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Great things are coming, y'all!! Get excited! On April 1st, Frisco will be getting the first arepa restaurant in DFW, Arepa TX. We don't have that many places in Dallas that serve arepas. And those that do, do not put their focus on it. What is an arepa you ask? Arepas are Venezuelan pan fried corn flour cakes that are stuffed with sweet or savory fillings of choice. They are delicious! And they're gluten free, which is in line with the whole gluten free trend that's happening right now. Also, different items can be made vegetarian or vegan by just eliminating a topping or two.
Arepa TX
5355 Dallas Pkwy #600
Frisco, TX 75034
(603) 366-8471
www.arepatx.com
Price: $-$$
I recently got an amazing sneak peek at the food. I was 1 of 2 people to be invited by @prestonroyalsw to dine at the chef (and owner's) home!! What an honor! I've been to a good amount of media/blogger events at this point but this is the first time I was invited to someone's home. The hospitality from the Arepa TX team was beyond amazing. From the moment we walked in, we were treated like friends and family. They were all just super friendly. We immediately smelled the food cooking and my mouth started to water. How amazing is it to have the chef cook for you in her own home? I geeked out a little. hehe.
They were plating when we got there. I cannot wait! We got some drinks and sat around chatting with Jammil (the chef's son who is handling the management and finances of the restaurant) and his wife, Susana. Along with their friend, Eric, who's in charge of Development and Design. We got some background and insider info on the development of the restaurant and menu items. Everything sounded delicious and I was getting hungry.
We were seated in the dining room and I was glad that several of the family members sat down to dine with us. The conversation just kept flowing like we've all known each other for a while. Then they started bringing out the food.
First up... Brisket & Chimichurri Arepa (tender and juicy slow cooked brisket in an ancho and guajillo sauce with pickled onions and avocado). It was served with a side of Plantano Frito (sweet fried plantains) and Seafood Cocktail (shrimp and crab cocktail in spicy clamato, with crunchy white onion and avocado).
Everything was fresh and made from scratch. I'll start with the arepa... pressed thin and the outer layers were nice and crispy. The brisket and chimichurri combo was fantastic. Beef is always great with chimichurri... and of course, they make their own chimichurri! It's so creamy... but there's no cream! I've never had chimichurri of that consistency. I loved it. I poured it on everything that night. The brisket was tender and the combination of flavors was well rounded. The plantain chips were great too. Super crispy but not at all greasy. Went really well with the shrimp/crab cocktail and/or chimichurri sauce. I had a refill on the chips. I'd take these over potato chips any day! The shrimp and crab cocktail was a nice little side. The addition of the crab added a variety of texture, plus it's more seafood, so who's gonna complain. :P One of my friends that went with me is Mexican and she said she makes her shrimp cocktail with very similar flavors. So it's pretty damn authentic, I'd say.
The next one is their "Banh Mi" Arepa (tender chicken with radish, carrot, cucumber, and avocado crema).
I'm usually weary when I hear non-Vietnamese restaurants say they have Banh Mi. But you can't take this literally... they have components of a typical banh mi, but the flavors are very much their own. The chicken that was in there was unreal! It was incredibly tender and that was probably my favorite protein of the night. The radish, carrots, and cucumber added freshness. And the avocado crema was a nice creamy element. It was really fantastic. I don't care what they call it, I can eat this every day.
After the 2nd arepa, they realized we were all getting full so they made a mini version for the 3rd one. They will have both sizes at the restaurant btw, to accommodate all appetites. The last one we sampled was their Vegetarian Arepa (black beans, avocado, caramelized onions, sauteed peppers, queso fresco).
It had no meat, but can you believe that this was our favorite one? It had so much flavor!! Whatever that sauce was... I bow down to it. I can only imagine if I added the chicken from the Banh Mi one into this... it would be SO FREAKING AWESOME! :P
We also got to try some Yucca Frita ( crisp slices of yucca, served with chimichurri sauce). I love yucca fries and this is by far the best I've ever had. It was PERFECTLY fried and so crispy. When you see that translucency on the outside, you'll know you have a perfect fry. Yucca is a really starchy root, so to get it to that texture was amazing. I wanted to eat more... I was stuffed.
And then they brought out the desserts. haha. Luckily they were mini. They will also feature homemade custard popsicles at the restaurant. There are two sizes, regular and mini. These mini pops are so adorable! Mini Frozen Custard Popsicles: we got to try the Flan and Dark Chocolate flavors.
