In the age of the gourmet omnivorous Jew, the meal has taken a step up in authenticity and flavor. In many restaurants, bold regional Chinese cooking has replaced bland, gelatinous Chinese-American fare. In the case of Legend Bar & Restaurant, authentic Szechuan cuisine supplements a fairly unremarkable menu of Chinese-American standards. That’s where I went on Christmas Eve as part of a group of 17 Jews (we had some doctors AND a lawyer), plus a few gentiles with nowhere else to go. My friend Dan Dan Noodle, a yeshiva bachur in an earlier life, organizes the annual excursion. Imperial Stout and Sgt. Pepperjack were among those in attendance, in addition to a number of people I hadn’t met, including Dan Dan’s friends Perogie Officer, The Glutard and Roo-barb.

We were initially planning to make the trek out to our beloved Little Pepper in College Point, Queens, but Dan Dan ended up getting a gig at a cheesy bridge-and-tunnel Christmas party for later that evening and had to change our dining venue to Manhattan. Legend, formerly a Vietnamese fusion restaurant known as Safran, recently switched over to Szechuan and had gotten some positive reviews. We thought it would be worth a try. Dan Dan did his research and solicited menu requests in advance. He arrived with a copy of the menu he had printed out from the Internet upon which he had made check marks next to every promising dish. One of them was a dish provocatively called “Tears in Eyes.” Made of slippery, pearly bean curd chunks topped with roasted chilies and a sauce of fermented soy beans (see top photo), this dish was my favorite of the night. It was spicy, but not more so than some of the other dishes we tasted. Still, the unique texture of the bean curd and the deeply flavorful sauce kept my palate interested through every bite.

Among the other dishes, there were some classics, including dan dan noodles (of course!) and ma po tofu. The noodles were solid, although somehow not quite as good as Little Pepper’s version. And I prefer the fiery ma po tofu at Szechuan Gourmet, which has heightened flavors that are more mouth-numbing than Legend’s version. Pork dumplings were pillowy with juicy interiors, while cold jellyfish was noodle-like with a satisfying chew. There were blistered sauteed string beans with olive leaves paste and a not-too-spicy dish of sliced pork with crispy ricecake-like disks, which the menu called rice crusts. The uncured bacon sauteed with leeks was a little boring, though pork belly is never very far from delicious. Far more interesting, however, were the pork intestines with hot chili peppercorn sauce (see second photo). These had an excellent tender texture and packed a complex sweet-spicy punch. Plus, what would a Jewish Christmas been without hot pork intestines?

One of the spiciest looking dishes turned out to be fairly mild. The Chongqing chicken arrived submerged in a sea of dried chili peppers, but the tasty morsels of meat beneath them took on only the faintest hint of the toasty heat. (That is, unless you are Roo-barb and The Glutard, who later confessed to me that they each bit into one of the peppers and paid the price with their mouths and esophagi aflame for much of the rest of the evening. If a dish is 75 percent composed of one ingredient, you assume you’re supposed to eat it, Roo-barb reasoned. Not, it turns out, when that ingredient is dried hot peppers.) Chengdu braised duck was rich and tasty, sucked off the cleavered pieces of leg, thigh and rib bone.

There were two soups on the table: one made with fish and napa cabbage was beautifully accented with flashes of hot chili, while the second was a complex dark broth filled with crunchy bean sprouts and glassy cellophane noodles. This may sound like way too much food, but—call it a Hanukkah miracle— we managed to clean every plate and even save room for the requisite orange slices. That is not to say we didn’t all come away feeling completely stuffed. I know I did. In the great tradition of our ancestors, we overdid it just enough that we might not feel ready to eat again for at least another four hours. Tradition! Tradition! Even Tevya would have been proud.

Legend Bar & Restaurant
88 7th Ave.
New York, NY 10011
212.929.1778

Trader Joanna and I watched as the perfectly pasteled Martha showed us how to make a turkey that came out evenly browned, moist and flavorful every time. Martha’s trick involves draping the salted, peppered and stuffed bird with a length of cheesecloth that had been plunged into a pot of hot butter and white wine. She then puts the turkey in the oven to roast, opening the door every 30 minutes to paint the cheesecloth with more butter and white wine. On TV, Martha’s turkey emerged from its cheesecloth sheath looking like the cover of a magazine. “That seems like a good recipe,” Trader Joanna said. “We should do it that way.” As everyone in my family has learned over the years, when Trader Joanna says “we,” she almost always means “you”—in this case, my mother. Luckily, Mango Mama is not the type to brine in advance. She bought some cheesecloth and followed Martha’s instructions, producing a bird that exceeded all our expectations.

