All the
World Eats in
Bridgeport
Caribbean
McGhie’s
2004 Main St.,
203-330-8854
Best jerk chicken in
Connecticut
Mommy’s Patties
2523 Main St.,
203-333-1977
Subtly sweet Jamaican
beef patties
Central American
Escamilla Diner
1992 Main St.,
203-366-7516
Salvadoran pupusas
alongside cheeseburgers
Global
International Farmers
Market
2298 Main St.,
203-333-9499
Surprisingly stocked
ocean-fresh seafood
counter
Italian
Helados Vasquez
2871 Fairfield Ave.,
203-333-9393
Velvety Italian gelato
with a Mexican flare
Mexican
Garibaldi
1701 Park Ave.,
203-362-1065
Platefuls of moist,
rich tamales
La Flor de Mexico
1666 Park Ave.,
203-333-9088
Delicious tortas, stuffed
with mouth-watering meat
Taqueria La Michoacana
1914 Main St.,
203-366-6590
Unassuming, but
satisfyingly filling
Portuguese
Pombal Bakery
277 Grand St.,
203-576-8973
Creamy, warm
Portuguese egg tarts
South American
El Idolo #2
1965 Main St.,
203-334-6600
A taste of authentic
Ecuadorean
ceviche
Terra Brasilis
1282 North Ave.,
203-334-2262
Brazilian grill meats
Turkish
Bereket
4031 Main St.,
203-372-7006
Go beyond the
usual kebabs
in corn tortillas, and gobbled them up with
salsas from the expansive salsa bar. But
we really swooned over the pozole, whose
scarlet broth was less spicy than simply
meaty—a clear, clean, deep flavor.
For the next 48 hours, we never
stopped eating. Pombal’s little egg tarts
were light and flaky, the golden filling
perfectly caramelized. El Idolo’s ceviche
was as fresh as you could ask for, a jumble
of fish, octopus and shrimp marinated
in tart lime juice and sharp chilies. Even
better was the caldo de bolas, a clear soup
in which floated chunks of yucca and a
big bola, a fried potato dumpling stuffed
with ground beef. With a bit of crimson
salsa in each spoonful, it hit every taste
center: spice cutting fat, the clarity of the
broth balancing the heft of the dumpling.
Few of these restaurants had much
in the way of what you might call décor.
La Flor de Mexico, for example, was a
narrow, crowded storefront with just a
few tables and shelves of raw ingredients: dried shrimp, chilies, corn flour.
But who cares about atmosphere when
La Flor makes such delicious tortas,
sandwiches stuffed with lettuce, tomatoes, white cheese, avocado and meats
like chorizo or grilled steak?
Some restaurants were so small they
were takeout-only. At Mommy’s Patties,
we carried out Jamaican beef patties,
flaky and filled with subtly sweet, long-cooked beef. At Garibaldi’s, we grabbed
a bag of moist and rich tamales. And at
the International Farmers Market, we
surveyed plantains, Finest Brand burnt
sugar, rounds of Portuguese cheese, and
a seafood counter stocked with ocean-fresh species I’d never encountered:
doctor fish, goat fish, blue snapper.
Eat Like the Locals
About the only place we ate at that could
be termed “classy” was Terra Brasilis,
one of several Brazilian restaurants—but
that’s mainly because festivity was its
raison d’être. A vast buffet offered various
salads, plus rice and beans, plus moqueça,
a tomato-y kingfish stew, plus a fiery grill
where skewers of meat spun over open
flames. We loaded up and paid by the
pound (by this point, on our waistlines
too). At midafternoon, the restaurant
was mostly empty, but as we gnawed our
juicy hunks of roast beef and lamb, we fell
into conversation with a fellow diner who
clued us in to Bereket, a Turkish restaurant hidden inside a gas station.
Now, there’s nothing I like better than
secret restaurants, and Bereket did not
disappoint. Behind the vintage gas-station
façade—a carved figure holding up a spare
tire—was the tiny open kitchen and a
few picnic tables in the parking lot. But
though the space was small and weird,
the menu was ambitious, going beyond
the usual kebabs and spreads (hummus,
baba ganoush) to include manti, miniature
meat dumplings swimming in a tart yogurt
sauce flecked with red puddles of chili oil.
You Can Go Home Again
Between meals, Dad and I drove around
in search of the landmarks of his childhood: his home on Dixon Street, the house
where his father was born, the synagogue
where he attended Hebrew school.
The building where his grandparents—
my great-grandparents—first lived
