Tamales sold streetside by the basket are among our favorite treats in Queens. The countless kinds of ethnic cuisine found in the borough and the people that lovingly cook it are what make it great.

(Editor's Note: This piece marks the beginning of CB's new section devoted to the food of Queens, New York and the people making it. We plan to file regular dispatches from the borough of global eats.) For many visitors to New York, the first sight of Queens comes from above, during the approach to JFK or LaGuardia, the city's two international airports. And the first thought, upon landing, is to keep going. How far is it, they wonder, to our room, and to the museums, theaters, shopping and sights? How long till we get to "the city"? For culinary explorers, Queens is not merely a way station, it is a destination in itself. The largest in area of the five boroughs of New York City, Queens is the home of well over two million people, half of them born outside the United States, speaking untold hundreds of mother tongues. During the course of a day, you might hear a dozen languages without breaking a sweat.

The afternoon was gray, drizzly and, even for a Good Friday, doleful. So the brightly colored sign in the restaurant window – had someone scooped up all the highlighters at the stationery store? – shone out all the more. "FANESCA," it announced in bold block letters. We hadn't given thought to fanesca since we read an account by writer Calvin Trillin, some years earlier, of his quest for this Easter-season soup. After all, we had no plans to follow Trillin to the cobbled streets of Cuenca, or to anywhere else in Ecuador, anytime soon. But we remembered the name fanesca, and we stepped inside the restaurant for a restorative bowl. The sign in the window was true to its word: “Deliciosa!”