This restaurant really has balls!

By Alex Rush

You’ve really got to have guts to try the balls at this restaurant!

A plate of lamb testicles is one of the best dishes served at Caucasus Garden, a Turkish eatery that opened about three years ago on Avenue U in Sheepshead Bay. They’re dubbed the more palatable name “lamb fries” ($8.90) on the menu, but make no mistake — these meatballs are nothing like the kind you get at an Italian restaurant. These bite-sized nuggets have a custard-like texture and come swimming in a pool of white wine sauce that balances out their funky flavor.

But lamb fries aren’t the only seemingly nasty bits on Caucasus Garden’s menu. Dining at this Southern Brooklyn spot is an exercise in offal, with a bill of fare featuring boiled beef tongue with horseradish ($5.90) and a stew of lamb liver, heart, kidney and testicles called “chiz-biz” ($14.90).

Even better is the fried calf liver appetizer, which owner Zackay Khanatayev should mass-produce in snack bags. He’d make a bundle — who wouldn’t want to nosh on crunchy, cumin-spiced morsels?

As for offal cuts — Caucasus Garden doesn’t waste those, either, offering the often throw-away scraps straight-up. Case in point, its liver kebab ($4). This rich, skewered protein comes unadorned, getting its only extra flavor from the charcoal grill. But the liver is delicious, and it actually tastes much meatier than we expected. This ain’t chopped liver.

But you don’t have to be a gutsy eater to enjoy Caucasus Garden, as the restaurant has plenty of familiar meat cuts, like chicken kebab ($4) and a terrific soup called kharcho ($4.90). It’s made with braised lamb shank, rice, dill, garlic and a beef-and-tomato-based broth. That’s all, we promise.

Caucasus Garden [2715 Avenue U between 27th and 28th streets in Sheepshead Bay, (718) 769-7003]. Credit cards accepted. Open seven days.


Photo of our daring reporter by Arthur De Gaeta

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Peru is as close as Sunset Park

By Helen Klein

You want fries with that?

That may be the last thing you’d expect when venturing out to a Peruvian restaurant, but the biggest, most delicious surprise of Pio Rio Riki is the way continents seem to collide on your plate.

At the Sunset Park spot, traditional Peruvian dishes are often combined with noodles (and by noodles, we mean spaghetti) and, yes, even French fries.

It’s fitting, though, for a country renowned both for its beef and spuds. And there’s no better representation of that than the lomo saltado ($11.95) — soy sauce-marinated beef — with a side of French fries.

For Andean comfort food at its finest, order the tallarin saltado ($12), where chunks of beef or chicken are combined with sautéed onions and tomatoes, with a side of spaghetti spiked with soy sauce. It’s simple and satisfying.

The rotisserie chicken ($7.35, half chicken) is a standout, with skin that’s crispy, dark and intensely flavored. On a bed of white rice and soupy red beans, it’s also supremely satisfying. What makes the meal is the marinade, which imbues the meat with irresistible tanginess, a savory blend of garlic, cumin and vinegar and, yes, more soy sauce.

No discussion of Peruvian food would be complete without making mention of the dipping sauces that accompany most dishes. Ají verde — which is redolent with cilantro and hot pepper — and a garlicky white sauce are both extremely tasty, and can be spooned over just about anything from rice to the grilled meats, including anticuchos ($6.50) — that’s grilled beef heart — a classic street food served on skewers.

Traditional Latin American dishes are also on the menu, and the maduros fritos ($3) — fried sweet plaintains — are soothing and crispy, providing a pleasant counterpoint to the savory meats.

Leisurely service means that there’s plenty of time to savor everything that’s brought to the table, washed down by glasses of Peruvian beer or sangria — yes, sangria.

Pio Pio Riko [5911 Fourth Ave. between 59th and 60th streets in Sunset Park, (718) 492-4505]. Credit cards accepted. Open seven days.

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Gyro Station your stop for Egyptian food

By Helen Klein

It’s a long way — literally and metaphorically — from Tahrir Square to Bay Ridge.

As long-awaited change dominated headlines in Cairo last month, here, centuries-old tradition is alive and well — in Egyptian cuisine.

Some of the country’s most flavorful dishes — falafel, chicken kebabs, baba ganoush, humus — are also the most time-tested ones, and they were exceptionally pleasing at Fifth Avenue eatery Gyro Station.

