This Latin Caribbean diner is home to the most gorgeous steam table you’ve ever seen right next door to an expansive dining room. The menu offers classic breakfasts of green plantains, eggs, and longaniza, plus lumberjack pancakes and three-egg omelets, then moves on to lunches and dinners of well-seasoned rotisserie chicken, pork chops, kingfish or salmon, mofongo in several variations, meal-size soups like sancocho and mondongo, and pernil so good it might make you weep.

Located in the northern reaches of Washington Heights, this Dominican establishment handily combines a fish market with a restaurant. Decorated with artificial palm trees, it also boasts a bar, and the lengthy menu features nearly every Spanish and Latin Caribbean seafood dish imaginable. One favorite is the marvelous asopao, a tomato-and-vinegar rice soup flavored with garlic and cilantro, generously dotted with large shrimp.

A spacious multilevel palace of Korean food in downtown Fort Lee, New Jersey, Myung Dong specializes in two types of noodles. The first is the wheat noodle known as kalguksu, served in mildly flavored soups, of which the most engaging throws them into a broth with ground beef and dumplings. The second is naengmyeon, originating in North Korea and made from buckwheat or sweet potato and served cold with boiled egg and pickled vegetables: very refreshing.

This branch of a Grand Concourse restaurant is a bit grander, with a dining room a few steps up from the steam table where a dozen or so Ghanaian dishes are displayed. Pictures of the food over the counter assist in your selection, and don’t forget you can combine dishes on one plate. Get sauces of fish, mutton, or chicken — or pick a mixed meat sauce that contains all of them — then choose a starch ball like white yam fufu to go with it. As far as the goat pepper soup goes, it’s hot: watch out!

Harlem has rarely seen a Jamaican steam-table restaurant with such a broad selection of island dishes. Sure, the jerk chicken is great, finished over a flame right before being served, but you’ll also find jerk pork, jerk ribs, and even jerk fried chicken. There’s also escovitch fish, curry chicken, and, perhaps best of all, curry goat. The restaurant is one of three locations.

The location may come as a surprise — a full-blown, sit-down Uyghur restaurant only a dumpling’s throw from Macy’s in Midtown — but all the Uyghur classics are here, from steaming plates of dumplings, a wide variety of noodles, a plethora of lamb, and the classic big tray chicken (da pan ji), a spicy stew of chicken and potatoes served with wide noodles.

A successor to neighborhood mainstay Krystal’s, Amazing Grace took over the same Little Manila space, offering a similar mix of Filipino standards that go from barbecued brochettes (the pig ear is splendidly chewy), to set lunch and dinner plates, to the omnibus breakfasts known as silogs. The one featuring smoked milkfish is a favorite, also including garlic rice, fried eggs, eggplant, and a fresh salsa of onions and tomatoes.

This Murray Hill deli offers packaged Guatemalan spices, soups, and baked goods, plus a small prepared-food concession to go with them. Proceed to the rear of the walk-down premises to find a steam table offering three or four stews of beef, chicken, and fish. The pollo guisado is particularly good, tomatoey and mellow, served with black beans, rice, and freshly made tortillas. Fried chicken and grilled steaks are also available.

Little Jakarta is a small neighborhood centered at Whitney Avenue and Broadway in Elmhurst, with groceries and small cafes (a modest number of both to be sure) radiating from that corner. The name doesn’t suggest an Indonesian cafe, but it is, and a very good one. It specializes in full-plate combinations that may contain rice, a coconut-laced composed salad, shrimp chips, and a satay or two, all halal.

This tiny walk-up space in the hurly burly of MacDougal Streets restaurant row offers a handful of dishes in a Tex-Mex vein, or so it says. Truthfully, its specialty of taquitos are popular across Mexico and the Southwestern United States sometimes under such other names as tacos Dorados, flautas, and rolled tacos (in San Diego). These arrive freshly fried and smothered in salsas and cheese, with potato and chicken favorite fillings.

This tiny cafe just south of Tompkins Square specializes in the street food of Bangkok with a limited menu of full meals that will make deciding what to eat easier. The best dish on the menu is basil chicken, with ground poultry cooked down to a rich mixture served with rice, a poached egg, and boiled sweet potato. For vegetarians, there’s a very nice pad Thai.

Little Myanmar is quite simply the best Burmese restaurant the city has yet to see. The interior is bare bones and not particularly comfortable — though your ability to see into the kitchen is an advantage and a pleasure. The 100-item menu covers the vast sweep of the national cuisine, from the salads called athokes (try the tea-leaf version) to noodle soups, stir fries, and curries.

Korean restaurant Chick of Us is a playful fast food newcomer to the Lower East Side, looking like a chain though this is the only store. The specialty is thigh-meat chicken nuggets with a variety of flavors, but even more snacky are a series of rice noodle skewers interspersed with meats, and dressed potato helixes on sticks, combining the best elements of potato chips and cottage potatoes, giving you yet another opportunity to make an entire meal of potatoes.

The Lower East Side is home to many Hong Kong-styles cafes serving the hybrid Chinese-English cuisine called cha chaan tengs. S Wan is a charming walk-down spot offering a full range of breakfasts designated by letters that might includes fried eggs, waffles smeared with peanut butter, Spam, toast with butter and honey, and pork chops, in addition to lots of noodle soups and stir fries.

Hearty working-class Chinese fare at favorable prices is the forte of this bare-bones shop conveniently located on Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills near the Kew Gardens subway station. Noodles, dumplings, and soups make up most of the menu, with Sichuan dumplings and dan dan noodles available in memorably good renditions.

