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| - Gorgeous atmosphere in this newly renovated restaurant. Staff was friendly and helpful with the menu. My husband and I love family style meals where you get to nibble and taste a little of everything ordered to the table. This place was good for that.
Guacamole was full of flavour and the chips came out hot and fresh.
Empanada had such a nice crisp pastry with a good heat in the sauce and the sweet taste of Gouda in the middle. It was a little small considering it's not loaded with filling, perhaps they should offer two empanadas for the cost, however we did enjoy it.
We then had the Cochinita pibil tacos. The flavour was perfect, the taco shell really held up to the amount of meat, didn't break or go soggy. My only complaint was that it was a little greasy/fatty. It was far from dry as I had read in other reviews, and there was a generous amount of meat in it, maybe just cut out some of the fat when serving?!?
We then shared the braised beef. Very tender and a good size portion. The sauce was a little flat, mainly tasted like tomato sauce and we expected a little more flavour given the cultural influences. We also felt like it could have been served with a side of some sort to help absorb the sauce. It was still enjoyable and we ate every bite, it was just a bit of a let down given it cost $26. Probably won't order that dish again unless it's improved in some way.
We skipped on dessert as they only offered a cupcake which they were out of and one other dish that sounded too sweet. Would like to see some sort of take on a churro as a dessert option, they always go well with Mexican type cuisine.
All in all we did enjoy our dining experience, it's nice to have some new flavours in Pickering as we have grown tired of all the pubs, chains and burger joints we seem to keep getting. We often have to travel downtown Toronto to get anything close to this flavour palette. We will be back for sure, may try some of the other taco options next time and skip the expensive meat dishes.
Pickering really needs more restaurants like this. We've been to bar taco in the USA and it was amazing, so is La Carnita in Toronto and our recent new fav, Antojo in Halifax. These trendy taco street food restaurants would do so well in Pickering. Come on restaurant entrepreneurs, open one already!
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