Lahore, an ancient Pakistan city, is the capital of the famous food region known as the Punjab. This restaurant on a sparse stretch of Northern Boulevard known for its car dealerships welcomes families, especially on the weekends, and offers a halal menu, much of which can be viewed on the steam table. Gingery beef nihari is one specialty, and so is Lahori murgh haleem, ground chicken cooked with lentils and wheat into a savory paste. Another favorite here is the cryptically named steam roast chicken, which tastes something like tandoori chicken, only more moist and without the red color.

One of a half dozen Bangladeshi cafes in downtown Jackson Heights, Kotha is the new kid the block. It at least partly functions as a snack shop, where one can run in and get dal poori, samosas filled with chicken or potato and laced with mustard oil for a mild burn, or sweet crepes. But a steam table reveals biryanis, curries, and kurmas that can form a part of combination meals. Littered with slivered almonds, the chicken kurma looked particularly good on a recent visit.

Hidden in a fading strip mall, Cannelle is one of the city’s best and most doctrinaire French bakeries. There’s table seating, and the parade of customers is well worth watching and noting for its amazing diversity. The raspberry almond croissant is a formidable invention, and you won’t find fault with the napoleons, gateaux Breton, cheesecakes, or cherry-loaded Black Forest cakes, either. A small collection of sandwiches permit more savory repasts.

This halal café and sweet shop occupies the original storefront of the sainted Jackson Diner, and the diner atmosphere persists. Save the Bengali sweets in the refrigerated glass cases near the entrance for later, while you first chow down on tandooris and curries. The palak paneer is particularly lush with fresh cheese, the chicken keema exceedingly smooth and mellow. Full meals are often $10 or less.

This strictly vegetarian and mainly vegan southern Indian restaurant is one of only a few serving this cuisine in Jackson Heights. The full range of dosas are available, including sada, rava, and regular, stuffed or unstuffed. You can’t go wrong with butter masala dosa — the cylindrical wrapper deep brown and crunchy, the filling cumin-laced and shot with other vegetables in addition to spuds. Plenty of appetizers and chaats available, as are some interesting non-dosa dishes, including rice-based bisi bele bath and pongal, and a full menu of northern Indian vegetarian standards.

This restaurant with a bright pastel interior expanded to three locations a few years ago, making this one of the biggest Mexican restaurant empires in town. The unfailing dedication of its menu to inexpensive antojitos — sopes, huaraches, flautas, chalupas, quesadillas, and such — with their expansive roster of toppings, make this a crowd-pleasing place, too, and there are beers to wash it all down. Standouts from the Pueblan-centered menu including the fiery chicken soup chilate de pollo, overstuffed cemita sandwiches, and an entrée of steamed tongue, only one of the many types of offal available here.

Maria Piedad Cano, also known as the Arepa Lady, used to sell her fluffy Colombian corn cakes out of a cart. These days, however, her family is running the show as fans from across the city are still seeking out the arepas filled with salty cheese, perfect for topping off with any number of sauces, from leche condensada (condensed milk) to green-tinged garlic.

There aren’t too many old-guard Spanish restaurants left in the city, and this Castilian that dates to the late 1980s is one of the better ones. Find a full roster of tapas in the elegant but timeworn dining rooms — try in particular the paprika-dusted octopus or the well-browned tortilla, sold in its entirety rather than in wedges. Main courses emphasize seafood, of which the best is a stew called zarzuela, containing multiple fish and crustaceans, including more lobster than you might have expected.

Open since 2018, this attempt to create the type of New American bistro common in Brooklyn and Manhattan has been met with neighborhood success. A flaming oven turns out thin-crust pizzas of an unusual sort (one comes with speck and cantaloupe), while also roasting the restaurant’s best dish, a garlic bread covered with minced clams and grated cheese. Other dishes include a cheeseburger done to order with good fries and a crème brulee scented with Earl Grey tea. The high-ceilinged dining room is a maze of small tables and big booths.

Probably the most popular snack along Northern Boulevard is the South American hot dog. This is not your New York street frank dressed austerely with sauerkraut and mustard, but a supermarket weenie heaped with so many toppings the sausage disappears. Three restaurants specialize in them along Northern Boulevard — including two Colombian and one Venezuelan — of which a favorite is the tiniest, El Perro (“the dog”). Seven signature franks are available, dressed with ingredients like pineapple, bacon, potato chips, quail eggs, raspberry jam, and a rainbow of sauces.

The neighborhood boasts a solid number of Asian restaurants — Thai, Filipino, Chinese American, and of course, Indian — though there’s no Japanese option quite like 969 NYC Coffee. Owner Mitsumine Oda offers nearly a dozen different onigiri options, which he sometimes fashions into heart-shaped rice balls filled with everything from kaarage to pickled plums. But that’s not all: He serves ramen with green tea noodles, crispy shrimp tempura, and there’s a decent selection of Japanese snacks like sesame mochi and seaweed snacks.

Named after a famous beach neighborhood in Rio (and probably not the Barry Manilow song commemorating the New York nightclub), Copacabana is a real Brazilian kilo, a type of restaurant that sells its food by the kilogram. This includes steam-table fare like potato salad, shrimp stew, black beans, and the toasty condiment called farofa, as well as a selection of spit-roasted meats with a smoky flavor that varies from day to day. A small price will get you a satisfying meal, with lots of uniquely Brazilian flourishes.

El Maguey’s menu tends to highlight entrees and tourist dishes rather than humble antojitos, while the margaritas flow freely. Yet the shrimp tacos are perfectly turned out with an abundance of the crustacean, the chile-bathed mixiotes offers a shareable half chicken, and even the enchiladas cultivate a festive atmosphere with salad ingredients heaped on top. Beer comes in a bucket, six bottles at a time.

One of the city’s best Filipino restaurants relocated from Woodside to Jackson Heights a few years ago, and the space is bigger and shinier, with a better karaoke sound system — a fixation of customers and staff alike. Chef and co-owner Maribeth Roa has kept the menu simple, along with a surprise or two, and first timers might consider kare kare (beef, goat, or pork belly with string beans in peanut sauce), crispy pata (fried pork shank), or ginataang (vegetables in coconut milk).  

Open since 1967 on a rather dull stretch of Northern Boulevard, Pizza Sam is a father-and-son operation prone to excellence in its farinaceous output. The thick, bouncy Sicilian slice is bigger than it ought to be, overflowing with cheese. Calzones in six configurations, cutlets of chicken and veal, a predictable group of baked pastas — don’t miss the baked cheese ravioli with meat sauce — and heroes are further lures.

This Roosevelt Avenue spot specializes in Mexican ceviches presented in several guises, many originating in Sinaloa. Heralded by a personified yellow submarine with a handlebar moustache, the vibe is fast casual: Order at the counter an aguachile (a soupy cousin of the ceviche presented in a volcano-stone molcajete); a tostada (limey fish mounted on a crisp flat tortilla); or plainly presented ceviche, featuring shrimp, fish filet, octopus, or crab. Wash it down with fresh-fruit beverages and slushies.

The evolution over the last decade of this spot that was once a cart on Roosevelt Avenue is astonishing, especially when you consider the current comfy dining room and fully licensed bar. The menu skews toward southern Mexican, sometimes showcasing food from the state of Morelos, including a fine red pumpkinseed mole, good goat barbacoa, and outsize tacos placeros, which feature giant hand-patted tortillas and contain ingredients like rice, boiled eggs, chile strips, potato fritters, and chiles rellenos.