Category Archives: South America

Posts about countries in South America

SpiceBreeze “Box”

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After I decided to stop the Universal Yum snack box description I searched for some other subscription box that would have an international flavor, literally, and be suitable for adding content to the blog. I was also considering the price / value as well. I decided to take a chance on SpiceBreeze. They call themselves a subscription box but it’s really a subscription envelope.

The plan I got came with 2 spice packets with recipe cards and 1 additional item like the cardamom seeds with the instructions to make a mango lassi on the label. For $7.99 I don’t feel cheated but I did feel disappointment when I got my first envelope.

They delivered everything they said they would on the website and the quality of the contents was decent but the presentation and packaging says “shoestring” to me. The first envelope had taco al pastor spice blend and furikake blend with recipe cards and I honestly forgot what the other packet was but it was a Mexican spice blend that I mixed into some refried beans to make a dip and air fried some small flour tortillas to make chips from. I’ll cover some of the recipes in a follow up entry but for now I’m just reviewing the subscription.

The recipes are definitely interesting but aside from the spice blends you have to provide everything else. None of the 6 recipes I saw over the 3 months I received had anything too exotic or difficult to obtain under normal circumstances but with the pandemic your mileage may vary. There is enough of the spice to make 1 instance of the recipe that generally feeds 2 or more. The recipe cards offer variants and on the back some additional detail on the blend and or the country it’s from.

Overall I’d say this was an ok subscription worth a solid 3 stars out of 5, maybe 3.5 but I just wasn’t feeling it enough to continue beyond the initial 3 month subscription.

Brazilian Yums

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Universal Yums presented the first repeat country this month with a second box of snacks from Brazil. Fortunately there was only one actual duplicate among the goodies.

It was a good mix of sweet and savory so a little something for every taste. I did get something different this month in the form of cassava chips that wound up filling the “weird” snack spot. My favorite though was a white chocolate strawberry number.

Bib’s Morango Extreme bar was quite the surprise. As soon as the package was opened the strawberry smell leapt out and grabbed me by the nostrils.  The bar itself was decent white chocolate and the strawberry was in the form of crunchy little bits of concentrated flavor that made this a delight to eat. Number 2 for me was the 1891 bar.

Another white chocolate entry. I’m not a huge fan of white chocolate so having it be top two is something I’d consider unusual. I’m not even sure how to describe this. I didn’t feel like it was all that tropical but it was delicious. The banana was there but muted for me and the caramel was a nice addition. Somehow it all worked. Now for the weird.

The Mandioca Chips Cebola were thin sliced and fried cassava chips flavored with onion and garlic. I liked the flavor of these but the texture was what got it slotted as weird. It definitely had crunch but I wouldn’t call it crispy, unlike a potato chip. Basically it had more give before the snap of the crunch. Not sure how to describe it other than that. Flavored ok but just an odd crunch. Still head and shoulders over the worst snack.

These were the only ones I actually disliked. They were coconut and cheese flavored cookies. I’ll just wait a second while you process that.

The sleeve of cookies held a boatload of half dollar sized cookies.  The coconut was evident by smell and coconut was the prominent flavor to start.  Then a weird sour flavor surfaced that was apparently supposed to be cheese.  It was cheesy but also kind of stinky feety.  Not a fan.

Brazil 2 definitely suffered the sophomore slump from my perspective but still enjoyable on the whole.

The next box is filled with Scandinavian snacks. Fingers crossed there will be at least one good licorice treat.

Edit: Shortly after wrapping up the post the Scandinavian Yum box was delivered and there is some licorice now I just have to hope it’s good. From my quick perusal I think I’m going to enjoy this box a lot.

Trail Head

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So as I mentioned in the last entry my plan was to start hitting the international flavored restaurants again and while Legal Remedy Brewing doesn’t represent any country specifically there are some tenuous international connections which I’ll point out a bit later.

What kind of derailed my initial plans were the weather and downloading the Visit York County app so I could do the Brew Trail & Taste Trail. One is a list of breweries in the county and if you check in at 6 of 8 you can get a t-shirt and the the taste trail has a list of 15 or so restaurants and if you hit 12 and have their “signature” dish you can also get a t-shirt. I saw these as win, win, win contests and I love winning contests. I decided to start both at the one establishment that gave me a twofer being on both lists. Legal Remedy Brewing is also a place I’m familiar with and like.

