Earlier this Autumn, my local source for artisanal home-made house-made tofu near Powerhouse Circle, East Asia, was replaced by a strange newcomer called Doowee (Doo Wee?) and Rice.  I mourned the loss of East Asia’s homey no frills atmo and amazing layered tofu but I popped in to Doo Wee to see what was up.  I found out that what is up is vaguely blade-runneresque decor chicken hearts.  Crispy fried chicken hearts, that is.  With fries and sauce. And scallions, but really, I’m mainly talking about the chicken hearts.

Did I mention they were crispy and fried?  Sure, they have other stuff, spicy chicken wings, fluffy bao baos, rice bowls, noodle dishes, soups, but really, once you’ve had the “Heart-y Fries,” a sort of deranged fusion poutine, the rest all seems trite.  And I say “deranged” with a great deal of love.  For $8 you get probably more chicken hearts that you really should have, plus a serious helping of french fries and “great white sauce” (I didn’t ask, and you probably shouldn’t either)  Maybe if I had not been distracted and ordered a bao bao I could have finished it, but the leftover helping was nearly as good for lunch the next day. [Dear colleagues, I will not apologize for microwaving chicken hearts at the office and neither will I share them with you!]

These are the best chicken hearts I’ve had since that night in Sao Paulo when I was almost killed by soccer fans, and that’s saying something.  (And now that we have Fogo de Chao in Boston, maybe you can get those a little more conveniently, but be warned they are not mentioned on the website)

Back to our story, such as it is.  I also had some tasty chicken hearts at Moksa in Cambridge, but I’m going to have to put Doowee’s hearts on another level, and that’s not only on a price-per-heart basis.  The trail of chicken offal continued last week at Casa B in Union Square, arguably the Brooklyn of Somerville.

Casa B offered “corazones de pollo en licor 43” (that’s the number of the licor, the price was $9)  but I was drawn deeper into the chicken guts by the next item, “mollejas de pollo” because as it turns out, “mollejas” is spanish for “pupik” and who can resists a chicken pupik? Not I.  For those late to the limeduck, we’re talking gizzards.

Yes, that secondary stomach full of rocks, when skillfully prepared with sautéed onions can be a transcendant treat.  There’s no photo because Casa B is a dark sort of place and I refuse to pop a flash inside a restaurant, but let me tell you, the presentation was superb, and the gizzards light and tender, not at all organ-like, even though I guess they really are organs.  For about the same price as Doowee’s hearty fries, Casa B delivers a much smaller portion with just a big a taste.

I strongly recommend you think outside your usual chicken parts, in Somerville and beyond.