Bowls Built for Winter

Hot and Heavy

by Brian Howard, Carolyn Huckabay

Sidle up to the bar at the city's most idiosyncratic neighborhood tappy for this all-day chili special. The $5 price tag includes a bowl of spicy-sweet brisket chili, a hulking chunk of corn bread and a Miller High Life. The Champagne of Beers actually goes better with this than one of the bar's numerous Belgians.

Part meal, part space heater: This Korean dish of rice, sprouts, carrots, spinach, hot sauce, egg, and beef, chicken or tofu is served in a fiery stone bowl so hot it crisps the rice and warms you by way of proximity.

Moqueca is a Brazilian bouillabaise-y fish stew. Port Fishington's rendition lays a slab of flaky mahi-mahi atop a hot bath of shrimp, coconut milk, peppers, potatoes and ají rouille. Slurp.

We'd pay the $5.25 just to watch the guy in the back window whip and wrangle a fresh batch of this place's namesake soup component. While we're fans of Vietnamese pho (the distinction here is slight — Nan Zhou's beefy broth is flavored with cilantro and green onion), fresh noodles make a big difference.

This gulash, a peppercorn-heavy beef stew over rotini, is technically served on a plate. But whatever. Chatterbox maître d' Zoran Bokun (aka Joe) claims that a policeman regular weighed the dish on his narcotics scale and it clocked in at more than 3 pounds. Don't fill up on bread.