This year, my mom made Martha’s turkey (second photo) at her Thanksgiving dinner in Cannon Beach, and my aunt, Auntie Pasti and I made it (top photo) for our east coast feast on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. I convinced Auntie Pasti to order a heritage turkey from Robinson’s Prime Reserve in Louisville, Kentucky. They were having a 20% off sale on Gilt Groupe (my “gilt-y” pleasure), so I emailed her to see if she was interested. She went for it—all $130 of it. I covered the additional $30 shipping and handling fee that brought the 22 pound just-killed bird to her apartment on the Tuesday before turkey day. Mango Mama, on the other hand, secured her 20-plus pound Butterball for free. The Portland grocery chain, Fred Meyer had a deal where you got a free turkey by purchasing $200 worth of food.

Needless to say, Mango Mama and Auntie Pasti had already spoken on the phone and compared notes about their respective turkeys by the time Empanada Boy and I arrived on the Upper West Side Thursday morning. “I can’t believe I spent so much money,” Auntie Pasti said. Later when I talked to Mango Mama she said: “Free is a good price. I don’t mind a few chemicals in my turkey.” Two sisters on opposite coasts, so alike you can’t tell them apart on the phone, yet still so different.

In addition to preparing our turkey to the letter of Martha’s instructions, Auntie Pasti and I made a delicious green salad with snow peas, beans and lemon zest; a brussels sprout hash; buttery mashed potatoes and cubed sweet potatoes. And before I even arrived, Auntie Pasti made two kinds of cranberry sauce—one a tart relish and the other sweeter with cubes of pear mixed in—and two kinds of stuffing—one with currants and pine nuts and the other packed with smoky Spanish chorizo. Every 30 minutes, a timer went off, and we would drop what we were chopping to open the oven and baste with butter and white wine— she with a baster, and I with a brush.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, closely rivaled by Passover, because I can think of almost nothing I would rather do all day than be in the kitchen making and tasting delicious food and chatting with my mom my aunt, my sister or anyone else who has been put to work. In recent years, Auntie Pasti has done more of the work, and I have been responsible for my traditional task of making the desserts. This year, I made my desserts— a pear tart with Poire Williams glaze and an apple-cranberry pie— the night before and the always resourceful Empanada Boy figured out how to carry them on the subway the next morning so I could help with the bird. It was a treat to see the meal through from start to finish.

The rest of the relatives and guests arrived, and Corn-y Uncle poured us some pre-dinner Champagne. As we toasted to the host and hostess, I thought to myself: “Martha Stewart would be proud.” Indeed, the turkey emerged from the oven about a half hour later, looking perfectly burnished and moist. Cousin Ketchup, the family expert on poultry carving after watching a New York Times instructional video last year, set about his task. I snuck a taste of the dark meat, and I have to say, it was the best turkey I have ever tasted. As Auntie Pasti put it: “It had better be.”

As it turned out, the storm had almost entirely passed by Sunday afternoon. There was one problem, though: We were in Brooklyn; the restaurant was in Chinatown and the subway wasn’t running. That problem would have been insurmountable for the weak and unresourceful, but not for us. We hopped on our bikes and pedaled over the Manhattan Bridge—enduring a few minor gusts of wind—to this hole-in-the-wall spot on Doyers Street. The restaurant was packed when we got there, and based on the number of helmets hanging off chair backs, it seemed we weren’t the only ones with that idea. The restaurant has a ground floor dining room, which offers views of the noodle-making master as he kneads, stretches and, with one pull, miraculously separates the noodles into strands. But there were no empty tables upstairs. Our server led us down the stairs, past a table where a woman sat stuffing dumplings with seasoned raw meat (awesome but definitely not up to code), to the last table in the back of the basement level. We sat next to some industrial-sized boxes of napkins and paper towels that were stashed in the corner. Clearly, this was the perfect ambience for some seriously good noodles.