Their signature dish for the Taste Trail is an appetizer, Southern Poutine.

Here’s our first international connection, Poutine is a Canadian dish, eh. The LRB Southern version happens to be well fried, semi-crispy French fries topped with smoked jalapeno pimento cheese, bacon, and pepper jelly. Initially I disdained cutlery and proceeded to play a sort of edible jenga game where the goal was to get a hold of the fry with toppings and not get any on me. That led to a leisurely dining experience until people started noticing the intense concentration and deliberation with which I was eating and I think they started worrying about my sanity. When the fork and knife were brought to bear the pace was accelerated and the bacon and pimento cheese disappeared in a frenzy of fries.

The pimento cheese was good but I didn’t notice much smokey or jalapeno-y about it. The pepper jelly was an interesting addition that was more jelly and peppery. The bacon was just right. Overall it was enjoyable the portion generous enough I didn’t even finish it all. The beer might have helped in making me feel full.

As is my want in a place that offers the option, I got a flight of the seasonal offerings. As you can see I got a mix of light and dark. I started with the heaviest and went lighter as the meal progressed. The Barrel Aged: Elements of a Crime was an imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels and conditioned (I have no idea what that means) on Brazil Monte Verdi coffee from a local roaster. And there’s the other international connection, Brazilian coffee. The stout was just that and had very much embraced the barrel and its bourbonness.

The next dark beer was Exhibit:Gingerbread Porter. A mild porter that had some hints of clove but that was about the only one of the winter spices it was brewed with I could discern. After the two dark ones I had the Probation Pilsner, a German pilsner with a light flavor and hints of evergreen. I saved the Bribery Bittersweet Orange Wheat for dessert. A sip of that provided a nice flash of orange that quickly dissolved into a bitter finish, in a good way.

In summation your honor it was a good lunch and a great start to the trails.

Holiday Yums

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Well after several weeks of laziness I decided to drop the December Holiday Yums box entry.

The 2019 Holiday box had 13 snacks from 13 different countries; Spain, Uruguay, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Philippines, France, Jordan, Austria, Croatia, Belgium, Japan, and Poland. There were a couple of repeats from previous boxes but mostly it was new stuff. My favorite was a repeat.

The Jabri Mixed Baklava was my favorite from last year’s Holiday box as well. The regular is great but the birds nest version with pistachios is just a special treat. It did have some competition this year in the form of a Belgian treat.

If I haven’t said it before I’ll say it now, white chocolate is not my jam but add some cinnamon cookie bits and I’m inviting you to the party. It was like an uber-sweet snickerdoodle. A little went a long way sort of like the most unusual paring of the box.

The Spanish weighed in again with a twisted chip flavor because someone thought, “you know what this chip needs? Raspberries!” It really didn’t. It was better than I expected but I had the bar pretty low going in. The raspberry flavor was reasonably muted so it was more like a distraction from a quality chip that an enhancement. The French, not to be left out of the chip wars said “hold mon bier”.

Roasted chicken chips? I had high expectations in spite of past experience with most “meat” flavored chips. First chip had me impressed and thinking “by golly these do have a roast chicken flavor” by about the 4th chip though I was over it.  It was just too much of the roast chicken flavor, which is something I never imagined saying. I could’t even finish the bag. Croatia managed to come in with powerful entry though that I did finish.

As soon as the package was opened the garlic smell ventured forth like it was planning to conquer the world or at least the room.  The pretzel sticks were good and crunchy even with the hollow core that was loaded with garlic.  I do mean loaded.  It was so garlicky I had to go brush my teeth and gargle just so I could move on with my day. 

Most interesting taste sensation goes to the Polish gingerbread.

This was actually the first thing I had from the box. Gingerbread snacks have been hit or miss but this entry with black currant icing was tasty and light with a hard glaze icing.  For the interesting taste sensation. As I was biting it I got a strong hint of black currant that was like a combination of scent and taste but it hadn’t yet hit the tongue. This certainly has happened with other foods but this was probably the most remarkable because the black currant taste on eating it was very subtle until I was finished and then it lingered. Good start, good finish.

The other snacks were mostly good with a couple of so so but the grade for the Holiday box was an A-.

The next blog entry will have me out and about again for a lunch at one of a couple of new (to me) restaurants I’ve found.

