Eyes of the Forest Deviled Eggs

This one would be great for Halloween, or as in this case, fun to do for a Murder Mystery Dinner, of which I participated in last this past Saturday.  Or, you could leave the decorations off, and serve just – deviled eggs!  Decorating doesn’t have to take a whole lot of time, if that is an issue.

Dark and moody, do you want these faces coming up to you in a dark forest? With a murder mystery happening at the Castle that just happens to be next door?

Mom’s secret ingredients for this were Dijon mustard, and ordinary mild curry powder (no special Indian recipe, just the pre-mixed from McCormick or whatever she found handiest).  She also used dill pickles, chopped fine.  For this recipe, I substituted in rinsed capers for her pickles – I tend always to have capers in the house, whereas dill pickles are hit or miss.  Besides, the capers will come into hand, decor-wise.  Yes.

I forgot to put the salt (TJ’s Pink Himalayan salt) into this photo. This Hellman’s is made with olive oil, not canola.

I prefer my yolk mixture to be somewhere between dry and liquid-creamy – I’m sort of a a moderate in my texture preference, rather like the way I prefer my weather (you can keep the 80 degree F plus temps, as well as the ice storms…)

Add the basic ingredients to the eggs, getting the yolk and seasonings to the level you like. I added less capers/pickle here than I might have, as I knew the eyes and stuff were coming.  The mayo and mustard and the curry powder all increased over the basic recipe.  To my preference.

So what I’ve done here is started you off with a dry yolk mixture, to which you can add as appropriate to you and your family’s preference.  Enjoy!  And if you choose to decorate your eggs, consider the proper garment to wear serving them in!

Red Riding Hood’s Grandma. I did HAVE a good granny wig, but it fell apart. Hey, it was 15 years old.  Punt. Anyhow, we had a blast at that party, and yes, Mom told me my face might freeze that way, but thankfully it hasn’t…

Cooking time:  Hard cooking the eggs, plan 12-15 minutes per batch, once the water boils.
Filling & mixing time:  10 minutes per tray. 
Decorating time:  10 minutes per tray. 
Serves: As many people at a pot luck who aren’t paranoid about EGGS! (I do gear towards pastured!)

• 16 hard cooked eggs – actually I’d cooked an eggstra, as they tend sometimes to shatter when they know you need them whole, or in case one or another peels horridly.  I kept some extra on hand beyond that in case I needed to boil up more.  PS:  handy hint – add a half teaspoon salt to the water when boiling – something about the change for the better in osmotic pressure usually keeps them from exploding their guts out into the water… Anyhow, I ended up with 16×2 = 32 egg white halves, and 17 (one eggstra) yolk.  
• 1 tablespoon, a bit heaping, of prepared Dijon mustard of quality.  I measure this visually, not actually… (Plus extra set aside if needed…)
• 2 tablespoons, slightly heaping, of mayo.   I’ve discovered Hellman’s makes a mayo now using olive oil instead of canola.  Tastes pretty similar if not the same to me.  (Hellman’s has a different brand name on the west coast.)  Or, make your own! Again, I measure this visually, not actually.  (Plus extra set aside if needed…)
• Three teaspoons of rinsed capers.  Or an equivalent amount of diced dill cucumber pickles – I check the labels to make certain that this is a prep with NO sugars added!  (Plus extra set aside if needed…)
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon curry powder, mild.  Curry flavor will depend on age of your source, and on brand.  (Plus extra set aside if needed…)
• Set aside some powdered mustard, in case you don’t have enough mustard flavor, but in case the eggs are as moist as you will want them.  
• 1/3 teaspoon salt.
• For decor:  You will want to reserve some of the capers for eyes and other body parts, and you can use pimento shreds (canned roasted red bell pepper) and fresh dill for mouths, noses, hair, beards, goatees, caps, and even horns.  Other fun decorative items include black poppy seeds (freckles?), curly parsley (vary up the hair styles), and so forth.  Time and creativity are your only limits!
• Smoked paprika, an optional garnish.  Or, maybe a blush?

One thing I didn’t mention is that for some of the eggs, I removed them from the hot water when done (turning off the range), rinsed them just enough to cool to handle, then smashed their shells against a bowl – you can use the bottom of a spoon – to crack them, added a bunch of black Earl Grey tea bags to the water still in the pot, returned them to that pot, and let them sit for an hour and a half (a few for overnight in the fridge, but they really weren’t any different), then peeled them completely, to make marbleized tea eggs.  I don’t think this addition got noticed… Sigh.  So… you don’t need to bother. 

