Sabor
462 Amsterdam Ave. (between 82nd & 83rd Streets)
(212-579-2929
Move over, jumbo shrimp. In the big book of culinary oxymorons, you now need to make room for tapas grandes. One might wonder how a little Spanish appetizer could be “biggie-sized” to grande. Yet Sabor on the Upper West Side has a whole section of the menu under that improbable heading.
Tapas grandes, it turns out, are the main courses at this colorful pan-Latin taparia. These entree-size dishes are larger than typical tapas, the Iberian snacks originally intended as edible lids for wine glasses. They’re also grande in flavor, which is, appropriately, the translation of sabor.
Not that the rest of the menu is slouching in the taste department. From the little corn cakes called arepitas combined with chorizo and red pepper sauce, to chicken empanadas atop a salad of sweet plantains and lentils, to cheese or charcuterie platters, the array of tempting tapas cramming the one-page menu is dizzying.
Then again, maybe that’s the effect of the mint-loaded mojitos.
When the waitress recommended chorizo de cordero ($6.95), she was right on target. There was nothing sheepish about this grilled lamb sausage, a powerhouse of spicy, gamy goodness atop a salad of nutty chickpeas. Steering us toward boquerones ($6.95) proved another good move – the plump, marinated white anchovies sporting a dollop of olive paste lounged on a wafer of yuca.
One good steer deserved another, as in rare, richly flavored slices of beef with herby chimichurri sauce ($4.50) from the pinchos, or skewers. A ceviche of lemongrass-marinated tuna ($9.95) was too soy-salty for some tastes, but it was nothing compared with the sodium-fest dressing on the greens of the otherwise pristine avocado-and-tomato ensalada Andaluza ($6.95).
Entrees lack the impressive three-tiered-plate presentation of appetizers, yet they’re equally artful, on brightly colored dishes embellished with precise dots and squiggles of sauce.
Braised lamb shank in sofrito and Rioja wine ($13.95) was surprisingly boneless, the shredded meat crowning a neat disk of lush, pureed boniato, a Cuban sweet potato. Paellita, seafood paella ($15.95), had plentiful pickings of shrimp, clams and moist chicken tucked into the broth-bolstered rice.
Are the entrees technically tapas? Does it matter? They’re loaded with tastes that are hard to top.
BOXHEAD: Meals & Deals
BOXSabor462 Amsterdam Ave.
(between 82nd & 83rd Streets)
(212) 579-2929
