Comments (0) Best Empanadas - 2010

Pamela's Delicatessen

Pamela Canales sold empanadas from her home for a dozen years before she opened this namesake delicatessen in 1992. It's actually more of a Chilean market/bakery/café/full-service restaurant than a deli, but call it what you will. We call it our home whenever the craving for an excellent empanada arises. Of the five varieties offered, our favorites are the ones filled, respectively, with a "pino" of chopped beef, lots of onions, black olives, hard-boiled eggs, and raisins, and a strange-sounding but delicious duo of minced razor clams and Parmesan cheese. Dabbing some piquant salsa known as pebre on top makes them that much tastier. Other choices are chicken, cheese, and mixed seafood, each encased and baked in pale, sturdy empanada shells that are twice the size of the daintier, more familiar Argentine types — which makes the $2 to $3.25 price an especially good deal. Order some empanadas to go from the bakery section, or grab an affordable bottle of Chilean wine from one of the market shelves up front, take a seat in the quaint dining room in back, and enjoy an epicurean empanada experience — for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.