Eating In Translation

El Olomega

This combo platter, crowded with fried pork, fried cassava, sweet plantain, salty cheese, and tart cabbage, sat atop a casamiento of rice and beans. Out of sight: a sweet corn tamal and a pupusa, much like the ones shown below. Even a spectator at the adjoining Red Hook Ball Fields might walk away with leftovers; if you're suited up for a game, consider ordering à la carte.

Also shown below: the Lainez family's truck, one of three in attendance on a recent weekend afternoon, and their stand from an afternoon long ago, when the ballfields were ringed by a dozen or more carts and canopied food stands. The atmosphere has changed, but the Salvadoran chow is just as good.

El Olomega (previously doing business as the Lainez stand)
Truck parked outside the ballfields near Clinton and Bay Sts., Red Hook, Brooklyn
www.Instagram.com/ElOlomega
Saturday and Sunday, May through October, give or take

Chalupas Poblanas El Tlecuile

"Crispy" is a word that affixes itself to many descriptions of chalupas, especially commercial enterprises that furnish them with lettuce, tomato, and string cheese. The chalupas in this batch, shallow-fried in lard and topped with onion and shredded beef, were supple; the texture reminded me of pancakes. A better label for my half-order, sauced red and green in equal measure, would be "short stack."

Also shown: a cup of café de olla, ladled from the traditional earthenware pot (on the house). The pot and the cooktop each rest on a tlecuile, the Nahuatl word for the Spanish fogón — generally, a wood-fired hearth or stove of some sort. These tlecuiles are charcoal-fueled and, when need be, hand-fanned.

H/T Matt Shapiro

Chalupas Poblanas El Tlecuile
By the roadside at 3747 Junction Blvd. (Roosevelt-37th Aves.), Corona, Queens
718-424-3662
www.Facebook.com/Chalupas-Poblanas-El-Tlecuile-114216710342440
Friday through Sunday, 6:00-11:00, except during heavy wind or rain

Veggie Stop

A taamia burger, featuring a patty of the namesake Egyptian falafel (taameya is a more typical spelling) plus arugula, beet, onion, tahini, and tomato. My one quibble — warm that bun!

Veggie Stop
Truck parked on 31st St. to the west of Ditmars Blvd., Astoria, Queens
www.Facebook.com/VeggieStopOfficial

Kwik Meal

Plus ça change: the Kwik Meal cart as seen one evening, years back, and a vegetable lover's meal from a recent visit, several presidential administrations later.

Kwik Meal
Cart stationed on West 45th St. near the southwest corner with Sixth Ave., Manhattan
917-412-4694
www.Facebook.com/KwikMealNYC

Ghanaian snack vendor

Buttery pastry, tempered only by a thin seam of not-too-oily, not-too-spicy tunafish, enrobes this hand pie.

Ghanaian snack vendor
Outside the Bronx Islamic Cultural Center (Masjid Annasr), 50 East Tremont Ave. (at Walton Ave.), Mount Hope, Bronx
Late-week afternoons might be the best time to find her

Morning coffee and donut cart

A sugar donut — nothing special, just the right one-dollar donut at the right time.

Morning coffee and donut cart
East 124th St. near the northwest corner with Park Ave., Manhattan
Possibly weekdays only

Quesadillas Lola

This quesadilla de calabacitas, or "little squash," shows off the cocinera's light touch with the fillings and with the folded tortilla.

Quesadillas Lola
Stall in Corona Plaza, on National St. south of Roosevelt Ave., Corona, Queens
929-424-9546
Daily, from noon

Haitian sweets table

The lady who prepared this tablet noix, Haitian cashew brittle, says she is on hand "every day" (by afternoon and only in clement weather, I imagine). Her tiny sidewalk table also affords room, just barely, for similar confections featuring peanut and coconut.

Haitian sweets table
South side of Church Ave. near East 19th St., Prospect Park South, Brooklyn

"Blue canopy" Mexican stand

Who was I kidding, asking for lettuce? My quesadilla de chicharrón was overloaded with what I really wanted: supple squares of fried pork skin.

"Blue canopy" Mexican stand
East side of Third Ave. between 117th and 118th Sts., Manhattan

Chinese street vendor

Sandwich cookies from a street vendor's stand — the most enticing stand, this afternoon, of the many that come and go in the busiest blocks of Sunset Park's Chinatown — on the eve of Chinese New Year. The filling might be mashed and lightly sugared taro (don't hold me to it), but these cookies owe their sparing sweetness to the biscuits that brace them.

Chinese street vendor
Stand on the east side of Eighth Ave. between 58th and 59th Sts., Sunset Park, Brooklyn