   

Columbian Yum

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Seems I haven’t included a Yum box in the blog for a while so let me jump back in with the box from Columbia.

I have to say Universal Yums did a great job with this stash of snacks. I’m not sure my usual MO of highlighting the top 2 plus the worst and most unusual will be maintained. Let’s see where the train of consciousness stops. We will start with one of my all time favorites though.

This little box was just fantastic. It pushed several of my buttons (the good buttons), it had variety with 6 different flavors, they were sweets and smooth creamy textures were a joy to eat. Caja de Dulces Surtidos, assorted sweets. There was a milk caramel that was essentially condensed milk and sugar cooked down into a silky consistency and sweet taste that belied it’s simplicity. The Coffee took that fantastic caramel base and added Columbian coffee that tasted fresh brewed. The Guava had a layer of guava paste on top of the caramel to give it a wonderful tropical flavor and add a second texture. The Panela was made from unrefined cane sugar and had kind of a brown sugar taste on top of the dairy goodness. The Orange had orange zest adding some citrus notes and some bitterness to contrast with the sweet of the candy. Finally the Coconut added a different tropical taste and consistency to the dulce de leche and different was good. I’m almost glad they don’t sell these here as I might become an addict.

Picking a second favorite was hard because there was nothing close to the favorite and almost nothing I didn’t like but I’m going with the Bacon Lime chips.

I wasn’t sure about them when I grabbed the bag, I mean bacon and lime? When I saw they looked like little bacon strips I started to come around. The composition was like a rectangular cheese puff and you there is a bacon aroma and flavor right at the start but then the lime joins the party like a diva headed for a microphone. In spite of the fact they look a bit like a dog treat and the lime is a tad strong I really did enjoy these chips.

There wasn’t anything I thought was just bad so the worst in this case is just my least favorite. They were unexciting enough that I forgot to take a picture of them. They were plantain cookies which were crisp and slightly sweet and that’s about all I can say about them. On the other hand I have two for the unusual category.

The first picture is of mayonnaise chips. Some of you may be gagging, some going Yum!, and others just intrigued or a little chip curious. For the most part it isn’t a combo you see in US stores. They were not bad at all. The chips were decent ruffled crisps and the mayo flavor was there but not at all overpowering. Honestly they’d probably be great on a sandwich you were putting mayo on anyway.

The pastel Easter egg looking candies were candy coated white chocolate bits with a gummy bear center. It was quite interesting to take a bite and just like the package shows, have a little gummy staring at you. If you throw a whole one in your mouth you get the crunch of the candy shell followed by the smooth white chocolate and you end with that chewy gummy so it has quite the mouth feel. They were good but also quite unusual.

There were some other nice snacks both sweet and savory, like the garlic plantain chips, the coconut cream wafer cookies, the cheese & butter arepa chips and the passionfruit lollipop with bubblegum in the center to name some.

There is one I’ll mention because the packaging threw me.

I saw this package and just knew I was going to get some turnip flavored gummy candy and that sent a shiver up my spine. I’m game though and gave it a try. Strawberries and cream? Heck yeah! The flavor may have been enhanced by sweet relief but even so I’d recommend them.

Well that’s all for the Columbia Yum box. The next one in queue is from Indonesia and there’s a few interesting tidbits in that one too.

Salivating over Salvadoran

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El Salvador

After seeing an early showing of Captain Marvel I decided to just take a right onto South Blvd in Charlotte and see what struck my fancy. I had confidence there’d at least be something with a Latin American influence along the route that would serve. After passing a few that didn’t lure me in I decided to pull into a strip lot parking lot because I saw a Mexican place at the end that looked promising. The I saw Restaurante Comalapa that advertised being Salvadoran, Honduran & Mexican and that roped me right in.

When I first walked in and the waitress rounded the corner and saw me it apparently threw her off her game because she just stood there for a bit staring at me. I don’t know if she thought I was lost, wanted to use the phone or what but after a few seconds of silence I decided to help her out and said “Just uno” and that seemed to cut through the confusion and she went into action, grabbing a menu and beckoning me to follow.

As soon as butt hit booth she asked if I wanted guacamole fresco & chips so I said sure. I expected her to ask me what I wanted to drink first but nope that didn’t come up until she came back several minutes later with a platter of chips, salsa and guacamole.


