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Everything from the cow's foot soup (thought to increase virility in men) to the Picada Azuaya special, an enormous plate of mixed meats, all breaded, fried, and dusted with chili pepper, lends this small Jackson Heights restaurant an air of authenticity. A few posters and mementos of Ecuador line the walls, and three rows of tables, each topped with white tablecloths and vases of fake flowers, are attended to by waitresses who smile broadly but speak little English. The soups and seafood dishes, in the tradition of coastal, mountainous Ecuador, tend to outshine the fairly dry meat platters: A rich caldo de bola de verde, a beef stock soup, comes chocked with potatoes, thick shards of stringy beef and a mazto ball-like orb of plantain, stuffed with boiled egg. A variety of ceviches are well-matched by bottles of the national beer, Pilsener, as are broiled whole chickens coupled with well-spiced sides of rice, beans or fried plantains. — Jon Steinberg

Caldo de bola de verde (stuffed plantain soup), $8.50