<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Ecuador arrives at its fifth World Cup with real momentum, and in Corona, which Fernando Cando, </span><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="text-[#781e2a] underline" href="https://culinarybackstreets.com/stories/queens/leticias/"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">chef-owner of Leticias</span></a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">, describes as "half-Mexican, half-Ecuadorian," that means something. Cando grew up blocks from his restaurant, opened it in 2016 on National Street bordering Corona Plaza, and named it after his mother Leticia, who always had something on the stove when family came over. The menu is built on that kitchen: <em>encebollado</em>, a fish stew with cassava; the pork trio of <em>fritada, hornado</em> and chorizo he calls <em>tres chanchitos</em>, loosely "three little piggies"; and t<em>ripa mishqui</em>, grilled pork intestines, popular street food in both Ecuador and on Corona Plaza itself, cleaned and marinated until they're genuinely <em>mishqui,</em> the Quechua word for delicious. Cando now pours cocktails built around Ecuadorian spirits and fruits: <em>naranjilla, colada morada</em>. Ecuador's first NY/NJ-window match falls on June 25, and this is one of the borough's clearest expressions of the community that will be watching.</span></p>

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<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Mexico is a co-host nation this summer, and </span><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="text-[#781e2a] underline" href="https://culinarybackstreets.com/stories/queens/la-estancia-de-la-espiga/"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">La Estancia de la Espiga in Corona</span></a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"> has been Queens' Mexican anchor long enough to remember when the borough had barely any competition. Tomás Gonzalez came from Acapulco to the Bronx in 1985, sold churros on the Grand Concourse, followed the crowds to Queens, ran what he calls the first taco truck in Queens, Taco Mobil, and opened La Espiga in 1992 when he decided "tacos y nada mas" wasn't enough. The weekend draw is barbacoa: goat slow-cooked overnight in sealed metal ovens, wrapped in banana leaves, served alongside tortillas pressed by hand on the griddle out front. Families line up early and often wait. The Thursday pozole blanco, built from his family's Guerrero recipe, is a detour all its own. Chefs in the kitchen come from Oaxaca, Morelos, Estado de México, Tlaxcala; the menu reads like a map of a country that deserves a deep run this summer.</span></p>

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<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Brazil opens the New York/New Jersey portion of the tournament on June 13 against Morocco at MetLife, and</span><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="text-[#781e2a] underline" href="https://culinarybackstreets.com/stories/queens/point-brazil/"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"> Point Brazil in Astoria is where the Seleção's Queens faithful will feel it most</span></a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">. Sisters Elzi and Erli Botelho Ribeiro have run this Bahian restaurant since 2008, turning a former ballet studio a block off Steinway Street into something that feels less like a restaurant than a living room where everyone happens to be hungry. The buffet runs deep, with rice, beans, <em>farofa,</em> and a <em>churrasco</em> station slicing top sirloin and chicken hearts to order, but the real signature is the "Taste of Bahía" served the first Saturday of each month: <em>acarajé,</em> the beloved street fritter of deep-fried black-eyed peas stuffed with <em>vatapá,</em> <em>caruru</em> and <em>bacalao</em>, plus <em>moqueca</em> and a coconut cream cake that brings us a little closer, in their words, to Bahía with every bite. The room is warm, the windows are big, and when Brazil plays, that warmth sharpens into something louder.</span></p>

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<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Argentina enters this tournament as defending world champion, and in Queens their home base has been the same corner in Elmhurst since 1979. Mario José Civelli came from Mendoza, a professional boxer who arrived in New York in 1968, worked as a dishwasher, learned the butcher trade at a Cuban shop in Jackson Heights, and eventually opened a tiny butcher shop making morcilla and chorizo from scratch for the Argentine community. Customers kept asking for a place to sit down. In 1979 he built a grill by the front window and put in three tables. Today his son Marcello runs the original location alongside two others, and on a recent Sunday ordered 828 pounds of skirt steak, 1,335 pounds of short ribs and 900 pounds of pork for the house chorizo. The parrillada arrives on a sizzling platter, short ribs, <em>entraña,</em> chorizo, <em>morcilla, </em>sweetbreads, and the chimichurri is, regulars insist, the real thing. Argentina has won this tournament six times. El Gauchito has been here for most of them.</span></p>

