An Offal Romance

Love with all of your heart, tongue, tripe …

By JENNIFER CACICIO + CHRISTINE LIU

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Have you ever loved someone so much that you wished you could actually take a bite out of them? (Eating her out doesn't count, but keep it up.) We suggest the next best thing: offal. What could be sexier than feeding each other hearts ... literally?

Green Street Grill

Green Street offers their nightly offal for only four dollars a plate, which as far as we're concerned, is an absolute steal. Cheap gamble, too—the dish's contents change regularly.

On a recent night we enjoyed a smooth and creamy terrine made of chicken hearts, chicken liver and braised lamb shank, served with grainy mustard and (believe it or not) tiny wedges of grapefruit that were perfect additions. We hear they've had everything from crispy pig ears to succulent lamb belly in the past, so we're pretty sure you can't go wrong.

Plus, the cocktail and wine lists are superb and the bar is dark, cozy and laid-back—they probably wouldn't even kick you out for a little snuggling. [JC]

[280 Green St., Cambridge. 617.876.1655. greenstreetgrill.com]

Toro

Tapas are kind of sexy to begin with, as sharing many delicious dishes is always better than sharing just one. And Toro offers lots of innards.

Start with the lengua con lentejas ($10), smoked beef tongue with lentils and salsa verde. It kind of tastes like a fancy bologna, and the thin slivers of tongue are almost in the shape of pink construction paper hearts. Next try the tripa ($10), which is tripe (aka stomach lining) served with chickpeas, morcilla (pig's blood sausage) and sofregit—a traditional Catalan style of preparation that involves a slow cooking of vegetables such as onion, garlic and tomatoes. I must admit that the squishiness of the tripe grossed me out a little, but my date gobbled the rest up happily.

The real treat of the evening was the foie gras con chutney de pera ($6), which we almost didn't order because by now foie gras is the most ho-hum offal around. This one was served seared atop a pear and bacon chutney and a piece of toast (as opposed to fava beans and a nice Chianti). [JC]

[1704 Washington St., South End, Boston. 617.536.4300]

Anise

Anise—big sister of Medford's Chilli Garden—stands nobly as an upscale Sichuan powerhouse. Any Chinese restaurant worth its beef brazenly busts out the animal parts, but for a place that at one point served a dish of duck tongues with soy bean paste, the offal here is luxuriously textured comfort food.

Beef tongue mixed with Sichuan peppercorn oil and minced green scallion ($7.95) goes down like lean roast beef with a refreshingly numbing bite. Thinly sliced so the texture is more gelatinous than cartilage-crunch, pig ear with fresh cucumber ($6.95) tempers spice with cool vegetal crunch. But the sliced beef shank, stomach—yes, the menu actually says "stomach"—and tendon with fresh celery, minced peanuts and spicy garlic sauce ($6.95) marshals a depth of flavor while packing serious spice.

You can interpret the astonishingly underpopulated restaurant as either unsettlingly creepy or romantically secluded, but be thankful you'll have enough room to sprawl for canoodling and spicy nose-blowing alike. [CL]

[1 Kendall Sq., Cambridge. 617.577.8668. anisecambridge.com]

Café Belo

Like a lot of the other local churrascarias in the area, Café Belo is a buffet, and I'll just be forthcoming by saying that the draw here is not the ambience. The chicken hearts, however, might just be.

Other offerings include pork trimmings such as ears, tail and feet, but if they're all out (as they were when we stopped in), you will not be disappointed by a simpler order such as said hearts and plain old pork sausage.

You can eat there or take out, or better yet, have it delivered. That way you can cuddle on the couch with your honey and have hearts brought to your door for dinner—fleshy delights for only $6.99 per pound. [JC]

[181 Brighton Ave., Allston. 617.783.4858. cafebelo.com]