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Showing results for tags 'Honduran'.
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With a tittle like that, maybe you are expecting tuxedo shirted waiters and mariachi music in the background {ala Samanthas) and you oculdn't be more wrong. First off, instead of a brightly painted home like interior, the place is brightly lit in the middle of an Asian owned Mercato in a strip mall on Ennalls Ave in Wheaton {even thought the card insists on Ennalls Eve!}. The staff is a varied roster of very friendly, if English limited Latina's usually presided over by one of the owners. The menu, up until the printing of trifold cards with the menu printed on both sides, consisted of bad pictures on the wall. There is no sign outside with any name, and before the aforementioned cards, I heard it called only Juanita's Kitchen, and that was only once. We are the only folk I have ever seen int he place who were neither the owners nor Latino. Lots of Older Latino Dad's being taken thee by their sons. Women, almost exclusively, cook there {aside from Kay}. The food: Spectacular! Better than any of the myriad other choices serving up DC's signature combo of Salvadoran, Honduran & Tex Mex. Last night, we pointed to one of the pictures, labeled enchilladas, with another non readable name which turned out to be a huge pile of chicken fried to a golden brown with skin as crispy as that of the roast pig at Din sum, if not more so, atop a massive amount of fried plantains smothered in shredded cabbage and doused with mayo,ketchup and salsa. Had I known what it was, I would have never ordered it and my life would be lessened for the lack. If course my life may be lessened anyways from the cholesterol! When I was growing up, my teen years were spent delivering furniture for my Dad's furniture store in South Central. One highlight was the occasional trip to Queen Bee's {or was it aunt Bee's} near the infamous corner of Normandy & Florence where massive amounts of food could be had for a pittance and the dishes came either plain {with 2 sides} or smothered {with two sides and something to cover the main dish}. Inthe case of the fried chicken, it was smothered in cole slaw with a touch of salsa and the dish last night approached the memory of my last meal at Bee's! We ahd one pupusa "revuelta" or mixed cheese and pork. The pupusas are patted by hand and griddles to order. They come out greaseless {all the lard stays in the dough where it belongs}, crispy on the outside with burnt spots and a lush, incendiarilyy hot filling. Kay ordered a sopa di res that was completely untouched because of the massive amount of chicken. Two Tamarindo and a tip that brought wide eyes and big smiles from the ladies for $25. Other amazing dishes include: Sopa di Pollo when they have it. Carne Asada provided you have good teeth and the willingness to chew in order toget a gamy seasoned tough pieceof steak down the old gullet {accompanied by massively good black beans and crappy rice}. Lengua al Guisada is amazing: stewed till tender tongue with beans and rice. Not my style was a hugely rich and greasy balliades which is a sort of cross between a turn over and a quesadilla: a rich doughy tortilla/pastry folded over melted white cheese, black beans & avocado slices with chunks of meat. We spend between $15 and $25 for dinner for two. We gain insight to another culture thru the Novellas or the talk/talent shows on the TVs and we have a great meal in the bargain. 2521 Ennalls Eve {sic}, Wheaton MD 20902 301-933-5843 Hours approximately 6am 'til 10pm but they have been known to be closed by 9:30. -
A couple of times, I've ordered Baliadas (also spelled Baleadas) at Sofia Pupuseria (purveyors of Atol de Chuco) which, bizarrely, has an awesome and enormous dollar-a-pound laundromat attached to it in the rear, complete with children's play area and mini-market kiosks. Baliadas (this is how they spell them at Sofia's) are a Honduran hybrid between a Burrito and a Taco, with a thicker, tougher tortilla than you generally see in the U.S. The last time I ordered one, the crumbled cheese they used was brutal - it was like a pungent feta, but to an extreme level of saltiness, or acerbity, or something of that sort. I'm guessing this was Cotija, but I've had Cotija many times, and this seemed particularly severe, which may have been because some of it was delivered in grape-sized clumps, rather than being completely powdery, but I'm wondering if this might have been something like Queso Seco Nicaraguense, or some other Latin American cheese used primarily as a salting agent (imagine getting a grape-sized clump of tangy salt). These things are so close to being delicious, but between the invariably overcooked nuggets of meat, and the impossibly aggressive cheese, they're also close to being unpleasant. Incidentally, if you've ever had a queso fresco that has turned and become ammoniated, it's arguably the worst thing in the world, and the taste stays with you for days. This only happened to me once, in Little Mexico, and just thinking about it makes me wretch. On a more general note, I'm curious what people would consider to be the best Central American restaurant in the area - considering how many there are, I can't think of a single one that I could say is great. Bonus points if you can name (without looking) the two countries in Central America that don't span the entire width of the isthmus (answer here). PS - Anytime you want to trip someone up, ask them how many countries there are in North America: They'll always say three.
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Today I had one of the most unusual things I've ever eaten (or in this case, drunk): Atol chuco ($3) - there are either spelling variations, or the place I had it (Sofia's Pupuseria) spelled it wrong. I can't even describe the drink - it was hot, thick but not too thick, sweet but not too sweet, and it clearly took some time to prepare: It was ladled out of a cooker. I think there are about five ingredients in this drink, and I could have gotten it with elote instead of chuco. Has anyone out there had this beverage, and if so, could you please tell me what in the *heck* I drank? It's about the most bizarre combination of things I've ever had in a beverage in my life. The version I had, I'm pretty sure, was Honduran. If you've ever had a Vietnamese "black bean" or "red bean" dessert, I'd put it somewhere on a par with those in terms of taking a meat-and-potatoes person out of their comfort zone - I'd never even *heard* of either of these words before - chuco, I was told, is some sort of pepper, but this drink was not spicy in the least. This drink is so foreign to me that, even though those two Wikipedia entries say what it is, I *still* don't know what it is. The color was mostly a type of mauve, but not entirely - like there was a mixture of purple yam and cassava - and there was a greenish-brown, powdered something-or-other on top, like brown sugar with cinnamon but not. I'm sorry I can't be more help, but I just had something really, really exotic, and the women working at Sofia's were laughing their asses off when I ordered it. Without getting too graphic, it's almost like I had a cup of hot, raspberry-tinged snot.
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The City Paper recently gave this place rave reviews. I was skeptical; El Charrito has my pupusa bar set high. But Mi Comalito delivers. The revuelta pupusa is a hair less delicious than El Charrito's, but far above many others I've had. The pork inside was crispy and loaded with cheese. Beans and plantains were almost as good as El Charritos as well. The tamale was average, eh you can't win them all. I'll be back to try the tacos, baleadas, and enchiladas. My major quibble is you can only order pupusas and tamales individually. Tacos come in threes, baleadas in twos.- 2 replies
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- Charles North
- El Salvadoran
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