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| - Homey, Delicious, Unique.. All words that come to mind when I think back on my dinner here.
First off.. they do take reservations for party's of 5 or more. However a reservation at this small place really just means a bump up in line. Do not go expecting to sit and eat right away. Its a small place.. and is popular enough to keep it busy with at least one or two groups waiting outside during the weekend dinner rush.
This place is run by a husband/wife team and I can only assume the younger gentlemen was also part of the family. Can you beat food prepared by someones mom/grandma? Maybe if yours is from the region your menu is from. Otherwise I highly doubt it.
The Food:
Bandeja Paisa:
This is what I came for. After watching Anthony Bourdain chow down on this in the Columbian episode I HAD.. HAD.. HAD to have this. Chorizo, chicharones con carne, fried eggs, fried plantains, plantain patacones, arepa, beans, avocado, carne asada and rice. The only way this could have been better would be to have more of it! How do you make bacon better? You leave the pork back on it and deep fry it. Even with my cold everything tasted amazing.
Empanadas:
We had three types chicken, beef, pork.
Chicken: Was in more of a flaky, buttery, pastry type shell. I would say this was more of a pot pie in a portable package.
Beef/Pork: Both of these were more traditional. My taste buds were a bit off so I had a hard time telling which was which. One of them was slightly sweet and FREAKING AMAZING. I could have sat and ate a dozen of those. I believe it was the pork one that was sweet.
Seafood Soup(Sorry don't remember the name):
I'm not a fan of things with fins unless they are in a fish tank ;) My friend has this soup. I was a little worried because it smelled VERY VERY fishy and supposedly the only seafood in it was shrimp. To me when a shrimp has a very strong fish smell that's bad news. I have a feeling it was a fish based stock and that's where the aroma came from. Either way he really liked it.
Fillet with Fried Potatoes(Again didn't catch the name of this. Sorry for the major fail):
This was a grilled fillet sliced in a dark sauce with "fried potatoes" which in this case were french fry's. Looked a little odd to me but my friend loved it.
Ecuadorian Tamale:
So after reading the other reviews I decided to skip on the red and green as they seemed to be standard Mexican tamales. Could I be missing out? Maybe but I was there for home field advantage cooking. So I got the Ecuadorian tamale. This was cooked in a banana leaf. I was having a hard time getting the banana leaf flavor but the rest of my party assured me it was there. Again.. stuffy nose :(
Flan de Coco:
Wow.. two of my favorite things in one, coconut and flan. This was pretty good. I can't say it was earth shattering but the coconut was not overly sweet. The "syrup" had a nice deep caramelized flavor. The flan had a nice texture. I have had better but it was nothing to complain about.
Plantain Torte:
This was not what I expect and in a good way! They had mushed up the plantains into more of a pumpkin pie like texture. I believe it was also mixed with either a blueberry or blackberry as the color was slightly blue and it had a hint of one of those two berries. This was my favorite out the the two. It was the perfect sweet. The texture was very nice. It didn't give me that instant insulin shock affect from a sugar laden dessert.
I will be back! Sadly I'm not sure when because I have many many other places to try but I'll get back there sometime. There were still a decent amount of things on the menu I would have liked to try out.
Pros:
Super tasty food prepared by someones equivalent of your grandma.
Very friendly service.. Think dinner at a aunt/uncles house.
Wide variety from many Latin American areas.
Cons:
Only thing I can come up with really is the wait. This is more of a personal thing. I really don't like to wait for a seat somewhere. I believe you should be able to make a reservation and be seated within 5 minutes of arrival. But considering this is a mom and pop place, the type of place I would rather see everywhere instead of these chains, I can learn to live with a wait :)
I feel its a tad on the pricey side for a mom and pop.
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