Eating In Translation

Tea tin repurposed as outdoor ashtray

Eighth Ave., Sunset Park, Brooklyn

Lioni Italian Heroes

Veal parm hero.

Lioni Italian Heroes
7803 15th Ave. (78th-79th Sts.), Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
718-232-1411
Also at 406 36th St. (Fourth Ave.), Sunset Park
718-499-2011
www.LioniHeroes.com

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

Nutrition Porridge

"Eight ingredient porridge" is the menu's prosaic name; a more common translation is eight "treasure." My own favorite treasures, cloaked in humble brown, are elongated chunks of jujube.

Nutrition Porridge
Cart on 60th St. near 8th Ave., Sunset Park, Brooklyn

Covid-19 testing station and neighboring food truck

Seen one afternoon in Sunset Park, Brooklyn

Malaysian Food

The proprietor of this street cart with a straightforward name, emblazoned in both English and Chinese, tells me she comes from Johor Bahru, the shortest of train rides north from Singapore. My curry cheong fun was actually a combination of menu items — curry chicken, fish balls, pig skin, and broad, thick, often tightly wrapped rice noodles — in imitation of the fellow who ordered before me. We perched on neighboring plastic stools in the shade of the side street. Previously, the onion-laced sambal and coconutty rice of her nasi lemak (shown below) were particularly good.

Malaysian Food
Cart on 58th St. near the southeast corner with Eighth Ave., Sunset Park, Brooklyn
929-339-2814

Food stand outside Iglesia la Luz del Mundo

Pupusas are a specialty at this church food stand — the congregation includes many Salvadorans — but a recent visit uncovered mixiotes, too. The name mixiote (Me-she-OH-tay) denotes both the dish and a parchment-like membrane obtained from the leaves of maguey. This membrane, or, nowadays, more often simply parchment, is wrapped around long-marinated meat. The individual bundles are then pit-roasted or steamed — the latter, I imagine, for my mixiote de puerco, prepared in a Brooklyn church kitchen.

Food stand outside Iglesia la Luz del Mundo
5313 Fourth Ave. (53rd-54th Sts.), Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Sunday only, early afternoon

Agua de barranca stand

For your refreshment, in frothy freeze-frame: Zacatelco agua de barranca. Literally "canyon water," this chilled Mexican beverage is also known by its Nahuatl name, cacahuatole, "cocoa water." Following the traditional practice in Zacatelco, a city in the Mexican state of Tlaxcala, the vendor vigorously whisked the cocoa by hand, then scooped it out with a jicara, a hand-decorated half-gourd. The jicara is the customary drinking vessel, too, but it's a pain to clean.

Agua de barranca stand
West side of Fifth Ave. near 50th St., Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Sunday only, and surely only in temperate weather

New Yee Li

Taishan cauliflower with onion, a simple stir-fry, posed on a gaming table across the avenue in Leif Ericson Park. (The game at the next table was dominoes; the players spoke a language, not native to Southern China or Latin America, and certainly not to Scandinavia, that I couldn't place.) While waiting for my stir-fry, though a kitchen door I watched a fellow tend the roasting cabinets that won Yee Li so many regular customers at its previous location, in Manhattan's Chinatown. Also shown, from that earlier incarnation: a portion of roast pig.

New Yee Li
6619 Fort Hamilton Pkwy. (66th-67th Sts.), Dyker Heights, Brooklyn
718-833-8373
www.NewYeeLi.com

Orchid Tea Cafe

"Photos for illustration purposes only." I'd bet that you've read words to this effect, on more than one menu, disclaiming responsibility for the appearance of dishes that might not live up to their depictions. You could argue that the picture menu at this Cantonese cafe — drawn by hand, torn from a sketchbook, and taped up beside the counter — is an effort to underpromise, so the kitchen will be sure to overdeliver. I'd frame matters a little differently: The hand-sketched eel rice charmed me, and the real eel rice delighted me.

Orchid Tea Cafe (where a single table and several chairs have replaced the bench)
4602 Seventh Ave. (entrance on 46th St.), Sunset Park, Brooklyn
917-470-8088