I ordered up a Modelo Especial and tried my first bite of the guacamole. So let me say until just a few years ago I called this green concoction gag-a-mole or gackamole but I’ve had a change of heart and will eat it now and then. Based on that I am no connoisseur of guacamole but this was the best I’ve ever had. They mean the “fresco” part and that’s why she asked immediately because they make it to order. All the ingredients tasted fresh and it was both creamy and chunky with just the right amount of salt and cilantro. I did try the salsa and while it was good it was the second place finisher in a two dip race. Let me also add this is an appetizer and will show on the bill.

I tried to order the chicken tamales for my meal since the picture made them look pretty cool and they came wrapped in a plantain leaf. I barely got the word tamale out of my mouth and she was channeling her inner Soup Nazi with “no tamales for you!” At least she followed it up with “we ran out”. OK so it wasn’t personal. She recommended the other dish I was considering, pupusas.

These are kind of like corn flour pancakes stuffed with cheese and / or other things like the pork I got. They came with cabbage salad and a thin tomato sauce. I tasted the cabbage salad first and it was crunchy and tart with a bit of carrot and some green herb I think was oregano. At first I thought it was vinegar giving the tangy acidity but the more I had of it the more it reminded me of the tang from fermentation like the homemade sauerkraut I made last year. Regardless it was good but still only a side dish.

The pupusas were new to me but I’m now a fan, at least of the ones from Comalapa. They had a nice corn taste and the filling was ground pork with a little seasoning. It was ground fine, not quite a paste, so the filling layer wasn’t thick, just enough to give additional flavor to the corn bread. The tomato sauce for dipping was called “special” on the menu but that was optimistic at best. It was thin and fairly tasteless but to me it was extraneous anyway. The papusas stood on their own.

Overall I’d have to say this lunch was no kind of fancy but some kind of good. If you find yourself in the neighborhood stop in and grab a meal. Oh and by the end of the meal the waitress was friendly and chatty and on the way out the lady at the register made a point of waving, thanked me for coming and invited me back soon.

Amazonian Yum

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Brazil

Opening this month’s Yum box I was greeted with the bright flag of Brazil and on the flip side of the welcome were the first puzzle and some quick facts.

The box was filled with a great looking assortment of sweet & savory snacks.

Like last month I’ll cover my favorite, runner-up, least favorite & most unusual of the 13 snacks and this month I managed to snap some shots of the actual food before chowing down.  None of the snacks were too weird or totally out there but some were certainly better than others.

My favorite was the Amori 1000 – Chocolate covered wafer with coconut filling. Based on the description unless someone figured out how to screw up this combo the Amori 1000 was going to be near the top of the heap for me as chocolate and coconut are a combo I love. Of the two chocolate covered snacks this had a better but thinner layer of chocolate than the Cory Pao Dimel.  It also had crispy wafers and nice layers of coconut creme filling in a triangular shape. No one screwed up, this was a great snack that I’m glad I can’t buy on a regular basis because it wouldn’t do my A1C any favors.  The picture doesn’t do it justice.

There was a tie for the runner-up.  Both of the pepper crackers made the list.

Delicitos Pimenta – Pepper crackers. These little pillows of crunchy pepper flavored snacks were unexpectedly great. As I was eating the first cracker I got a whiff of a vinegary pepper smell that started the anticipation then it hit the taste buds. Pretty salty and the pepper flavor is strong and I was waiting for the accompanying burn. It never came. All the flavor and none of the burn on a crunchy pillow cracker. Definitely a winner.

Snacks! Pimenta Calbresa – Calabrian chili crackers were another winner.  There were a ton of these little crackers in the tube shaped bag. They are about 3/4-1″ long (18-25mm for you metric folk) and if they had been segmented they’d have reminded me of the mealworms they sell for bird food, just in shape not taste. The taste of the calabrian chili was like a smoky paprika to me and the size and shape made for a satisfying crunchy snack. They do have a ton of salt too so have a something to drink close at hand.

My least favorite was Pipoca Vivozinha – Sweet Puffed Corn. These reminded me of Super Sugar Crisp cereal in both taste and texture even though they are different grains. They weren’t bad but there’s a reason I never asked for that cereal as a kid unless it had a rocking prize.