I don’t think anyone noticed that half the eggs were tea-cooked marbleized. A waste of effort, and a loss of a good batch of Earl Grey tea bags… No flavor change, either. Anyhow, I post the photo here so those tea bags didn’t give their lives in vein… 😉

Okay, now we’ve got our ingredients out and ready:  slice eggs in half.  I try to slice them so they will be as aesthetic as possible – don’t want the white part ripping because the yolk was too close to the surface – remove yolks to a separate bowl, place the white halves in a tray.  You can just use any old plain tray, but if you are planning on transporting them, they’ll travel better if they have a dedicated deviled egg tray… more on which below!

Mash up the yolks (I use a serving spoon), add the prepared mustard and mayo, the curry powder and salt.  Taste and adjust for degree of moisture and seasonings – you can always add more mayo or whatever, but you can never remove!  Don’t adjust for salt, the pickles or capers WILL add more.  Add in the rinsed and drained capers, or add in the minced and drained dill pickles.  Mix so it blends well.  Reserve some capers – enough for at least the eyes – if you plan to decorate.

I use a teaspoon and extremely clean fingers to fill the egg white halves.  Fill crevices, let the yolk mixture pile up a bit.  If you plan to decorate after, hide any extraneous capers/minced pickle so they don’t interfere with your “canvas”.

I sprinkled a touch of smoked paprika over everybody.

Then, go decorate!  Rinse and pat dry the dill strands, and chop coarsely.  Longer and shorter.  The pimento slices – I bought the already-sliced thin pimento strands, but whatever you buy, chop up accordingly.  Larger strands can make for great facial expressions.  Triangle topped bits work nicely as horns.  Just go have FUN!  The simple ones I made this time took little time.

Dill – hair. Pimento – mouths and other random things.

Ready, set, go. I created two trays of these.

Time for your close-up! STOP POUTING! It’s not so bad, you got et!

At the event, one.

At the event, two.

NOTE ON TRANSPORT!  

Years ago I had a plastic deviled egg tray that came with a lid.  This was cool, but it disappeared at some point.  Even if you don’t decorate them, you don’t want them sliding around and turning over on their way to the designated pot luck or whatever dining spot.  So, I bought a couple of deviled egg serving trays, but alas I cannot find them without lids!  Mine hold 8 eggs – 16 devils – apiece.  The slots are deep enough they won’t slide around, but there’s no way to cover them!  Oh, you can, but the yolk material will cling to the cling wrap, which is why it is CALLED cling wrap!  Or to the foil, you go that route – curses FOILED again!  This is distressing whether you decorate them or not, and I was driving 1.5 hours with them in my car!  They had to be covered, and they HAD to be kept cool!  

Innovation to the rescue!  

I bought two aluminum chicken roaster pans, which I can recycle later for… chicken.  These dishes just fit in, and the roaster pan sides are high enough that whatever I choose to cover them with won’t drip down into the yolks and be problematic.  

It was a bit of a drive to the event. AND I didn’t want all my decorative work to end up annealing to the cling wrap or the aluminum foil. So, I got a large chicken roaster, and transported them that way, putting foil or cling wrap over the top of the two containers. (I did try both methods… foil was better but if you are careful with the cling wrap, this works too.) Jacked up the A/C in the car, and used boxes under the pans with flat freezer packs. Everything arrived happy and fine.  See the photos of them next to the berries, or the cheese/veggie platters, to see how they arrived!

And more:  to keep things chill, I had two perfect open cardboard boxes, one an ex-produce box from BJ’s, another a shallow box that came with some garden center foundation plants that wouldn’t be useful for much else, but was big enough for this purpose.  If you wish, place a kitchen trash bag laid out at the bottom of each box (condensation/wet), put down a few flat freezer packs, bring out your eggs in their trays in their roaster pans, and put them in the cardboard carriers atop the ice, and take off and GO!  Temps were mid 70’s outside when I arrived!  

Enjoy!

Serving these happy apps over at Fiesta Friday!  Co-hosts this week are Monika and Jhuls.

 

 

 

 

 

Greek Stuffed Grape Leaves (Dolmas) with Lamb

I’ve done the lamb variant twice now, and the vegan/vegetarian variant once.  I want to work with the vegan Dolmas a time or two more before I post that recipe; I found my venture to be a bit too “soggy”.  There are a lot of great-sounding vegan stuffed grape leaf recipes out there, but most seem to contain pine nuts… which I cannot digest properly any more.  Much as I loved pine nuts once upon a time!!  But at the moment, the lamb variant seems to be ready for Prime Time, as it were.

