La Hacienda - Tampa Florida

kernow62 says on Jul 23, 2005, 10:51:

Sabor Latino in Chandler Arizona A taste of home

Family recipes fill pages of Colombian restaurant’s authentic menu

By Anita Mabante Leach

Sometimes it takes a journey to locate authenticity.

A trip to Sabor Latino, a Colombian restaurant in the southeast Valley, is as real as it gets.

Along for a recent lunch was Jorge Quintero, a native of Baranquilla. His hometown is on Colombia’s northern coast, skirting the Caribbean Sea. An ardent home cook, he explained there are not many former Colombians in Arizona, since most of his countrymen tend to opt for the Northeast or balmy Florida instead of the Arizona desert. So finding a restaurant with real Colombian cooking was, for Jorge, a major coup.

Jorge helps us order lunch, beginning with a Colombiana, a pleasant, cream soda-flavored canned pop.

“In Colombia, they mix it (Colombiana) with beer. It’s called refajo. It’s pretty popular. When you order carne asada, you order a pitcher of refajo,” he says. (Beer and soda….hmmm, Colombians really like to mix it up.)

OLD NAMES, NEW TASTES
As for Sabor Latino’s menu, the foods may have familiar names, but a definite Colombian interpretation. Translation: Keep an open mind when ordering, and you won’t be disappointed.

Empanadas, for example, are the crescent-shaped pasties locally-bred Latinos all know, except these are filled with diced potatoes, ground beef and seasonings with an outer wrapping of fried cornmeal dough. A vinegar-tinged salsa called aji picante, accompanies the appetizers, offering a tangy counterpoint to the mild empanada filling.

Sabor Latino’s menu offers a culinary tour of Colombia, with dishes like Bandeja Paisa, a platter filled with carne asada, a deep-fried chicharron, a country-style chorizo sausage, a fried egg, white rice, pinto beans, avocado, fried sweet plantain (tajadas) and arepa, a small corn pie. (It’s best to be really hungry when you order Bandeja Paisa.) This dish was developed among the many coffee plantations around Medellin, says Jorge.

“There’s a lot of things that Mexicans do, that we do also, but with different names,” Jorge says. When lunch arrives, he dives into Sobrebarriga a la Criolla, flank steak with tomatoes, onions, yucca, and potatoes, colored with the rich yellow of turmeric.

Sabor Latino’s owners Wilfer Velasquez and his wife Ana Garcia opened their restaurant a scant five months ago in Chandler. On a Monday visit, when one might expect few customers, the small café was nearly filled. Large photos remind diners of Colombian metropolises Medellín and Cali. Velasquez says he immigrated to the United States from Medellín.

“We used to have a restaurant in New Jersey,” Velazquez says. What made him move to Arizona? “The weather,” he says.

FAMILY RECIPES
The sounds of popular Colombian singer Carlos Vives pours from the speakers. Despite the music, one can hear Velazquez back in the kitchen, pounding steaks into thin slabs, readying them for the grill.

He also serves authentic specials on the weekend that are worth exploring. While Mexicans spoon menudo on weekends, Colombians enjoy sancocho, a type of brothy soup with chicken, potatoes, yucca root, ñame root, tomatoes, ripe plantains and corn, or ajiaco, a Bogota-style soup made with papa criolla, corn, red potatoes, chicken, capers and herbs like cilantro and guascas.

Velazquez is so busy at the restaurant, he says he rarely cooks at home, but he does use family recipes for Sabor Latino’s menu. Other Latin Americans come to the restaurant to enjoy his home-style meals, like the four Venezuelan men at the next table.

We try one last dish, a simple dessert called Brevas con Arequipe. Two figs in syrup cozy up to a mound of caramel, similar to the Mexican cajeta. The mild flavor of the fruit is perked up with the creamy sweetness of the arequipe.

Satisfied (and with leftovers), we left Sabor Latino and headed back to work, convinced we’d just experience a true taste of Colombia.

