The Emperor of Tempura

When it comes to fried food, there are two basic truisms: Everything tastes better when it’s fried, and even the best fried food soon becomes a heavy, greasy mess.BarFry, a new tempura bar in the West Village, offers spectacular validation of the first maxim while turning the second one on its head. If you can think of it, chef Josh DeChellis, formerly of Sumile, BarFry can fry it. And they do it with such a light, clean touch that it barely even feels like you’re eating fried food. It’s more like you’re enjoying a near-endless array of nuggets and morsels, each of which just happens to be juicier and crispier than that it has any right to be.Tempura is the Japanese method of batter frying. True tempura, which dates back about 400 years, to the time when Portuguese missionaries arrived in Japan, usually involves small pieces of vegetables or seafood. Since the morsels are small, the frying oil is typically heated only to about 175 degrees (most deep-frying is done somewhere between 300 and 375) and the cooking time tends to be short. When properly executed, the result is the best of both worlds: deliciously juicy, flavorful food with very little greasiness.BarFry’s tempura is an excellent example of the form. The menu features 17 tempura options (plus there are usually a few specials), all served in small portions and most priced around $5, so you can mix and match to create a varied meal. All the pieces are served on raised wire racks, so there’s no pooled oil, and four dipping sauces are provided: red chili citrus, jalapeño soy (the real winner of the bunch, striking an ideal balance between spicy and salty), sweet miso, and wasabi remoulade.The tempura fare breaks down into three primary categories: seafood, vegetables, and meat.The seafood offerings are uniformly superb, beginning with wonderfully tender scallops that any New England fry shack would be proud to serve. Other standouts include cod that puts the standard fish ‘n’ chips rendition to shame, calamari that could hold its own at any Italian restaurant in town, shrimp with a nicely oceanic snap, and a fine crab cake. But the real showstopper is the yellowfin tuna — three small pieces of very rare, very tasty fish, each one encrusted with a thin outer ring of fried batter. A comparative splurge at $10, it’s the priciest item on the tempura roster, and worth every penny.As for vegetable options, the fried pumpkin — crispy strips, a few inches long by half an inch wide— has a fresh, vegetal flavor. Then there are string beans, which taste farm-fresh and have just the lightest batter coating. Eggplant, shiitake mushroom, miniature peppers round out the top-notch options, all addictively munchable. The one dud, strangely enough: onion rings, which are several grades below those found at a steakhouse or even a solid diner. Traditionalists will turn up their noses at the meat category, since tempura doesn’t usually venture into the realm of land-based protein. And perhaps there are good reasons for that, given that BarFry’s meat offerings are pedestrian. Pork cutlet, chicken cutlet, and chicken-fried steak are all ho-hum, and a beef beignet is only slightly better. The one keeper is an outstanding pork dumpling, which is sensationally juicy. Even tempura purists will want to try it.There’s also a small roster of po’boy tempura sandwiches (largely forgettable, because the bread and the mayonnaise-based sauces overwhelm the lightness of the tempura), and a burger (the mere sight of which seems very out of place in a restaurant such as this one), but don’t overlook the specials board, which during recent visits has featured some excellent yellowtail sashimi and a lovely mushroom squid soup.Whatever else you end up ordering, try a few of the side dishes, which offer a bit of textural relief from the uniformly crunchy tempura fare. The highlight is a bowl of sautéed pea leaves tossed with lemon zest and XO sauce (the Asian sauce made with minced dried seafood, chili, onion, and garlic), which comes off like baby spinach elevated to a higher plane. Plump cherry tomatoes tossed with basil pickles, hot sauce, and olive oil are the best cold option, and the only problem with the wasabi and olive oil pickles is that you may fill up on them. Most fried food is so heavy and filling that the thought of dessert is somewhat sickening. It’s a measure of BarFry’s success that you can eat your way up and down the tempura list without having that reaction when the waiter asks if you’d like to try the green tea cupcake, which is both sweet and tastes unmistakably like tea. There’s also an assortment of Asian-accented ice creams and sorbets, highlighted by a black sesame ice cream with a magnificently toasted undercurrent.It’s worth noting, incidentally, that tempura ice cream isn’t unheard of in Japan. But BarFry doesn’t offer this — at least, not yet.(BarFry, 50 Carmine St., between Bedford and Bleecker streets, 212-929-5050).

The Emperor of Tempura

The Emperor of Tempura

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