I'm so excited about the flan flavor... I love flan and this was great. My friend said she doesn't like normal flan, but loved this popsicle. Because these are frozen custard instead of regular popsicle mixture, they are a lot richer and more decadent. Just one or two mini ones had satisfied my sweet tooth. The dark chocolate was so smooooooth. Yum! I can't wait to try all the other flavors when they open. Supposedly they have a Horchata flavor too!
Like I said, get excited people! The food is freaking amazing and made with so much love. You can absolutely see the passion pouring out of everyone on the Arepa TX team. And I truly believe that when someone cooks with love, you can taste the difference. I think Arepa TX will do so well in Frisco, and cannot wait for them to expand through the rest of Dallas. Come to Rockwall, please! :P
I'm just still in awe of this phenomenal family team. They welcomed us into their homes with open arms, fed us amazing food, and showed us the love they have for their business. I really wish the best for them. Thank you Chef Mary Ann, Peter, Jammil, Susana, and Eric. This had been one of the best experiences for me to date. And a huge THANKS to @prestonroyalsw for inviting me and sharing this experience. :)
Their grand opening is April 1st. They will have some great deals I'm sure. Definitely go check them out. I want to try everything on the menu!
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Over Labor Day weekend, we went to Houston to visit my fiance's family. His parents live there and his sister from NYC also flew down. They wanted to take us out for a nice dinner to celebrate our engagement and also it was his parents' anniversary! So I started researching places to go and came across this place. I love Latin food. The menu looked delicious and we were able to get a reservation on Saturday night even though it was only a few days in advance.
Américas River Oaks
2040 W Gray St.
Houston, TX 77019
(832) 200-1492
https://www.cordua.com/
Price: $$$$
Only after I made the reservation did I discover that it was also Houston's Restaurant Week and Américas is participating! $35 a person for 3 course like in Dallas, and partial proceeds going to charity. :) They had so many choices on the RW menu. Excited!
The restaurant is located upstairs in a shopping center. As soon as we walked in, we started noticing all the decor. It was very unique! Then we saw a plaque that says Zagat's Best Decor Award in 2013. It was very whimsical. Lots of interesting shapes on the walls, chairs, lots of different textures too. I haven't seen a restaurant like this before. They had one wall with these giant popcorn all over, made with some sort of fabric? The booths' chairs were over the top and really cool.
The waiter came by to greet us, he was very nice. Took our drink orders and we got some Fried Plantains with 3 dips. All 3 were great, especially the chimichurri. I love plantains, these were fried to perfection. And with the sauces, yum! We were hooked.
My fiance's sister ordered a michelada, which is Mexican beer mixed with lime juice and assorted spices and peppers... kind of a Mexican bloody mary. Looked pretty cool, and quite spicy!
4 of us ordered from the RW menu, and his sister decided to order from the regular menu.
RW First Course:
Empanadas (flaky, golden-brown savory latin pastries): Beef (caramelized onions, cumin, malbec-soaked raisins, roasted peppers and olives with rocoto sauce); Chicken (pulled roasted chicken, red pepper, sherry, basil and candied pecans with avocado mousse).
I got one of each, and his mom got just chicken. Both were fantastic. The crust was flaky and crispy. But the sauces were the stars on both. I thought I would like the chicken better because of the avocado mousse but the rocoto sauce on the beef edged it out. It was amazing. I have no idea what rocoto is, but I can drink it!!!! Both had a ton of flavors. Definitely two thumbs up.
Cubana (black bean soup with onion-cilantro relish and provolone cheese served in a toasted sourdough bread boule).
My fiance got this. It looked so good. So cheesy and the soup was thick and full of beans. Really tasty. However, the bread bowl was hard to eat. And there was a lot of it. There really wasn't as much soup as it seemed. But that may be a good thing since this is only first course!
Fish Taco (mahi-mahi, cabbage, rocoto pepper and pico de gallo). Cute little taco. A little small compared to the other dishes but looked yummy.
Mixed Greens Salad $6.95~ His sister ordered this. Looked great with all the toppings... pickled onions, corn, etc. She said it was spicy too! Nice.
RW Second Course:
The Churrasco (6 oz. signature center cut beef tenderloin, chimichurri seasoned and chargrilled with fingerling potato, grilled vegetables and bearnaise sauce). This was "Voted Esquire Magazine's Top 20 Steaks in America". His dad ordered it and said it was really good. I didn't try it since I had steak myself.
Beef Tenderloin Brocheta (grilled beef tenderloin and shrimp with onion and poblano over chorizo caribbean rice).
