The plate in front of me weighs at least three pounds, maybe five. A huge heap of yellow rice and red beans is flanked by equally large mounds of stewed chicken and beef. A bone-white chunk of steamed cassava perches precariously on the peak of this mountain of food, ready to scoop up the delicious-smelling gravy pooling on my plate. There is no way that I will be able to finish all of this food, or even half of it. The leftovers I take home with me provide lunches for three the next day. I've spent all of $7. I'm seriously considering giving up cooking. I can't do it as cheaply, or even half as well as Yesenia Cruz.

Cruz, along with her husband, Luis Tejeda, owns the 6-year-old El Sabor de la Isla on Norton Street. Formerly of La Palma on North Clinton, the pair, along, with Cruz's mother, Ana, and a handful of other helpers, turn out sensational, abundant, and astonishingly cheap Dominican food six days a week, and export the same food to RIT on Mondays and Wednesdays throughout the year. Like all Caribbean cuisines, Dominican food is a true creole - a mixture of native Taino foodstuffs with African, Spanish, and modern American influences. Where other island cuisines tend toward the wild and spicy, Dominican food is mild and meaty, delivering deep and complex flavors that are only achieved through the low and slow cooking in which Cruz specializes.

At El Sabor, almost everything that's available to you is laid out on a steam table just inside the front door: you step up, tell the nice woman behind the counter what size you would like (small, medium, and large plates are $5, $7, and $9, respectively), and then start pointing or asking questions.

Your first big decision is between rice or mashed plantains (mangu, to those familiar with Dominican food). The rice is a deep, rich saffron, fluffy yet firm. Achiote paste, which gives it its distinct yellow color, also brings a fair amount of garlic, oregano, and black pepper along with it. Topped with a garlicky stew of red beans, this could make a substantial and satisfying lunch on its own. Mangu, on the other hand, has little flavor of its own, but picks up tastes very easily. At El Sabor they add cheese and cream to the mash to lend it a bit of savor. For soaking up the thick stews with which the rest of the plate is going to be covered, though, the mangu is your best choice. (Cruz told me that she also makes mofongo - plantains mashed with garlic, olive oil, and pork cracklings - when people ask for it.)

After choosing your starch, the real fun begins. All three of the principle stews that are available on the steam table are deep brown and rich-looking, the gravy thick with spices and intensely fragrant. The pork stew contains generous chunks of meat along with peppers and onions. The meat itself might be fattier than you are used to, but the fat is part of its charm: it adds a buttery component and helps to release spice and herbal notes in the sauce. The beef stew is made with shortribs braised with vegetables in one of several cauldron-sized braising pans with which El Sabor's open-plan kitchen is equipped. The beef is so tender that it falls apart on the fork, becoming a sort of condiment added to each bite of the rice with which it combines so well.

Of the three, the chicken stew is my favorite. Deep brown and sweet, the secret to both the color and the flavor is sugar, which Cruz reduces to a caramel in the pan before adding other ingredients. While the cuts of chicken are going to be unfamiliar to most (instead of being cut into the usual serving pieces, the chickens in this stew are cut into more or less bite-sized chunks, bone and all), the stew itself benefits from the interaction between sugar and marrow, which creates an aromatic and velvety gravy. A generous shot of Tejeda's hot sauce - a zippy mixture of three hot peppers, black pepper, garlic, and vinegar - cuts right through any of the residual fat in the stews, making the flavors pop.

El Sabor also offers two different varieties of roasted meat: pernil (roasted pork) and "baked" chicken, both superb. The pernil is rubbed down with cumin, garlic, coriander, pepper, and salt, then roasted until you could very nearly scoop out the meat with a spoon. Roasted with the skin on, each chunk of meat also benefits from a layer of fat and the crunch of rendered skin on the surface (if you prefer your meat without the cracklings, tell them, and they'll be happy to give you the meat alone). The baked chicken is one of those simple preparations that you wonder why you never discovered yourself. Leg quarters, rubbed down with achiote paste and garlic, are simply cooked until the skin crisps and the meat releases from the bone (the only thing that holds it together is the tightly stretched skin). At first glance dry looking, the underlying meat is intensely chicken-y and juicy.

On the off chance that you still have room for dessert (or if, like me, you leave with one or more heavy take-out containers), you might want to consider crossing the street for a visit to Maria Las Delicias Bakery. Maria Alvarado makes delicious, cream cheese-filled quesitos, rum cakes, cookies, and, my favorite, pastaleon. Most convenience foods have their origins in real food, and there is little doubt in my mind that the Pop-Tart originated with the pastaleon, an almost creamy filling of fruity guava paste surrounded by layers of light butter pastry. Drop one of these into your lunch box alongside the leftovers from El Sabor and you will be the envy of your friends and coworkers for days to come.

El Sabor de la Isla

1019 Norton St.

266-2200

Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.