Little Pepper

The servers may speak only Mandarin, but you get the idea.

This very welcoming Sichuan restaurant (a.k.a. Xiao La Jiao) has an English-language menu that's better spell-checked than most, and the descriptions are generally in the ballpark. Diced rabbit meat in red chili sauce ($4.95) offered plenty of tender tidbits on nearly as many little bones; our table picked away at this dish throughout the meal but didn't have the desire to finish it. Pork dumplings in hot sauce ($3.50), though flat, slippery, and much harder to corral, disappeared quickly.

Order the enhanced pork with salt and pepper ($8.95), and you may find that your server knows the English word "fatty"; smile away this warning and have them bring on the bacon. Under all that cilantro, lamb with hot and spicy sauce and cumin ($11.95) was quite good, too, though it might have been just a little crispier.

Sichuan pickled black-eyed beans with minced pork, fish filet in Chinese ketchup, crust of cooked rice with pork, fried potato in hot sauce — perhaps even the bullfrog with Sichuan pickled hot pepper — await return visits.

Little Pepper (a.k.a. Xiao La Jiao)
133-43 Roosevelt Ave. (Prince St.-College Point Blvd.), Flushing, Queens
718-939-7788