Buffalo Rising Online

If you head west down Hertel, past Elmwood and away from the hustle and bustle of the street's eastward retail, you'll find Papi's Family Restaurant, a humble establishment serving up authentic Puerto Rican cuisine.

As we entered Papi's on a recent visit we overheard a patron sitting at the counter remark to the manager, "You have the best pastelillos in the city." Now, I haven't personally tested this theory by visiting all of the establishments who serve pastelillos in Buffalo, but I can verify that Papi's serves an incredibly tasty version of this handheld snack.

We dined as a group and thought it best to share dishes. We ordered nearly every kind of pastelillo on the menu. Partially because we thought they'd be smaller, but mostly because they all sounded so good we couldn't make up our minds. Pastelillos are dough pockets filled with your choice of meat, seafood, or veggies, then fried. They are savor…