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Believe it or not, this chinger is vegetarian.

The idea was popularized by Momofuku Ssam Bar and by Xi'an Famous Foods--sandwiches featuring lamb or pork in a steamed or baked bao with pickled vegetables and a thick, sweet soy sauce. The idea might have occurred spontaneously in several places, because Taiwanese do something similar. Now, a new Taiwanese restaurant called Chinger--an offshoot of a next-door hot-pot place--is debuting a bao burger joint in the shadow of Elmhurst's LIRR tracks.

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At JoJu, your sandwich comes conveniently packaged in a pair of (recyclable) paper-tissue bags, perfect for sharing.

Over the last decade, New Yorkers have fallen in love with the Vietnamese sandwich banh mi. The best are found at a pair of places: Saigon Banh Mi in Chinatown and Ba Xuyen in Sunset Park.

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The chicken achari sub at Tastee Curritos.

Don't you just love fusion? You fall asleep for a moment, and it leaps up and bites you on the ass. Such was the case with the chicken achari hero at MacDougal Street newcomer Tastee Curritos.

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This slice is a gut bomb, par excellence.

On the uncertain fault line between German-American and Italian-American cooking lies the bacon-cheeseburger slice. Formatted like a pizza pie, it showcases the essential elements of a dolled-up burger.

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Bam! The pizza dosa at Jersey City newcomer Chennai Flavors

The dosa in its many variant forms is one of the world's greatest culinary inventions: a crepe made from a naturally fermented batter of ground rice and lentils, usually wrapped around a filling of potatoes, nuts, and chiles. For those who believe in vegetarianism, it represents the most stable and sustainable model of food production the world has yet seen. Yes, dosas could feed the entire world.

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Tracy Van Dyk

The truck can usually be found parked in San Francisco's Knob Hill

NYC has certainly got lots of unusual food trucks, peddling predictable sorts of fusion and just plain odd combinations of ingredients. We've got a couple that merge Korean and Mexican, while another mixes Mexican and barbecue. We have even have one that offers pulled pork atop a Belgian waffle. But, alas, we have San Francisco to thank for coming up with what is perhaps the strangest food combination of all: Irish and Eritrean.

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Cajun cooks know that the shrimp's head is the best part, oozing the red oil that gives these crustaceans 95 percent of their flavor. And now the Japanese know it, too.

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On a trip to Baltimore last week, I stumbled on a Nepalese grocery in the northern reaches of the city that had an attractive display of Lay's potato chips -- but these weren't just any Lay's potato chips. This assortment was from India, where Lay's is aggressively invading the snack-food market.

I bought the two bags they had -- India's Magic Masala and Spanish Tomato Tango, apparently part of a five-bag international collection of flavors, perfect fusion food.

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