 Abercorn St. (East Henry St.-East Duffy Ln.), Savannah, Georgia
912-238-8328