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<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Morocco was the story of the 2022 World Cup, the first African nation to reach a semifinal. They're back, and so is the community on Steinway Street. </span><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="text-[#781e2a] underline" href="https://culinarybackstreets.com/stories/queens/moroccan-bites-by-siham/"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Moroccan Bites by Siham opened in 2024</span></a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"> and has quickly become one of the most talked-about Moroccan restaurants in the city, and Siham Bourhane's cooking would stand out anywhere. Her tagines are a study in precision: glazed lamb shank with prunes, apricots and almonds; golden half chicken with preserved lemon and olives; <em>pastilla</em> dusted with powdered sugar and filled with shredded chicken and caramelized almonds, blurring the line between savory and dessert. Co-owner Redouan Lazrek, a radiology technician who preps the restaurant each morning before his hospital shifts, buys whole lambs and breaks them down himself with a cleaver. Nothing here is cut lightly. Morocco plays Brazil on June 13 in the first NY/NJ match of the tournament. Two communities, one borough, and some of the city's strongest Moroccan cooking between them.</span></p>

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<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">South Korea has reached the knockout rounds in four of the last five World Cups and arrives in 2026 with a squad built to do it again. In Queens, their food corridor runs east of Flushing through Murray Hill, a neighborhood of wider streets and more sunlight than the Chinatown it borders – named for a family nursery that once covered more than 100 acres here in the late 1700s, now home to some of the city's most interesting Korean eating. </span><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="text-[#781e2a] underline" href="https://culinarybackstreets.com/stories/queens/corn-dogs-dumplings-2/"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">The anchor, for our money, is Northern Wang Mando</span></a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">o. The word mandoo means dumplings, but the wang mandoo, "king" mandoo, is something else: a steamed bun as big as a boxer's fist, assembled by hand in the dining room and stuffed with minced pork, kimchi, and threads of sweet-potato noodle. It arrives boiled or pan-fried by the dozen. You won't pick through it to identify everything inside. You won't want to put it down long enough to try. Korea plays with that same relentless forward motion. This is the place to feel it.</span></p>

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<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">O Lavrador does not need to advertise itself as a watch-party destination. Its bar, packed on a Friday with construction workers and after-work regulars, bread and briny olives on the counter, is about as natural a place to watch Portugal play as exists in Queens. </span><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="text-[#781e2a] underline" href="https://culinarybackstreets.com/stories/queens/o-lavrador-2/"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">The Ferreiras opened this Jamaica institution in 1981 after immigrating from northern Portugal,</span></a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"> where they were farmers. The name means "the farmer," and the cooking carries the same honest weight: <em>bacalhau</em> prepared simply, grilled with boiled potatoes and garlicky olive oil, because as co-owner Edgar Ferreira explains, the biggest trick with salt cod "is not actually in the cooking — it's in the de-salting." The dining room is white tablecloths and port wine poured as a thank-you to regulars. The bar next door is louder and more Spanish than Portuguese these days, but just as welcoming. Three generations of families have been coming long enough that Edgar will probably still be here, he says, when he's ready to go. Portugal is a genuine contender this summer. This is the room to be in when they advance.</span></p>

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<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Uruguay qualified alongside their Río de la Plata neighbors and arrives in North America with something to prove. In Jackson Heights, their corner has been settled for over 30 years. El Chivito d'Oro is named for Uruguay's national dish, the chivito al plato, a beefsteak layered with egg, tomato and everything else, and the restaurant is as unapologetic about its identity as the sandwich itself. The parrillada for two feeds four: skirt steak, short ribs, sweetbreads, blood sausage, chicken, matambre, all arriving on a sizzling platter with chimichurri that Uruguayan regulars say tastes exactly like home. Flat-screen TVs cover the room. The sangria is legendary. Uruguayans call it the best chivito in the United States. When Uruguay plays, the corner of 84th and 37th is the most Uruguayan block in New York.</span></p>

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