This was my entree. Huge portion. The beef was super tender and the rice had so much flavor. So far everything here was a flavor explosion. It was hard to tell everything apart after awhile since all the flavors are so bold. But it was good. I shared some and still took over half of it to go, there was too much food!
Grilled Mahi Mahi (black bean and shrimp veloute, fried pickled okra). His mom ordered this. The fish was cooked well. It was good. The fried pickled okra was totally interesting and awesome.
Achiote Seared Ahi Tuna (cilantro broth, citrus salad, goat cheese snow).
My fiance got this. I didn't even consider it because of the goat cheese snow. (I don't like goat cheese as y'all know.) But you can't taste it at all. It was amazing. Best dish of the night in my opinion. The tuna was top notch and full of flavor. And such beautiful colors!
His sister got the Lobster Corndogs (house made lobster sausage, carnival style corndog batter, lemon chardonnay aioli) $12.95~
As soon as she saw they had this, that was it. It was so fun! The plating was very whimsical like their decor. And food on a stick, always fun to eat.
With all our dishes, they gave us some sides. From the top: some sort of fried yucca balls, white rice, sweet plantains, and lentils. The lentils and plantains were my favorite. Sooooo good. The yucca balls were good but quite dense. I like the yucca fries better.
We also got some additional Sides $6~ each:
Chargrilled Corn & Crispy Mushroom. Interesting flavors, we couldn't quite pinpoint what some of the spices were. I liked the crispy mushrooms for added texture.
Grilled Asparagus. Pretty standard, good with the creamy dipping sauce.
Yuca Steak Fries. No picture, sorry. But looked like normal thick cut fries. It was fried really well.
RW Third Course:
Tres Leches (soaked in sweet vanilla laced cream then topped with Italian meringue).
One of the best tres leches we've had. My fiance recently discovered this dessert and he's now pretty obsessed with it. haha. He said it was definitely the best one he's had. It was sooo moist, the meringue on top was great.
Kettle Corn Tres Leches (fresh grated corn, whipped mascarpone, caramel, and Italian meringue).
This sounded totally interesting. It was topped with caramel and kettle corn. I liked the added texture of the popcorn. But the caramel made it a tad too sweet for me. My fiance tasted mine second and he was like "omg yours is even better". And then he would eat anothe bite of his, and say that's still the best. haha. He couldn't decide, they were both amazing.
Besame con Alfajores (miniature melt-in-your-mouth dulce de leche cookie sandwiches).
His dad ordered this just so we can all try something different. These little cookies were so cute. And they really did melt in your mouth. The filling was rich and sweet. It would be great with tea or coffee.
Their normal tres leches comes with a tableside show. They light it on fire! I was a little disappointed that they didn't do it for the RW desserts. But the table next to us got one and I was able to get it on video. I'm always a sucker for tableside presentation... and FIRE! :P
Really great find. Not only great food, but an experience to discover all the little (and big) decor elements. All their door handles were these dog or mouse figures. The bathroom was trippy too, like walking into Alice in Wonderland a little bit. It was a fantastic dinner. We ate so much and it was all delicious. I definitely recommend this place. I would go back again whenever I'm back in Houston. And a big thank you to his parents for taking us out to dinner! :)
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Wow.. it's almost been a month since I last posted! It's been busy busy as always. And I've actually been cooking more! Gasp! :P haha.
About 2 weeks ago I went to go see Chef, the new movie by (and starring) Jon Favreau. I was soooo excited about this movie. The trailer looked fantastic. And it's about food! I made time on a weeknight to go watch it with some friends. It was so good. I already had high expectations and it totally exceeded it. It had passion, humor, struggles, and of course food. The food prep/cooking/plating scenes were orgasmic. I was drooling through the whole movie. GO. SEE. IT.!!! Just do it. But don't go on an empty stomach! :P
Anyways, they featured a lot of Cuban flavors in the movie, since the food truck was a Cuban food truck. haha. And they made tons of Cubanos (cuban sandwiches), just one after another. With that crispy toasted bread, the slow roasted pork. OMG! I'm drooling again!
Since I saw the movie, I had been craving a Cubano like no other. I finally made it to a Latin restaurant a few days later.
The Latin Pig
3131 Custer Road, Ste #165
Plano, TX 75075
(972) 985-9760
www.thelatinpig.com
Price: $-$$
This place was on my radar for a while but then I kinda forgot about it. In my search for a Cubano, it came up again. The reviews seemed very positive. And they've got all the things I wanted to try!