This family-run Fujianese lunch counter is one of Chinatown’s best budget-friendly restaurants — and best kept secrets. Like the name suggests, the pork-stuffed fish balls in soup make a memorable repast, but there are also all sorts of other agreeable noodles and soups. The pan-fried pork buns are another standout, darkened on the bottom, puffy on top, and generously stuffed.

This Jamaica Estates Afghan restaurant offers kebabs of chicken, beef, and lamb in various combinations — and little else. The lamb chops, in particular, are superb, often cut to order from the rib cage (you can hear the saw thrumming in the kitchen), smeared with a reddish spice rub, and grilled to complete succulence. A few curries are also available, though as the attendant said, “We don’t have vegetables.”

Two doors down from a mosque, this chandeliered restaurant occupies a lively corner location that was also previously a diner, though one with a more conventional menu. This place upholds diner principals, filling out its menu with Afghan kebab platters as well as Bangladeshi and Indian dishes, plus pizza and excellent hamburgers. The platter shown here features yogurt-marinated chicken and beef kofta with pulao rice, Afghan bread, and salad, with several sauces.

Sure, there are dozens of great, old-fashioned, mainly Pueblan taquerias within the borders of Bushwick, but this place opened early in 2020 with a zingier demeanor, including a brightly painted minibus on its exterior. The lure is a humongous rotating trompo of pineapple-marinated pork al pastor, sliced and deposited on a rustic corn tortilla. Cactus, chicken, and carne asada fillings are also available.

Many places make their own Salvadoran pupusas, sometimes hand-patting the masa or rice dough, but this establishment takes the process one step further. Its pupusas are of larger circumference, juicier, and stuffed with a choice of 10 fillings. Some, like broccoli and cheese, are unusual, but neophytes should first try cheese and loroco — a pickled flower that resembles oregano; and revueltas, which combines pork rind, beans, and cheese.

This decades-old Trinidad and Tobago roti shop was closed for a time and recently renovated, and you probably won’t be able to tell the differences as the line snakes out the door at lunchtime. The list of roti is expansive, but I still prefer the bone-in goat, chicken, and conch.

Mama Kitchen is a kosher Israeli restaurant that far exceeds expectations (everything except the composed salads are cooked to order) at a lower price than you might expect. Entrees include a full plate of food plus another plate from a salad bar with over a dozen selections. The Ashkenazic schnitzels are superb, but there are Sephardic North African tagines, too, and there’s no better place in Bed-Stuy for a falafel sandwich.

Catering veteran and master baker Danielle Moore started this corner soul food cafe, mainly takeout, in Flatbush, showcasing the cuisine’s standards, featuring chicken wings, fried porgies, and New Orleans po’ boys. But at whim she ventures outside the canon, producing a wonderful lamb burger with a thick sear and a tzatziki dressing. Also don’t miss the pineapple upside-down cake and banana pudding.

Open since 1956, New Park is one of Queens’ most cherished pizzerias, as a pit stop on the way to the beach or a drop-in during Saturday errands along the commercial strip of Cross Bay Boulevard. The pizzas come out hot and fast and oozing cheese, and lines form to buy slices (the line inside moves faster). Don’t go expecting to find anything but pizza and calzones, and what a scene!

Culpepper’s, opened in 1998 by Winston Lewis, is one of the city’s very small collection of Barbadian (Bajan) restaurants. Since the pandemic, it’s takeout only so make a plan where you want to eat the excellent island food. Often identified as the national dish, the cou cou and flying fish consists of a cornmeal porridge shot with okra and said fish. Jerk specialties and pastries are also available.

This Windsor Terrace staple celebrates the contributions of Bedouins to Middle Eastern cuisine, focusing on the cooking of Jordan. The interior is small, charming, and well-decorated like someone’s living room and the menu features kebabs, sandwiches, and platters, plus many of the same ingredients made into flatbreads called pitzas. There are snacking opportunities galore, including garlicky fava beans and a Levantine spin on potato salad.

Located a short bus ride straight uphill from the Staten Island Ferry, New Asha, founded in 1999, is a funky sort of place with excellent Sri Lankan food. A glass case displays heavy tubular fritters that are good for snacks, but why not sit and chow down on halal meats like mutton or jackfruit curries, poured over rice and served with yellow dal and a chopped vegetable salad?

Only recently have Palestinian restaurants become an attraction unto themselves in the city with the advent of places like Al Badawi, which offer sit-down dining. At lower prices and with more of a lunch counter atmosphere, Al Aqsa specializes in pita or laffa sandwiches, tucked or rolled, respectively, and filled with chicken shawarma, falafel, or lamb shish kebab, slathered with a strong toum, a garlicky white sauce. Kufta, bread dips, lahmacun in several variations, and even schnitzels round out the menu.

Open since the early 1970s, Roll N Roaster is the anchor of Sheepshead Bay’s restaurant row facing the bay. It specializes in roast beef sandwiches on kaiser rolls, the meat rich, moist, and deliciously rimmed with fat. Dip it in meat juices (small extra charge), or eat it plain. And don’t neglect the hot dogs, onion rings, clam strips, and turkey sandwiches, but ignore the imprecation to put “cheez” on everything.

A stone’s throw from the beach, Little Georgia, is a convenience store in front and a bakery in back. It can get pretty crowded on weekends as patrons line up for multiple forms of khachapuri — often hot out of the oven — along with roast chicken, stout smoky sausages, and other beach-friendly tidbits. Lamb or chicken shawarma sandwiches of mind-boggling volume are a sideline.