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.

Harlem has rarely seen a Jamaican steam-table restaurant with such a broad, pristine 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 an offshoot of an earlier Jerk House in the Bronx, both operated by Sideon Stewart, affectionately known as “Jerk Chicken Jackie.”

From Senegalese chef and cookbook author Pierre Thiam, this lively place at the northeast corner of Central Park in the Africa Center manages to catch the spirit of West African cooking with a brief menu in the fast-casual mode. That doesn’t mean there isn’t lots of seating, and you’re encouraged to relax either indoors or out. Senegalese grilled chicken yassa, with a relish of mustard and sauteed onions, is a high point.

Warkop is quite simply NYC’s best example of an Indonesian warung, or snack shop. As it should be, this one has a quirky and limited menu based on packaged ramen, which is transformed into a number of very inexpensive dishes by Omar Karim Prawiranegara. My favorite noodle topping involves corned beef and greens. Coffees and desserts are also available.

When visiting Hell’s Kitchen, Desi Deli proves to be a great dash-in spot for a pair of bulging samosas, a Kolkata-style kati roll stuffed with chicken tikka, or just a cup of steaming chai. More elaborate rice-based meals like shrimp saag and goat biryani are also available (check the steam table), plus a beguiling collection of Indian breakfasts. A dining room next door beckons if you want to linger a while.

Cafes inside food markets, both here and in South America, are often good and a good deal. Rio Market in Astoria offers customers the advantage of browsing the Brazilian groceries, along with a cafe that has the feel of a working-class refectory, with its modest seating and harsh lighting. Brazilian pastries (including pao de queijo and salt cod croquettes) are dispensed from glass cases, and the usual grilled meats are done to order on a flame grill visible right inside the kitchen.

Kotha Grill is one of the latest in a string of Bangladeshi eateries aimed at grocery shoppers surrounding the corner of 73rd Street and 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights. Boasting a small dining room the focus here is on the steam table, which usually contains a choice of biryanis, plus chicken and goat curries, river fish dishes, and a number of roasted vegetables and mustard oil-laced vegetable purees, often including potatoes, eggplant, pumpkin, and okra.

A successor to neighborhood mainstay Krystal’s, Amazing Grace took over the same Little Manila space not long ago, offering a similar mix of Filipino standards that went 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, which also includes garlic rice, fried eggs, eggplant strips, and a fresh salsa of onions and tomatoes. The restaurant is run by longtime area denizens Efren and Mary Jane De Leon.

Turkish classics are the focus of this branch of an Upper East Side Ottoman restaurant, where topped flatbreads fly from the oven at a regular rate, composed salads can be made into a vegetarian platter, and many of the meat offerings are presented as juicy kebabs tasting of smoke. The shaved-meat doner kebab is particularly flavorful, and you can get a combo of chicken and lamb doner in a sandwich or on a platter. Turkish and Italian wines are available, though the list is limited.

This modest spot just south of the Queens County Farm Museum concentrates on Mumbai-style street snacks and is strictly vegetarian. One favorite is bun chole, a small round roll stuffed with chickpeas, potatoes, and onions sweetened with tamarind sauce, very much like Trinidadian doubles. The menu also offers samosa chaats, vegetable curries, milk-based sweets, and snacks combining fried lentils, nuts, chips, and crunchy noodles.

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.

This modernized take on a Polish obiady (lunch room) offers an airy and comfortable setting, and a menu focused on pierogi in its many savory and sweet permutations. Fourteen in number, the savory come floundering in butter served with garlic-and-dill sour cream, and the choice includes such unusual examples as one stuffed with potatoes and eggs and another with blood sausage. The rest of the menu is slender, but includes borscht, stuffed cabbage, and a substantial kielbasa sided with pierogi, which makes a substantial meal.

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.

There are two other good Vietnamese sandwich shops in close vicinity, so why pick owner Co Ut Tran’s shop? Because sandwiches tend to be overstuffed: The No. 4 begins with the usual pate, cha lua, and salami, then adds a bonus slice of fat-rimmed Virginia ham. The vegetarian banh mi made with baked tofu is also good, redolent of lemongrass, and the kitchen staff ably turns out more ambitious dishes, which include pho, and the wonderful tapioca dumplings called banh bot loc, wrapped in banana leaves and glowing like amber.

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.

In the late 19th century, a group of Italian immigrants established itself in the small Oaxacan city of Chipilo. That’s the name of a commemorative sandwich shop, with substantial and inexpensive sandwiches that seem mainly Italian, but with a Mexican flourish here and there. My favorite is the devito, which features mortadella, mozzarella, and arugula — plus avocado, which amplifies the other flavors and assists the hero in sliding down your throat.

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, darkened on the bottom, puffy on top, and generously stuffed, are another standout.

This Jamaica Estates Afghan restaurant offers meats, meats, and more meats — including 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.” A Bangladeshi menu is sporadically also available at this highly recommended halal establishment.

While most Lebanese restaurants have a straight-up Middle Eastern menu of falafel, hummus, kebabs, and salads, Semkeh does the formula one better by including some rarely seen regional dishes, including the namesake samke (a more common spelling of the dish). This classic from the north of the country features a fish poached in a garlic and tahini sauce, which makes for a very tasty fish. Have it wrapped in a pita, or pick sujuk instead, a Lebanese beef sausage. For vegetarians, check out the wrap of falafel and fried cauliflower with the garlicky sauce called toum.

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 from Guillermina Ramirez 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 a bit unusual, but neophytes should first try cheese and loroco — a pickled flower that resembles oregano; and revueltas, which combines pork rind, beans, and cheese. First split the pupusa then shovel in some of the slaw called curtido for extra crunch.

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 tajines, too, and there’s no better place in Bed-Stuy for a falafel sandwich.

Named for founder Gloria Wilson, this cafe with makeshift seating — there was once a more famous branch north of Eastern Parkway — specializes in Trinidadian homestyle cooking, ladled out in massive portions. The goat curry is profuse and pungent with curry powder, and better still when served as a roti with a dal puri wrapper and plenty of extra heat with the condiment called simply “pepper.” A tofu dinner, callaloo, and bhaji roti are other choices.

This Windsor Terrace staple celebrates the contributions of the Bedouins to Middle Eastern cuisine, focusing on the cooking of Jordan. The interior is small, charming, and well-decorated, making you feel like you’re in someone’s living room, and the menu features kebabs, sandwiches, and platters, plus many of the same ingredients made into flatbreads called “pitzas.” And 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 by Vijayakumari Devadas 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 mutton or jackfruit curries, poured over rice and served with yellow dal and a chopped vegetable salad? The meat is halal.

Chef Vincent Dardanello is the owner of this nifty Sicilian cafe in Bay Ridge, where standard dishes — think rice balls, fried calamari, potato or chickpea croquettes, focaccia, and olive oil-glossed salads — are presented in a modern context on a mainly Neapolitan menu. Amuni reproduces a wonderful muffuletta sandwich inspired by the New Orleans original, and two types of Sicilian pizza called sfincione are available, along with characteristic Sicilian vegetables like fennel and cardoon in simple presentations.

This 24-hour West Midwood Pakistani cafe with a chile-pepper logo has it all, from snacks like samosas and stuffed breads that are great for rapid snacking to full meals that include meat and vegetarian dishes served with rice, bread, or both. Go for the ground meat kebabs, which absorb lots of smoke in the clay oven, or haleem, a delicious porridge of lamb, wheat, and lentils. The steam table offers many vegan dishes.

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.