Henan Feng Wei

This regional Chinese restaurant specializes in the food of the Henan province, in the north of China. Dumplings are big (literally and in terms of popularity), and here you can order steamed pork-and-leek or pork-and-cabbage, with black vinegar on the table serving as a dipping sauce. Pretty much everything else on the menu is some sort of soup — there’s a sour variety with more of the dumplings; another kind, lamb lo mein, turns out to be thick hand-pulled wheat noodles immersed in a creamy broth; in still another variety, beef broth is really just a vehicle for uncannily matzoh-ball-textured meatballs. The spicy “Big Tray of Chicken” is not a soup but rather bony shards of fowl braised in a cauldron of chiles, anise, caraway, and Sichuan peppercorns, among other spices, the whole pot velvety with chicken fat. That’s probably the brief menu’s best dish, unless you find a winner among the cold salads behind a glass case, which change and which you’ll have to point at to order. Many are slicked in red chile oil, a nice break from the broth-y main courses.