Sabor Latino
Colombian Restaurant
2160 N. Alma School Rd., Chandler
(480) 899-0618
Open for lunch and dinner Mon.-Sun.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

kernow62 says on Jul 23, 2005, 12:11:

Leños y Carbon in Orlando By Adrian J.S. Hale

Orange Blossom Trail is not a typical brunch spot. But we had a craving for Spanish food on a Sunday afternoon, so we headed over to Lenos Y Carbon, a new Latin spot on OBT. We expected a hole in the wall, considering the reputation of this sleazy underbelly of Orlando. Riding by dope houses, squalid hotels and deteriorating strip malls, we wondered what kind of restaurant would greet us. A cinder-block building with run-down El Caminos parked out front, maybe? An old plywood board scrawled with menu items in greasepaint markers? Quite the contrary: What we found was a fully remodeled, fully manicured 6,500-square-foot building.

We walked under a portico, usually a design feature of motor hotels and banks, then through the door, to be greeted first by a tantalizing bakery case full of Spanish-inspired treats. Then beautiful Latin girls immediately showed us to a table. The room was bright and festive, blaring with the sounds of Mexican singer Luis Miguel. Contemporary hues of light pinewood and stainless steel decorated the room. We settled into our seats, and I realized that I was so comfortable that this could turn into an all-day affair. Lucky for us, they're open all day, starting bakery service at 8:30 a.m. and serving straight through until 11 p.m. every day.

Ready for a leisure meal, we went with arepa de chocolo con queso ($2.50), a sweet-corn cake with cheese, alluring with natural maize flavor. As an accompaniment, we tried two of their seven fresh fruit juices – passion fruit and sour sop ($2.50 each). Sucking them down, I lamented the deficiency of passion fruit juice on the rest of the local brunch menus.

Next we tried the shrimp ceviche in hot sauce ($6.95), which looked like a gruesome bowl of salsa heaped on top of tiny shrimp. It was my least favorite, but I quickly forgot about it when one of the best seafood stews I've ever tasted came out of the kitchen. This cazuela de mariscos ($15.95) was a hearty clay pot mounded with scallops, mussels, clams, octopus, shrimp and a generous portion of lobster; cradled together in the arms of a warm cream sauce, fragrant with herbs. Hearty and heavy, it was the perfect decadence for a Sunday morning on OBT.

The other main dishes we tried were superb, as well. The ropa vieja ($11.95), shredded beef simmered with peppers and onions, was not only substantial, but had genuine homemade character. It was served with tender rice and a succulent bowl of well-seasoned beans. The bandeja paisa ($9.95), a typical Colombian dish, according to owner/manager Diego Cardona, was absolutely delicious, but more than one person could eat. A large portion of grilled top round steak graced the plate, along with rice and beans, fried plantains – wait, there's more – a fried egg, a tasty slab of pork skin and, finally, a slice of avocado and a corn cake. Whew! By that time, we were sliding into late afternoon, and it was time for coffee.

Cafe con leche ($1.50), rich and creamy, came next. Then dessert: a Spanish rendition of the Napoleon called a mil hojas ($2.50), "a thousand leaves" of flaky pastry sandwiching layers of light crème patissiere, then topped off with deliciously creamy caramel.

"This place is graphically challenged," one of my companions commented as we walked by the sign on our way out. "Yeah," another agreed, undoing the top button on her jeans. "That sign is butt-ugly."

I looked up at the sign: poorly styled slabs of meat covered by fire-truck red letters. It was ugly, looking like it slept somewhere along the Trail, woke up with a hangover and couldn't be bothered to remove its smeared makeup. But never mind. If you're going to wake up from a night of naughtiness, there's no better place to find yourself. This is an empire, the kind we need here, the kind that can wake us out of our culinary cat nap and put the fun back into overeating.

0 funny, 0 helpful.