It's a tiny little place in a strip mall in Plano. Only about 4 booth for seating, a lot of people came in for to-go orders. You order at the counter and they bring the food out to you. There's a bit of a wait since they seem short staffed. But the guy was super friendly so it's all good. He even took the time to come check on us once all the food came out. :)
I got an order of Maduros (fried sweet plantains) $2.50~ Love me some plantains. For $2.50, this was a pretty good portion. The plantains were soft and sweet. Yummy!!
Cubano (roasted pulled pork, ham, swiss cheese, pickles and Mojo de Ajo; served on toasted Italian bread) $7.99~
Of course I got this, duh! The whole reason I found this place. haha. It had a great crispy crust and the size was good. It was pretty good, but didn't live up to my expectations and the hype I got from the movie. Mainly because it seemed a bit dry. The pork wasn't that juicy. The flavors were good but it was missing something. I took half of it to go. At home, I spread some whole grain mustard on it and voila! it was sooo much better! I realized they didn't put mustard on their Cubano. Isn't that a required ingredient?
We also got the Rabo Encendido (slow stewed oxtail) $14.99~ I chose to pair it with Arroz con Gandules (yellow rice and Latin peas), per the staff's recommendation.
I love oxtail. It's pretty hard to find around here. The only other place I've had oxtails (other than at home) was Buttons, a southern restaurant in Addison. Needless to say I was pretty excited. Plus my bf had never had it before and wanted to try. A bit pricey for this plate since oxtails don't have that much meat. FYI, they only have this dish on Fridays-Sundays. It was served on a bed of rice. I wish there was some side of veggies or something too. But the flavor of the oxtail was really good. The meat itself was not tender enough, but sometimes it's fun to gnaw on the bones to see how much meat you can get off of it. haha. The rice turned out to be the icing on the cake. It was a really good pairing with the oxtails. We both liked it a lot. And we scraped the plate clean. My mom's oxtail is still better, but she doesn't prepare it in Latin flavors of course. I'm still glad we tried it. And my bf really enjoyed it! He'll try pretty much anything. I'm so proud. :P
Guava Pastry $1.75~
I got this to go for dessert later. Hard to find guava around here too. Although I prefer the guava we have in Taiwan where it's white in the inside green on the outside. I think latin guava is pink. It was guava past inside flaky puff pastry. It was good. Needed more guava paste though.
All in all, it was a good little find. They have some other dishes I'd like to try as well. And if I get the Cubano again, I'll ask them to slather some mustard on there!
And... GO SEE CHEF!!!! Trust me, you'll love it! :)
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I've known about Dive for awhile now and never had the chance to go. Last week I met up with a friend for lunch so I suggested this place.
Dive Coastal Cuisine
3404 Rankin St.
Dallas, TX 75205
(214) 891-1700
http://www.dive-dallas.com
Price: $$-$$$
It's located in Snider Plaza. Business during lunch is really good! It was tough to find parking. We got there just in time and was able to find a table. It filled up soon after that. You order at the counter and they bring the food out to you.
Everything sounded so good but I've always seen pictures of their wraps so I thought I'd give that a try. I got the Curry Shrimp Wrap (coconut rice, greens, granny smith apples, cucumber, creamy curry dressing; in a spinach tortilla) $13~
Every part of this sounded awesome. It was super fresh. There were plenty of greens which I really liked. The shrimp was jumbo and cooked well. The best is the curry dressing with the wrap. It added a richness and flavor to the freshness of the other ingredients. I also liked that they pan fried the wrap. It made the tortilla a little crispy on the outside. For the price, I thought the portion was too small. For $13 it should at least come with a side or something. Although it ended up being quite filling. I would totally eat this again.
My friend got the Seared Ahi Tuna Wrap (ginger slaw, cucumber, avocado, coconut rice with sweet chili and ponzu sauce; in a spinach tortilla) $13~ This is one of their most popular dishes. The color of the tuna against the greens was beautiful. He said it was really good. I just might have to try it for myself next time.
We also got the Shrimp & Tuna Tartare (cucumber, tomatoes, guacamole; served with house-made plantain chips). It had a different name on the menu but I can't remember what it was or the price...
The tartare had a lot of flavor. A touch of acidity from lemon juice, a hint of spice and a creaminess from the guac. The plantain chips were fried perfectly. Super crispy but wasn't greasy. A good compliment to the tartare.
I really enjoyed the food. Everything was tasty and really fresh. I just think the prices are a tad high... But I would go back and try more items in the future.
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