In the wake of the storm, the air had cooled off a bit, which made the idea of ordering soup feel more bearable. From a list that included options such as oxtail, short rib and mixed fish ball, we selected our proteins. Oyster ordered roast duck, and I went for beef and beef tendon. We then had to select our noodle thickness and composition. Every soup and pan-fried noodle dish can be made with regular hand-pulled noodles, fat-wide hand-pulled noodles, knife-peeled noodles or big or small rice noodles. I went with regular hand-pulled, while Oyster opted for fat-wide. We also ordered a plate of steamed pork and chive dumplings, a cucumber salad and two Tsingtaos. Our server was largely absent throughout the entire meal. It took us walking up the stairs to the front desk to successfully put in our order, and the food took more time to come than one would expect with a soup for which most of the ingredients are premade. Oyster said the pace wasn’t typical, and we later overheard our server telling other diners that it was his first day on the job.

It was certainly worth the wait. The noodles had the wonderful chew that allowed me to bite into them without having them disintegrate in my mouth. The broth was flavorful, filled with herbs and scallions, and the meat added depth. The beef was rich and comforting and the tendon melted on my tongue. Oyster’s duck, which had the bones still in, fell apart in tender sections. The dumplings had the same snap to their shells as the noodles from the soup, and the pork filling was nicely seasoned. Cucumber salad was refreshingly crunchy and tangy in its vinegar-based dressing. All-in-all it was a near-perfect meal.

We paid our meager bill and started walking our bikes back across the bridge, chatting and enjoying the relative quiet of the city and the calm of the water below. At about the mid-point, we climbed back on our seats and rode back toward home. After all, a brisk bike ride is the perfect cure for hand-pulled noodle overload.

Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles
1 Doyers St. #1
New York, NY 10038
212.791.1817

Boureka and Fancy Fresser were stopping in New York on their way back to the Bay Area from Israel, but they gamely agreed to take the train down to the East Village to meet Empanada Boy and me as I satisfied my craving for larb and green papaya salad. If Fancy Fresser was disappointed by the unavailability of pad see eew, she was a good sport and didn’t show it. After EB and I got our Thai and Laotian beers (Chang and Beerlao, respectively), we set about ordering. We started with the beef larb and the som tom muazuar. Larb is a minced-meat salad, made spicy and tangy with red onion, chile, lime and cilantro. While the flavor of the beef version was excellent, it looked a little more meager and boring than the images of the duck one from the Times and the opulent-looking pork and catfish options pictured on the menu. But then, I must save something for next time. Som tum is green papaya salad, and the version we got had barbecue pork and shrimp (Jewish dream), rice noodles, tomatoes and long beans. I’ve had green papaya salad many times, but this was by far the most eye-catching. The flavors were nuanced: pungent (fish sauce), bracing (lime juice, garlic) and sweet (palm sugar). The overall effect was a vibrant symphony of freshness.

Our next course, the pa ped moo korb, brought the meal back down to earth with its savory depth. This dish was composed of pork crisped on the outside and reduced inside to a nearly unrecognizable (yet somehow satisfying) chewiness. This was combined with Thai eggplant, wild ginger, basil and curry. We ordered the dish medium-spicy to accommodate all at the table, but the next time I go, I am pulling out all the spicy stops. A little bit of fire would add another amazing dimension to this already excellent combination of flavors and textures.

The people sitting at the table next to us inspired us to order our final dish because they were eating it when we walked in: a whole grilled tilapia stuffed with tamarind sauce, as well as Thai basil, onions, cilantro and other herbs. Rectangular pieces of the fish’s flesh were cut off the skeleton and fried separately into succulent, crispy morsels. The rest of the fish was crispy enough that one could pick up sections of skeleton and suck the meat and fried bits right off the bone. And, while I don’t typically eat the head itself, I am not one to let a good fish cheek go to waste. (I am Daddy Salmon’s daughter, after all.) EB and I extracted these tender bits of meat and ate them before pronouncing ourselves done with the meal. A few fish bones and some lettuce garnishes were pretty much all we had to show for it at that point.

