One of a new wave of fast-casual Chinese cafes that hit town a few years ago, Kungfu Kitchen specializes in bargain steamed dumplings and hand-pulled noodles in stir-fries and soups, plus northern Chinese dishes that one might not expect to find in Times Square. One is the highly recommended bing shown here, described on the menu as “pan fried buns,” and extravagantly stuffed with your choice of duck or egg and chives.

You might as well be standing by the Pacific Ocean watching the surfers when you eat one of the tacos at this gussied-up San Diego beach shack. The limited number of fillings include pork adobada from a rotisserie, grilled chicken or steak, and, for vegetarians, cactus paddles. Quesadillas and mulas also available.

Tradisyon is the city’s latest take on stylishly presented Philippine comfort food on the bustling Ninth Avenue dining strip. A few outdoor tables are available for a lunch or dinner that might include pungent pork adobo crowned with a boiled egg and served over rice, crisp lumpia egg rolls, pig ear sisig, or the vegetarian taro leaves stewed in coconut milk called liang. Be sure to wash it down with calamansi juice, squeezed from the archipelago’s tiny limes.

What beverage goes best with a stroll across Times Square? Bubble tea and its ilk should be in the running, and this parlor of Taiwanese beverages, including milk teas, matchas, and fruit-based beverages, all can have tapioca pearls that bob up and down in the frothy drinks added at your request. More substantial snacks like popcorn chicken, fried calamari, and sweet potato fries are also available. There are a few tables on the sidewalk.

While most Manhattan neighborhoods still boast examples of the classic New York corner deli, Times Square has only one: Star Lite. With a few tables out front, Star Lite makes all the usual sandwiches, wraps, and burritos, and also mounts a steam table displaying hot Latin and Italian dishes. The pastrami sandwich is perfectly acceptable, and a bargain, too. For big groups on the run, there’s a six-foot hero.

If you want a glimpse of the old Times Square — gritty, commercial, and night clubby — walk into Margon and order a plate of chicken fricassee or roast pork, accompanied by white rice and black beans and a wad of sweet fried plantain. Founded in 1970, this amazing Cuban lunch counter has soldiered onward though thick and thin, and now boasts a handful of tables in the street in a curbside enclosure. For those who appreciate its sturdy, garlicky fare, Margon is simply one of the best restaurants in town.

The block of Midtown on which this elegant restaurant sits has long been known as Little Brazil, and is still the site of a festival every year at the start of September. The restaurant now has some very nice tented tables right on the street, with the same white-coated waiter service and specials that run to the national dish of black-bean feijoada, all sorts of stuffed fritters, and Afro-Brazilian specialties like shrimp-laden vatapa.

The long-running, second-story Uzbekistani cafe in the Diamond District just east of Times Square is where many of us took our first bite of the Central Asian pilaf called plov or cumin-dusted lamb kebabs, cooked over charcoal in the restaurant’s kitchen. Israeli salads and bread dips, and Eastern European standards, round out the menu of this classic kosher spot. Takeout and delivery only.