Eating In Translation

Newa Chhe: Kathmandu Valley High

Yes, the meaty dishes at Newa Chhe (Knee-wah Chay) are very tempting. But we've also enjoyed many meat-free menu items at this Nepalese restaurant, "such as quati, billed as a nine-bean soup (we didn’t stop to count), and the fat lentil pancake called a bara. Ours was bulls-eyed with an egg. And it was here, on a thali — a platter that contains small tastes of many different dishes — that we had our first delicious encounter with deep-fried bitter gourd." Read more on Culinary Backstreets.

Kasbah Café: Algerian Rhapsody

Through confections like makroud and savory plats du jour like chekhchoukha (don't confuse it with shakshouka!), Amina and Halim Fekraoui offer a taste of Algerian cooking at Kasbah Café, in Sunnyside, Queens. Read more on Culinary Backstreets.

In the Pocket: An Empanada Tour of Queens

In the Spanish-speaking neighborhoods of Queens, empanadas are everywhere. Here are a handful that we've enjoyed, indoors and out, while snacking our way through Queens for Culinary Backstreets.

Nita's European Bakery

Which slice for you? This charming hand-drawn menu of cozonaci (co-zo-Nah-chee), a family of sweet Romanian breads, depicts cross-sections of nuca, stafide, mac, rahat, simplu, and ciocolata — walnut, raisin, poppy, Turkish delight, plain, and chocolate.

Of course, bakers and customers just can't cut into the loaves willy-nilly to see which is which. The intact cozonaci indicate their fillings, too, by the shape of the loaf and by decoration; a few are shown in the following photo. One wears a single walnut, another exposes a vein of poppy seeds.

Rincón Melania

Sango is an Ecuadorian stew of pureed green plantain imbued with peanut. Rincón Melania's sango de atún (with tuna), which I've never seen, on the surface might look just like this sango de camarones; it was only after a spoonful or two that I encountered the first of eight fat shrimp. Accompaniments: avocado, rice, hot sauce, lime, and, first to the table, toasted corn.

Rincón Melania
3519 Queens Blvd. (at 36th St.), Long Island City, Queens
718-361-1905
www.RinconMelaniaNYC.com

Bolivian Llama Party: Pump Up the Salteñas

At a glance, a salteña "resembles nothing more than a fat baked empanada — a resemblance that can vanish with one incautious bite." Read about the Oropeza brothers, their restaurant Bolivian Llama Party, and their salteñas on Culinary Backstreets.

Empanatidas

Perhaps the city's only street vendor of Paraguayan food bakes empanadas, alfajores, and lattice-topped pastafrolas in many fruit flavors. Guava, shown below, is the classic.

Also shown: a baked spinach empanada. Note that the business name is not "Empanaditas," as in "little empanadas." It's "EmpaNATIdas" — "Nati" is a play on the baker's given name.

H/T Gustasian

Empanatidas
46th St., in the plaza under the elevated 7 train, Sunnyside, Queens
202-421-6148
Most days, from midafternoon

Taiyo Foods

"Sale" with a smiling A, a hand-drawn sign whose blocky letters resemble the neighboring Japanese character, for "goods." Another hand-drawn sign describes warabimochi as "a bracken-starch dumpling. It's a sweets," but it's also too jiggly for a decent photo of its own.

Taiyo Foods
4508 44th St. (Queens Blvd.-47th Ave.), Sunnyside, Queens
718-392-2233
www.Facebook.com/Taiyo.Foods.Sunnyside

Philomena's

Slices.

H/T Gustasian

Philomena's
4116 Queens Blvd. (41st-42nd Sts.), Sunnyside, Queens
718-255-1778
www.Instagram.com/explore/locations/799517930401623/Philomenas
Opens in late afternoon; closed Tuesday

The Butcher Block

You might observe that my crab cake sandwich (half is shown here) was surmounted by a well of tarter sauce. I'd rightly remembered that the prepared-food counter at this Irish supermarket serves crab cakes on Friday, when many Catholic customers abstain from meat, but I didn't think to swing by until midafternoon, by which time the sandwich rolls had all been spoken for. The counterman suggested a plain bagel instead — it was a soft one, thank goodness.

Previously: Each roll of Rowntree's fruit pastilles includes five flavors of puck-shaped jellies. Lemon, lime, orange, and strawberry were easy to identify, even for a Yank, but the purple one gave me pause. When I considered that Rowntree's are made in England, also the birthplace of Ribena, that final I.D. fell into place: black currant.

The Butcher Block
43-46 41st St. (Queens Blvd.-43rd Ave.), Sunnyside, Queens
718-784-1078
www.Facebook.com/IrishButchers