You’re not coming here for the atmosphere — this is a take-out/eat-in joint with a few tables at the back, and an array of classic Middle Eastern dishes displayed at the serving counter at the front. And the paintings of a big city skyline and Coney Island on the walls do not carry the diner away to the sands of the Sahara.

But the food does.

Flattened falafels ($1.99 for an appetizer portion) are crispy and golden, with little chunks of chickpea still palpable in the dough — perfect foils to the tart yogurt dipping sauce that accompanied them.

The baba ganoush ($2.99) is subtly smoky, the way it should be, with the flavor of the flames that licked the eggplant’s skin gently permeating the mashed flesh of the vegetable.

Grape leaves ($2.99 for six) stuffed with rice are tart and refreshing, providing an elegant counterpoint to the richness of the baba ganoush and the humus ($2.99) — mashed chickpeas spiked with lemon juice.

Shawarma ($9.99 for platter with rice and salad) — lamb grilled on a vertical spit and shaved off — is succulent, the tender inside meat contrasting pleasantly with the lightly charred exterior.

Cubes of grilled chicken served on a bed of rice ($9.99 for the chicken kebab platter with rice and salad) are equally mouth-watering — delicate yet distinctive.

The portions are generous; mounds of yellow rice and large scoops of classic Middle Eastern-style salads — chunks of tomato and cucumber, tossed with lettuce and parsley — accompany the meat, which itself is too much for a single serving.

And the pace is amazingly relaxed for a restaurant that looked more like fast food than anything else. There was lots of time for conversation and conviviality both before and after the meal arrived.

Almost like the Eastern Mediterranean. Almost.

Gyro Station [6917 Fifth Ave. near Bay Ridge Avenue in Bay Ridge, (718-748-3271)]. Credit cards accepted. Open seven days, 11 am to 4 am.

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At Asia's crossroads

By Helen Klein

The complex flavors and textures of Malaysian cuisine are relatively unknown, even in Brooklyn’s expansive culinary universe.

This is food that is as familiar as it is surprising, evoking memories of Chinese, Thai and Indian specialities even as it strikes out on its own intensely flavorful path.

Fortunately for Brooklynites, a wide array of Malaysian culinary delights can be savored at Sunset Park’s Nyonya, one of only a handful of restaurants in the borough that specialize in the cuisine of this Asian crossroads.

Redolent of curry and coconut, main dishes and appetizers alike evoke a sense of offbeat exoticism — tropical paradise meets urban hotpot, served up in a bright, wood-paneled restaurant with the ambiance of an island outpost.

Overall, dishes at Nyonya, like the flavors they unfurl on the tongue, tease and tantalize, yet ultimately satisfy.

Noodle dishes abound. Mee siam ($6.95), stir-fried rice vermicelli studded with shrimp and chunks of tofu and dusted with chopped peanuts, is sweet and spicy at once, with the smoky flavor of food fresh from the grill providing a third grace note.

If you prefer your noodles bathed in broth, try one of the eatery’s baker’s dozen of soups that range from the familiar to the exotic — including clay pot pearl noodles soup ($6.50) highlighting shrimp, pork and egg if you’re seeking a level of familiarity; ginger duck noodles ($5.95) if you are mildly adventurous; and fish head soup with rice noodles ($6.95) if you are an uninhibited diner.

Among the most-appealing dishes on the menu is roti canai ($2.95), or Indian pancake, a freshly baked flatbread served with a curried dipping sauce that’s the perfect culinary warm-up on a cold winter’s night.

Also yummy was Nyonya kari ayam ($10.95), chicken stewed in a curried base enriched with the subtle tartness of lemongrass, and chicken satay ($6.25), small cubes of meat with a crisp, caramelized exterior threaded onto wooden skewers and served with chunks of cucumber and purple onion.

Some of the dishes were as much a feast for the eyes as for the palate. Sarang burong ($11.95), a melange of meats and vegetables cascaded out of a fried taro bowl, and looked absolutely gorgeous with its kaleidoscopic colors. Nonetheless, there are certainly some dishes at Nyonya that are not for the timid. On the menu, an appetizer of crispy pork intestines ($6.95) comes with a warning for customers to “ask server for advice before you order!!!”

Next time, maybe…

Nyonya [5323 Eighth Ave. at 54th Street in Sunset Park, (718) 633-0808]. Cash only. Open seven days.

Photo: The coconut jumbo prawn at Nyonya. Photo by Noah Devereaux

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