The oddest of the lot was one of the small candies.  Bananada com Chocolate – Chocolate covered banana bar. The chocolate covering was dark and had a good, if slightly artificial, taste. When I bit it I expected a light colored filling since it was supposed to be banana but the inside was black like an extremely ripe banana and the taste was similar. It was good but the texture was a bit different than expected and the black interior could be offputting and the taste had kind of a tobacco taste underlying the banana and while that probably sounds gross the overall flavor was okay.

In addition to the snacks detailed above there were some chocolate covered honey bread cookies that reminded me of a moon pie minus the marshmallow plus two different gummy candies, one loaded with sprinkles and the other flavored yogurt flavored.  The other small candies were a peanut flavored one that reminded me of peanut butter fudge but not as sweet and more like a marzipan texture plus a coconut one that tasted like the coconut bars I got as a kid whenever we stopped for gas on long trips.  Plus a few more that I won’t detail but I’m glad I got to try.

Finally if you want to experience a curated batch of Brazilian music videos check out the link below.

https://www.universalyums.com/tunes

 








Pollo Rapido

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Guatemala

Image result for guatemala passport stamp

From Belgium last week I took the culinary-passport across the Atlantic and a bit south to Guatemala in the form of Pollo Campero.  This particular location is on South Blvd in Charlotte but this is a chain that originated in Guatemala with one families secret chicken recipe.  I’m sure there’s a GFC joke in there somewhere if I tried hard enough but I just ate and don’t want to work that hard.

Anyway, the interior is very much a fast food décor, you order at the counter, they give you a number to display at your table and deliver it to you when it’s ready.  I was going to say the menu is limited but in this case I think focused is probably a better description.  Like the name says they are a chicken place and you can get it grilled or fried, and also in a bowl or empanada.  I opted for grilled.  They also have interesting signature sides.  If you want fries with that you can get yucca fries, plantains are an option as well as street corn salad which is what I went with.  They also had rice, beans, slaw and regular fries for the less adventurous.  For drinks they had Pepsi products, water, tea and some you don’t see everywhere; horchata, Jamaica and guava.  Even though I knew it was going to be sweet I got the guava.  I did consider the Jamaica which was made from hibiscus.

OK a side note here on the guava.  When I decided on the drink I said, “I’ll take a guava.”  I pronounced it with the hard G.  The young lady behind the counter looked at me and said “So you want a guava?” pronouncing it basically without a G but adding that little sound I can’t replicate in writing but sounds something like an h & w combined with the urge to spit.  “Yep, that’s the one,” was all I could say as I thought to myself that she sounded just like me when someone mispronounces something and I use it in my next sentence so they can hear it correctly without having to be an ass and blatantly call them out on it.  Well played counter girl, well played.

Alright back to the food.

The chicken was very good.  I honestly couldn’t tell exactly what spices they used other than some mild peppers and a little garlic and maybe onion powder but the citrus was very evident but not in a bad way.  I’m not actually sure if the green sauce on the side was supposed to go on the street corn salad or for the chicken so I tried it with both and it worked for either.  The corn salad was cilantro, tomatoes, corn, with some white crumbled cheese and peppers.  I liked it ok but it’s not something I’d want often.  I got tortillas with the meal instead of the dinner roll since I figured that fit the theme a little better.  Overall it was a nice Sunday lunch and a nice departure from other fast food chains that are so much more prevalent.

Check out the Tell Me More page for a turkey soup recipe, some music, a fact and shopping opportunities.

 








Really Southern Breakfast

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Venezuela

Yes all the way to South America.  This is not only a country revisit but a restaurant revisit, which is something I hadn’t planned to do much on the blog.  I mentioned revisiting Me-A-More Café to represent the Dominican Republic as I hadn’t found another place for that cuisine but I later did so I didn’t.  However, I was looking for a breakfast place I hadn’t been to and they popped up with a menu that had some different options reflecting a Latin American theme so I grabbed the culinary-passport and headed over.

To catch a flavor for the place you can check out the previous post Two For One as nothing had substantially changed.  I was the only patron in the place and the staff outnumbered me 4 to 1 but that just meant I got good service.  I ordered the headliner on the breakfast page of the menu, Venezuelan Creole breakfast.  For the record breakfast is served all day and some of the lunch options are also served all day to you can be topsy turvy and eat breakfast for lunch and lunch for breakfast if that’s what floats your barco.