For dessert, we decided to head back up the street to a place where Fancy Fresser had seen a sign whose bold assertion had caught her eye: “NY’s Best Egg Cream,” it read. To my surprise, this sign stood outside Gem Spa, an old-school newspaper stand at the corner of 2nd Ave. and St. Marks Place. We cautiously walked inside and inquired as to whether they actually did serve the city’s best egg cream. The guy behind the counter solemnly nodded in reply. Fancy Fresser and Boureka both got chocolate, and EB got vanilla. Those are the only two flavors. Having just made sure our plates were scraped clean at Zabb Elee, I got tastes of both of them. I am not an egg cream connoisseur, but I didn’t think these were half bad, based what I know of the tradition. Though their name might imply otherwise, egg creams are made with milk, seltzer water and chocolate syrup (or other flavoring of choice). Fancy Fresser knew enough to ask the guy at Gem Spa whether the chocolate was Fox’s U-Bet Chocolate Syrup, considered an essential ingredient by egg-cream purists. Indeed it was. To my taste, the chocolate was not sufficiently chocolate-y and the vanilla was just a touch too subtle, but perhaps my palate simply wasn’t prepared to scale back to an egg cream after the riotous party that was Zabb Elee.

Zabb Elee
75 2nd Ave.
New York, NY 10003
212.505.9533

Gem Spa
131 2nd Ave.
New York, NY 10003
212.995.1866

As we stood in the not-too-long line, we scanned the photos of the dishes on the wall that serve as the menu and contemplated which to order. After some flip-flopping, I decided I couldn’t go wrong with that same cumin-coated lamb that had haunted me since the burger, so I ordered the spicy cumin lamb on hand-ripped noodles. EB ordered the pork “Zha Jiang” on hand-ripped noodles. And because we couldn’t resist the temptation, we got an order of Chang-an spicy tofu. As luck would have it, a tiny scrunched table for two opened up just as we were done ordering. We sat down to wait there and were soon able to move to a better, slightly less scrunched table in the window looking out to St. Marks Place.

Before I describe the food, I should explain how different the cuisine served at Xi’an Famous Foods is from what most Americans think of as Chinese food. The city of Xi’an in central-northwestern China was once the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, so the spicing is heavy and sometimes reminiscent of the Middle East. Such was the case with my lamb, which arrived redolent with cumin, almost popping off the plate with flavor. Beneath the chunks of meat were thick, wide, irregularly shaped noodles that literally seemed as though they had been torn from a sheet of dough. There is almost nothing it in the world so satisfying to eat! EB’s pork was ground, and the sauce on his dish was considerably sweeter and less spicy than mine. We had requested the dish as spicy, but it said “normal spicy” on our receipt, which made me think we should have requested “extra spicy” instead. Still, the sauce was nuanced and delicious and what could be disappointing about thick, rough, chewy noodles coated in glistening pork? The tofu was silken and spicy, sitting in its fiery broth. Each bite contained a bright green sprig of cilantro or a piece of crisp scallion, which added an herbal freshness to the dish.

Feeling full, but thirsty, we decided to walk over to Saint’s Alp Teahouse, a Hong Kong-based chain with locations in New York and Chicago. I ordered a gingerbread milk tea, and EB ordered a strawberry milkshake. Both flavors were distinctive, although mine might have played better in the winter. In the context of bubble tea, a milkshake is actually a thin, milk-based drink, not like the thick milkshakes we’re used to. EB ended up wishing he had gotten a smoothie, which is actually a thicker drink. Still the tapioca had a pleasant texture, and the drinks helped soothe our spice-laden stomachs.

Not that I mind that now-familiar burning sensation in my stomach. It’s that internal fire that keeps beckoning me back to regional Chinese restaurants like Xi’an Famous Foods.

Xi’an Famous Foods
81 St. Mark’s Place
New York, NY 10003
And three other locations

Saint’s Alp Teahouse
39 3rd Ave.
New York, NY 10003
212.598.1890

The small wood-panelled restaurant has high counters and tables, equipped with stools. It has large windows looking out into the street and windows at the bar, offering patrons views of the chef at work in the kitchen. As I sipped an interesting Japanese IPA, I watched the chef using a torch to crisp the long thin pieces of fatty pork that would soon grace our soups. Oyster and I ordered the namesake Zuzu ramen, with charshu (the blowtorched pork), bamboo shoots, bok choy, Thai basil, noodles and a slow-cooked egg, served in a slightly spicy, fragrant dashi broth. EB went for what turned out to be a somewhat spicier green curry-miso ramen, redolent with cilantro and featuring charshu and a slow-cooked egg. We sipped our beers and eagerly awaited the arrival of our soups.

