An NYT Food Critic’s Picks for 2015

choi

Ligaya Mishan, It May Feel Like Tight Quarters. Stay Awhile Anyway; Here are our top 10 places to eat well and cheaply. New York Times, Dec 16, 2015.
www.nytimes.com/2015/12/16/dining/best-cheap-eats-nyc-2015.html

(1) "4. Okonomi * * *
150 Ainslie Street (Lorimer Street), Williamsburg, Brooklyn; 718-302-0598 for recorded information only; okonomibk.com.”

Note:
(a) Okonomi here is the name of the eatery in Chinatown, Manhattan.
(b) Short for お好み焼き, the noun okonomi お好み is defined as “[your] choice, preference” (here meaning a customer gets to select add-ons).  The “o” in “okonomi” is an honorific (showing respect).  See also okonomi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okonomiyaki
(c) chef Yūji HARAGUCHI  原口 雄次  (The cn.nytimes.com, based in Beijing and unfamiliar with New York, was wrong to translate the name . See
Florence Fabricant, 此時游紐約，不可錯過的當季美食. 纽约时报中文网, Sept 14, 2013
cn.nytimes.com/food-wine/20130914/c14food/zh-hant/
("原口二郎(Yuji Haraguchi)在布魯克林威廉斯堡新開的迷你Okonomi餐廳")
(d) The “dashi broth left over from making the soup giv[es] a bronzed cake of omelet an interior of velvet

Japanese English dictionary:
* dashi《出し(P); 出汁》 【だし(P)】 (n): "dashi (Japanese soup stock made from fish and kelp)"

(2) “5. Kopitiam

In Malaysian tradition, a kopitiam, or coffee shop, can be the heart of a neighborhood, however humble its size or décor. Kyo Pang, a native of Penang, opened this minuscule storefront in a rapidly changing Chinatown * * * wanting to honor the memory of her grandfather’s kopitiam.

51B Canal Street (Orchard Street), Lower East Side; 646-894-7081; no website.”

Note: kopi tiam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_tiam
(kopi is a Malay/Hokkien term for coffee and tiam is the Hokkien/Hakka term for shop (店))


(3) “10. Crêpes Canaveral

The people of Brittany have eaten crepes since the Crusaders returned bearing buckwheat from the East. * * *

No current address; 347-278-5342.”

My comment:
(a) buckwheat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckwheat
(section 1 Etymology; section 2 History: The wild ancestor of common buckwheat [Fagopyrum esculentum] is F esculentum ssp. ancestrale.)

The "ssp" stands for "subspecies."
(b) buckwheat might or might not come to Brittany through Crusaders. I can not find credible evidence one way or another.
(c) When was the first crepe made?  It is disputed. Some say it was in 1895 in Paris.