Hanging with Habib at his new place.

The old Habib's Place was one of the first restaurants in the revived East Village. On 9th St. near Ave. A, from the mid-80s until 2001 when Habib lost his lease, the restaurant was a neighborhood institution. To many it was just another falafel joint, albeit one with a constant classic-jazz soundtrack, close proximity to Brownies and an unusually extroverted proprietor.

Habib put cucumbers, olives and hot pickled peppers in every sandwich. Get to know him and you'd find that he's not Middle Eastern but Algerian, and that his Place was even better for sitdown meals of North African couscous than for a quick, late-night bite. Habib gave out food to the homeless when he closed at night for two excellent reasons: He was a generous soul, and he didn't like selling leftovers. Both qualities made his restaurant ideal for regulars.

Now he's back, and he hasn't changed a bit. The new Habib's Place is on St. Marks, also near Avenue A. It's bigger inside-big enough that if he turns tables, Habib will be able to take daily supplies of fresh ingredients, as he prefers to. So far, though, business is a little slow. He's limiting two of his best dishes, shawarma and merguez, to "as available" status. It seems most of Habib's current patrons are former neighbors on pilgrimage. Despite the friendly, laidback atmosphere old friends bring, this is a shame. A recent warm Friday night found young East Villagers packed into several inferior restaurants on Habib's new block, among them the North African joint Cafe Mogador. The kids just don't know, so pardon me for spelling it out: If you live around here and don't visit Habib's, you're missing out.

The humus, babaganoush, tabouli and grape leaves are all decent. Better starters are Habib's shakshouka and zalouk. The former is a salad of partly pickled red and yellow peppers, still slightly crisp though saturated with zinging marinade. Zalouk is made from eggplants roasted and mashed, and the vegetable's flavor somehow comes off both smoothed-out and intensified.

The restaurant's dining room doesn't match the sophistication of its food, visually speaking. The jazz is perfect, though. A lack of pedestrian signifiers of refinement-tablecloths, color schemes, designer lighting-is actually part and parcel of Habib's Place's more worldly sort of sophistication. Aromas set the mood. Hearing the Ellington/Mingus/Roach album Money Jungle while noshing at Habib's was like waking up. The formula for that record was: Sit the veteran down with the upstarts and let them jam.

It's a good idea to come to Habib's packing a bottle of wine that goes well with lamb. The shawarma is an ocean's width away from the pressed cylinders that rotate so unappetizingly off to the side of many New York falafel stands. Habib's strips of boneless meat are from a real, slow-roasted shank, and their taste stands up for itself unadorned (though you'll also probably want to try it with some harissa hot sauce as well). The shawarma and Habib's other entrees come either in a pita sandwich or as part of a large platter with salad and humus or baba.

The falafel and kebabs (chicken, beef, regular lamb and kefta, as available) are satisfying yet unexceptional. The dish not to miss is Habib's couscous, especially the bowl of it topped with merguez. The grainy pasta conveys a pure semolina flavor like some Jungian reminder of the dawn of agriculture. Stewed zucchini, carrots and turnips help fill up the bed. Habib's merguez is an excellent example of what's so special about this particular sausage. Others can taste either fresh or smoky. This is both. Spices and lean meat seem to have been mixed with three parts air before being stuffed in that supple sausage skin. No wonder the French went mad for the stuff.

Another great thing about the couscous: He serves a large bowl of stew broth on the side. I have a friend who goes out for North African regularly and isn't too proud to beg for some broth to moisten her couscous. She says she's lucky to get a quarter of what Habib supplies unprompted. It's fairly amazing stuff. Basically a tomato soup, its dynamic has nothing in common with the sweet/acid duality of Italian tomato dishes. Instead, starchy root vegetables and black pepper are the base notes, and the tomato ends up tasting like some red variety of autumn squash. Habib's couscous portions seem outrageously massive until you get into his regal broth.

Habib's appetizers and sandwiches are $3-$6; platters go for $7-$13. The baklava, lady fingers and bird's nests for dessert are $1.75. He serves no alcohol, but you can bring your own. Remember to call ahead to check on the availability of meat dishes-especially shawarma and merguez-until the man is as busy as he should be.

Habib's Place, 130 St. Marks Pl. (betw. 1st Ave. & Ave. A), 212-979-2243.

True Tapas

A new spin-off of Cafe El Portal, New York Press' 2002 pick for "Best New Mexican Restaurant" is New York's best new tapas bar. It's called Xicala.

It's funny that the parent restaurant is called "portal," because the offspring really feels like one?to Barcelona's labyrinthine Gothic Quarter. Enter, and find the place dark and tiny, with a back wall covered with chocolate-brown glass tiles. Balearic techno is pumping. Almost all the seats are at the bar. Everyone is drinking wine and, get this, smoking. Xicala is owner-operated, so puffing is permitted there until the state antismoking law goes into effect next month. Within five minutes you'll forget what city you're in.

The place has some excellent food, but the highlight might be Xicala's selection of wines by the glass. I zeroed in on Barranc ($7), an exquisite, mineraly white from Priorato, because white wine from that mountainous Catalonian region is hard to find here. A slightly fizzy dry Riesling ($8) and the bartender's recommendation of fruity Basa ($7) were no less satisfying. So far as I know, there's not a bum wine on the list.

The first tapas I tried was the tortilla española. Xicala's egg, potato and onion pie is of the heaping, greasily lip-smacking homemade variety. In most other New York tapas restaurants, the dish is just an omelet in a pie shape?all wrong. It should feel like it was baked by a real Spanish mother, and Xicala's proprietor claims his mother really does prepare a lot of the food (for El Portal as well as Xicala). On a return trip, the tortilla tasted more like Mom had made it a few days ago, so be careful.

The other tapas ($4) advance the same idea?that Xicala is importing what can't actually be imported. Order the codfish and you'll get a ceramic cup of casually ideal, cold Mediterranean seafood salad. The chorizo is ground meat spiced in the skillet and tossed with onions. The shrimp and calamari both are sauteed with tomatoes, garlic, herbs and oil. So much flavor gets into the broth, you can easily tell which cup a loose chunk of tomato came from?it will taste strongly of either hot shrimp or squid. The mushrooms, too, exemplify how dramatic a difference an expert saute makes.

Xicala's big plates are $12. One is house-cured salmon with black olives. The fish has a supple, pillowy texture, as if salt and spices lent the orange flesh a second life. The other large plates are selections of cheeses or sliced meats. The latter comes draped along the sides of a wooden boat. Decent prosciutto and mortadella were standard bearers, while a peppery salami kicked things up.

The bresola is a whole different story. You can tell as soon as the boat hits the bar that the stuff has been cooked by time alone. The fragrance gives off a hint of the true funk?that special variety of chemical food/air reaction that has nothing to do with rot. This bresola's taste has natural levels?an urban archeologically, history as a sandwich. It's probably not even legal here.

Xicala, 151B Elizabeth St. (betw. Broome & Kenmare Sts.), 212-219-0599.