In due course, three steaming bowls of soup were delivered to our table. I started with a bite of the charshu, which was floating, silken and buttery, at the top of my bowl. It was certainly tasty. The noodles had a nice chew to them and a springiness that shows they were fresher than average. Breaking the soft-cooked egg allowed some of the yolk to run satisfyingly into the broth. The broth itself was tasty, particularly bites that included Thai basil, but it was not remarkable. I preferred the green curry-miso broth in EB’s bowl. It was punchy and flavorful, but still nuanced, and set off the richness of the meat and the egg more clearly. It was also $11, compared to the $14 Zuzu ramen (the latter admittedly delivered in a slightly larger bowl).

There is no doubt that Zuzu makes the best ramen in Park Slope. It’s far better than the fairly generic bowls I’ve had at the recently-opened Naruto Ramen around the corner from my house. I don’t think it quite holds up to the addictive ramen at Ipuddo, the Japanese chain with a single New York location in the East Village. But then again, I’ve waited for a table at Ippudo for more than an hour and was once simply turned away at the door at 8:30 pm or so because the list of people waiting was so numerous. There would never be such a wait at the relatively serene Zuzu. And while I could always go to Chinatown and fill my soup craving with a $5.75 bowl of pho, there are times when the top-notch ingredients in a good bowl of ramen, and the subtleties of the flavors they create, really hit the spot. When that contemplative mood strikes me—or when I’m simply craving a nice slab of braised pork—Zuzu Ramen will be right there near the top of my list. Is that occasional feeling of pure satisfaction worth $14 a bowl? I suppose it is.

Zuzu Ramen
173 4th Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718.398.ZUZU

Naruto Ramen
276 5th Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718.832.1111

Ippudo NY
65 4th Ave.
New York, NY 10003
212.388.0088

Baconhater and Halo-Halo arrived before we did, and just to be sneaky, they sent me a text saying the lines were out the door. When we arrived at the pleasant, airy little cafe, they were seated at one of two populated tables drinking cafe con leche. We ordered some coffee, sangria and tropical fruit juice mimosas and got down to the business of ordering. While we waited for our food, the server brought excellent buttered toast triangles, which would later serve as the perfect egg-yolk mops.

Café Cortadito has about ten items on its brunch menu, all of which looked appealing in some way. EB ended up ordering Holguin: poached eggs over seared ham atop a croissant, finished with Creole sauce. This was the Cuban take on the breakfast sandwich, and it was a tasty take indeed. When punctured, the eggs ran over the whole thing and made it necessary to eat with a fork and knife. Halo-Halo ordered a delicious Cuban omelet made with potatoes and embedded with smoky, salty bits of chorizo. A piece of seared ham and two sausages balanced out the meat to potatoes ratio.

Baconhater got an exquisite dish called Camaguey. Made with fresh mango and papaya (both a little too green), plantain chips and grilled shrimp, the dish was colorful and light as a breath of tropical spring air. The shrimp was nicely cooked, but the downsides were the under-ripe fruit and the lack of sauce or cohesive seasoning over the dish. If even one of the fruits had been riper and more succulent, this dish would have been more successful. Camaguey had all the pieces, but didn’t live up to its potential.

My dish was Mazorca de Maiz Dulce Estilo Cortadito. A mouthful, both in name and in essence, it consisted of two fried eggs alongside sweet corn on the cob and a small green salad. The dish was simple and tasty, with corn that was actually sweet and perfectly fried eggs, but I would have appreciated a stronger sauce or some spices to jazz it up. The ingredients in my dish may have been a little too simple to justify the $11.95, no matter how cheap the restaurant was relative to its brunch neighbors. All in all, though, Café Cortadito fit my criteria for a worthy brunch place: The food was mostly flavorful and different from anything I would typically make at home. Which is not to say I couldn’t replicate these dishes— I’ll be working on my potato-chorizo omelet the next time I want something new to make for brunch at home.