The Venezuelan Creole breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onions, shredded beef, black beans, shredded white cheese and an arepa.  This was definitely a breakfast to fortify someone who was planning to do a good mornings work.  I thought it was a bit odd the cheese was a side item rather than on or in one of the other dishes but I guess that just meant you could put it where you wanted it.  I folded it into the eggs.  The eggs were well cooked, more so than I personally would have cooked them but they tasted good especially with the addition of the cheese.  If I were to get this again I’d probably request the cheese be added just before the eggs were taken up so it would melt and meld better with the eggs.  The shredded beef is the same shredded beef you get with the lunch entrees and is a nice change of pace to the usual breakfast meat options around town.  I like black beans so even though it’s an oddity for breakfast in these parts they certainly went well with the rest of this breakfast.  The arepa was a fried flat cornbread disk that reminded me very much of the fried cornbread my Grandfather use to enjoy with his collard greens.  It is more dense than the baked cornbread that is common in the US and not as crispy on the outside as a hushpuppy.  It made a serviceable substitute for a biscuit and a handy scoop for those last few beans in the bowl.

They have a few more things on the breakfast menu that are not staples of the local breakfast scene so if you’re looking for something other than the norm and you’re in the Rock Hill area give them a shot.

Also if you missed it the first time check out the Tell Me More page for some Venezuelan culture.

 








Two For One

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Venezuela

Image result for venezuelan passport stamp

This was one of those weeks where things worked out a bit different than planned and actually that was OK.  When I was searching for someplace new to have breakfast a few weekends ago Ava’s Café popped up and I saw they billed themselves as a Venezuelan restaurant.  So while I didn’t go for breakfast I filed them away for as a potential blog candidate since I hadn’t done Venezuela.

This was the day I decided to try them out and off I went.  When I arrived where it was supposed to be, it’s not there.  I mean the building and everything was where it should have been but not Ava’s.  Where it should have been was another little eatery called Me-A-More Café.  I figured maybe it was just a name change since the sign said Café & Latin Street Cuisine so I might still get Venezuela out of this.

The place is small and well lit with 8 or 10 tables and was not very busy when I went in so I was promptly greeted and seated.  The menu did have an item specifically called Venezuelan Pabellon as well as several more Latin American sounding dishes.  I was still in business.  I ordered my dish and fired up my Kindle app to wait but they brought out a little appetizer to get me started.

Now my first thought was “That’s a skimpy bowl of chips, they must not be doing that well.”  Upon closer inspection I realized those were plantain chips and the dip was some kind of mayonnaise based dip with a herby tang to it and a little went a long way.  The combo was good since the slight tang of the sauce balanced the faintly sweet starchiness of the plantains.  Certainly it was something a different.

While I was chowing on the chips I learned some stuff through overheard conversations and direct communication with the staff.  First was they replaced Ava’s here but kept a large part of the menu from Ava’s.  The new owner is also the chef and is from the Dominican Republic and has added a some Dominican items (there’s my 2 for 1, I can come back for Dominican).  The young woman who waited on me was from Haiti.  The owner asks for feedback and actually accepts criticism with grace, seems to be appreciative of the feedback as a way to improve, and isn’t afraid to acknowledge it when she agrees.  I know this last because she spent several minutes talking to a guy who had suggestions for improvement on each of the items he had eaten and she was just as nice and smiley when she walked away as she was when to walked up.  Kudos to her.

The pabellon consisted of rice, black beans, fried ripe plantains and shredded beef.  Nothing fancy about this dish and there’s a lot of commonality with some of the other South American cuisines I’ve had since starting the blog.  The biggest differentiator was the shredded beef which was lightly seasoned and not at all spicy which I was expecting it to be, at least a little.  It all went well as filling comfort food.  In conversation I learned the Dominican version uses red beans, green plantains & shredded pork.

On the way out I decided I’d grab a snack for later and got a guava and cheese empanada.

Later has come and gone so I’ve tried it out and I’m a fan.  At first I thought the cheese was simply cream cheese but it’s something made in house apparently from some other soft white cheese that’s sweetened and has something a little tart added in.  The guava element was jam or preserves that were not too sweet and the empanada crust was soft and just a bit chewy.

Overall I’d say while the afternoon didn’t go as planned it was very successful.  The food was good and they had some nice changes of pace like the plantain chips plus everyone in the place was super friendly.  If you’re local here’s another chance to support a non-chain small business and get rewarded with good food and service.

Check out the Tell Me More page for more on Venezuela