Little Pepper — Restaurant in New York

My favorite cuisine is szechuan food, and Little Pepper is the best szechuan food in New York City. I suppose that would logically mean that Little Pepper is my favorite restaurant in all of NYC. Every single dish here is nothing short of perfection. For us it usually starts with the delightfully satisfying dumplings in chili oil, which we have to eat in our car outside the restaurant before we even start driving home. For other appetizers, the beef noodle soup is the best I've had in the city, and the cold sesame noodles are delicious and addictive, packed with Szechuan peppercorn goodness. Not for the faint of heart, chicken chongquin-style is ferociously spicy and pairs perfectly with the scallion fried rice, which is packed with so many scallions it's turned green. The braised fish in chili broth remains my favorite dish here, packed with flavor and deliciously tender. We also like the preserved eggs, but need to get them in moderation. I've heard great things about the cumin lamb, scallion pancakes, and tea duck, and can't wait to get back...

Authentic Szechuan cuisine. Chef worked in Chengdu in a restaurant before emigrating to the US, and I haven't seen better hot oil sauce around NY.

Skip the American menu, and go straight for the authentic selections.

Some favorites: Kou shui Ji - Salivating Chicken ma la niu jin - spicy beef tendons Shui zhu yu - Water cooked fish, or fish cooked in spicy broth zhi bao yang - Paper wrapped lamb--spiced lamb meat cooked in aluminum foil (with cumin) hui-guo-rou - twice cooked pork yan-jan rou - like twice cooked pork but with cured pork la-zi-ji-ding - fried cubed chicken and stir fried with chili pepper.

Service is inconsistent at best, especially on busy weekend nights, but the owners are cordial. We cross the toll bridge just for the hot sauce that has become addictive. Reservation is accepted, but it didn't make a difference for us (still had to wait). Worthwhile if you are into hot and spicy foods, or authentic...

Good Sichuan isn't hard to find in the city, but great Sichuan is not - and Little Pepper reaches those heights more than almost any other place I've had outside of Chengdu. The Dan Dan Noodle has just the right amount of heat (and isn't shy about it), but the Sichuan peppercorn flavor bursts through unlike almost any I've had. This is also true for their clear glass noodle with pork, and their mapo tofu. The Shredded Pork and Bean Curd is a fantastic, less spicy dish to balance the heat of the others, and the ingenious scallion fried rice (where scallion is actually pressed into the grains, creating that green hue and addictive flavor) is an absolute must to cool you down. I didn't love the pork belly in the Twice cooked pork, which is one of my favorite dishes from the region, but the flavor was still great - but mostly everything else was a huge hit. Even the pickled Sichuan veggies are awesome here!...