Café Cortadito
210 E. 3rd St.
New York, NY 10009
212.614.3080

I’ll start out by saying that while the burger at Corner Bistro had its drawbacks, Corner Burger’s was pretty much a flop. Of course, that doesn’t reflect at all on the company we had there: Empanada Boy and I went to Corner Burger with my colleague Chopped Salad and his lovely wife Vinaigrette. Chopped Salad had heard that the burgers were good, so I proposed that we meet there to give them a try. I was also intrigued when I learned that the restaurant recently started serving poutine, the gravy-and-cheese-curd-topped French fries of Montreal. Chopped Salad and Vinaigrette weren’t sure about poutine, but EB and I wanted to try it. I ordered the classic poutine ($6.50) instead of a burger. It wasn’t a great first impression for this culturally iconic dish. I could see how poutine would be amazing if the fries were hot, thin and crispy and the gravy more inspired, but the dish had none of these qualities. The cheese curds were squeaky, though, an attribute which I have learned to appreciate now that I have family in Wisconsin.

The burgers ($6.50) at looked far better than they tasted. EB ordered the one above with Swiss cheese and mushrooms. As I have said before, I consider cheese and other toppings undesirable because they obscure the taste of the meat. In this case, the meat needed obscuring. The burger arrived on the rare side of medium-rare, which would have been perfectly acceptable if the meat had been seasoned. It hadn’t been. We found ourselves biting into rare, bland meat, which proved a very disappointing combination, even despite the cheese and mushrooms. Chopped Salad and Vinaigrette ordered burgers too and were similarly disappointed. The curly fries may have been the only saving grace. We were among the only patrons there when we sat down and the only ones there when we left. We now understand why Park Slopers are staying away.

EB and I visited Corner Bistro with our friends Porky Braiser and Sweet Tooth who were visiting from Chicago. We were planning to get drinks at Little Branch in the Village, so we looked for some good cheap chow in the general vicinity to eat beforehand. A dark, old-timey and decidedly unbistro-like bar, Corner Bistro fit the bill. We waited for a seat in a pretty long line that snaked through the bar area. The wait wasn’t so bad, though, because we were throwing back $2.50 mugs of McSorley’s. In a city where it typically costs $6 or $7 for a pint, that alone is reason to visit. Soon we got a seat at a tiny cramped wooden booth. We had a good view of the Heinz ketchup bottles lined up near the kitchen window like soldiers awaiting deployment.

I ordered the basic burger ($4), while Sweet Tooth got a cheeseburger ($4.75). Porky and EB naturally ordered the Bistro Burger, made with cheese and bacon, but still a steal at only $5. And we got three orders of French fries. The fries were nothing special. They weren’t hand-cut and weren’t quite as crispy or hot as we like them. Clearly people come here for the burgers. The patties were juicy, tasty and well-cooked. That is what matters most in a burger, and that’s what Corner Bistro does well. Where it falls short is in its buns (whimpy, airy and easily destroyed by the meat juice) and in its toppings (flavorless American cheese, faded iceberg lettuce). In general, I found I could overlook these drawbacks because of the quality of the meat, the no-nonsense atmosphere and the excellent prices.

I’ll go back to Corner Bistro, especially when I’m looking for a real New York experience. I don’t think I’ll go back to Corner Burger. It may well close before I get a chance to. But first, I think I’ll take a hiatus from burgers and let my arteries unclog for a bit. There will always be more to try once I have a hankering again.

Corner Burger
381 5th Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718.360.4622

Corner Bistro
331 W. 4th St.
New York, NY 10014
212.242.9502

We were pretty hungry by the time we sat down and proceeded to order, yuca fries, plaintain chips and guacamole, veal and rice balls and loads of empanadas (around $2.50 to $3 each). Foiegrasman even threw in an arepa for good measure. The chips and fries were the first to arrive. As it turned out, we probably didn’t need to order both. Needless to say, we devoured them anyway. The plantain chips were thinly sliced lengthwise so as to show the shape and structure of the fruit’s profile. They were crispy, slightly sweet and slightly salty. We asked for the spicy guacamole, and it did have a kick (though not a very overpowering one). The yuca chips were like french fries, but with much more of their own innate flavor. Their exteriors were perfectly fried, and they proved pretty addictive.

After chowing down on the nontraditional chips, our meatballs arrived. These were made with veal and rice and were coated in a savory mushroom sauce. They had been recommended in other reviews I read, and our waitress singled them out, so I was expecting greatness. The meat balls were juicy and filled with flavor. (Veal Balls was so taken with them that he chose to christen himself after them—at least for the purpose of this blog.) I was less wild about the mushroom sauce because I found the flavor so strong it overwhelmed the meat. Still, the dish as a whole was unlike any I’ve tried before.

The final course was the pièce de résistance: the empanadas. In total, we tried seven different varieties with two made from corn flour (traditional Colombian style) and the rest from wheat flour. We didn’t much care for the corn flour ones, one filled with chorizo and the other shredded chicken, not because we didn’t like the shell but because the meat inside was dry and bland. The wheat flour empanadas didn’t have that problem. Among them were: the Brasil (ground beef, olives, sauteed onions, potatoes); the Reggaeton (Caribbean style roast pork, seasoned yellow rice and pigeon peas); chicken and broccoli teriyaki; the Viagra (seafood stew with shrimp, scallops and imitation crab); and the Cuban (slow roasted pork, ham, mozzarella, sofrito sauce). My hands-down favorite, and EB’s too, was the Reggaeton. It was the most flavorful and had the most interesting textural contrasts. It probably also reminded us of the jibaritos we used to eat in Chicago. My next favorite was probably the Cuban, which had a lot going on and was made decidedly more delicious by the creamy cheese. The spicy red sauce and the milder, creamier, green sauce on the table also livened up the breadiness of the crusts. The spinach and cheese arepa that Foiegrasman ordered was notably different from the ones I tried at Caracas Arepa Bar. Where those had an almost pita-like consistency, the corn-flour shell of this one was spongy and pleasantly chewy.

We spared no room in our stomachs for them, but Empanada Mama also has dessert empanadas, which are supposed to be tasty. Next time I want to treat my Empanada Boy to something sweet, I’ll know where to take him.

Empanada Mama
763 9th Ave. (at 51st St.)
New York, NY 10019
212.698.9008

Before I get into what we ordered, it’s worth emphasizing that this food is spicy. And when I say spicy, I mean burning your esophagus, numbing your lips, spicy. But the food can also be sweet or distinctively seasoned in a way that lets you taste and enjoy the complexities before the burn begins. The key ingredient in this heat is the Szechuan peppercorn, the outer pod of which is toasted and scattered throughout this restaurant’s menu.

EB and I started with mild, but delicious, appetizer of tender sliced pork belly with a fantastic chili-garlic soy sauce. The succulent flavors of this dish were just layered on: fat, sweetness, saltiness and a bite of scallion here and there.

As is turned out, we were glad we tasted this dish first because the dishes we ordered got progressively dominant in flavor. The next plate our server set down in front of us bore a mound of crispy lamb pieces, coated in a cumin-heavy spice powder. The dusty shell broke away upon biting to reveal tasty morsels of gamy lamb. The heat in this dish came from dried peppers that were scattered throughout. Everything was manageable until I bit into one of those babies. The burn lasted for a while so I didn’t end up eating many of them, and the bold spicing of the meat stood up well to the heat. My one complaint with this dish was that it was very dry. It’s not that the meat was overdone, but rather that there was no sauce or juices to it. I am assuming this is typical of the dish, but I found myself wanting liquids to sop up.

Our final dish was the ma po tofu, which is labeled with four stars (extra spicy) on the menu. Large, ethereally light, cubes of tofu are presented swimming in a pool of fragrant, slightly sweet, sauce. And then it hits you. The heat creeps across your lips and across your tongue, down your throat and into your stomach. The burn is both painful and pleasant. The sweetness of the sauce and the infusion of scallions comes through the heat, creating a symphony of components. We left feeling like we had eaten twice as much as our stomach muscles contracted with the heat of those chilies. Needless to say, it was a battle my stomach would be willing to fight again.

Szechuan Gourmet
21 W. 39th St.
New York, NY 10018
212.921.0233

Szechuan Gourmet 56
242 West 56th Street
New York, NY 10019
212.265.2226