Dolmas, stuffed and rolled. Keep seam side down when cooking and serving.

Lamb:  ground lamb, pastured and 100% free-range-grazed from Sepe’s Farm, Newtown, CT.  I try my best to avoid having mega numbers of multiple animals ground up in my ground meats!  Something simply feels skeevy about that!

The recipe I used can be found at The Spruce.   I made half a recipe each time, and some other minor modifications, and for the first occurrence (a Greek-themed pot luck) I made a yogurt tzatziki, adding mint to my usual recipe.

Cooked and served!

Prep Time: 1.5 hours
Dolmas Cook Time:  50-60 minutes
Rest Time:  At least cool to finger-food temperature.
Serves:  a bunch of appetizers!
Leftovers?:  Yes, refrigerate up to five days, serve cold or re-heat.  Can be frozen.

Greek Dolmas with Lamb and Rice

• water for blanching grape leaves.
• Juice of two lemons, divided
• About one half of a 16-ounce jar fresh grape leaves in brine.
• 1 cup uncooked white basmati rice
• 1 medium-large onions, chopped finely.
• 2.5 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 pound ground lamb (you can substitute beef)
• about 8 stalks of fresh dill, chopped
• 1 handful fresh mint, chopped
• 1 handful fresh curly parsley, chopped.
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Himalayan salt (regular fine, too)
• 2 cups of water

Rinse leaves to remove excess salt; then boil a pot of water, add grape leaves and turn heat off.  Let soak for 4-5 minutes, then drain.  Set aside.

In a half tablespoon of oil, saute onions until translucent, but not brown.

Let rice soak in hot tap water for at least ten minutes, then drain.

In a bowl, mix together onions, rice, the rest of the olive oil, 1 lemon’s juice, and the spices and salt.

Separate the grape leaves, cut off the stem with a paring knife or scissors, and add a generous teaspoon or so of mixture to the base part of the leaf – the darker green shinier surface should be on the outside of the wrap.  Fold the leaf up, tuck in the two side lobes, then continue rolling, and set the leaf with the final roll on the bottom, so the thing doesn’t unravel while cooking.

I found this video to be a wonderful teaching aid:  Rolling Grape Leaves.  I just discovered, when hunting this video back down so I could refer to it here, there are now devices one can buy that will do this onerous (?) task for you.  I don’t think they will save much time, however – they’re not automated! At any rate, pictures below!

Put a plate in the bottom of the pot you will be cooking the grape leaves in.  Put in a plate up side down – theoretically it should be close-fitting to the bottom of the pot, but I don’t seem to own such plates.  I don’t think it matters.

Add some unused, unstuffed grape leaves (ie, some of those that rip when you are separating them from each other, or that ripped when you tugged them out of their tightly-packed jar)!   This keeps the bottom dolmas from burning.  Add the dolmas, seam sides down.  One or two or three layers are okay.  Place more of the excess leaves over the top.  Add the water to cover (about two cups, generally speaking, but go by the size of your pot and the amount of dolmas.  Add the rest of the lemon juice, and more if you are so inclined.  Put a plate on top of the dolmas, to keep them from floating.

Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, covered.  50 minutes seems about right, but if you have three layers of dolmas, you may wish to keep them simmering five or so minutes more.

Use tongs to remove.  Serve warm, or serve after refrigeration, chilled (you can nuke them if you desire them warm later).

Add a generous dollop of stuffing.

Begin to roll from bottom up.

Fold in side lobes of leaf.

Continue rolling entire leaf, tucking in things where necessary.

Continuing the food fest at Fiesta Friday, hosted this week by Jhuls and Su.

 

 

 

 

 

Of Olive and Apple Trees!

Another for the annals of Future Food!  

Arrived this past weekend:

One Arbequina olive tree in a gallon container.  (Looks on the small side of a gallon, but hey…)

Four bare root apple trees, packed as a bundle.  One dogwood tree.  Seriously, I’d forgotten I’d ordered the dogwood!  (Orders went in three months ago… they ship when planting is best for one’s zone.)

Source, Raintree Nursery, Oregon.

The Arbequina Olive:

Close up of the poppy-sized olives.

This one is simply PACKED with what I presume are baby olives, little things about the size of poppy seeds at this point.  I did some research on this particular olive, and olives in general.

Olives can be invasive, but this variety is cold hardy to zone 8, and I’ll be in zone 5, so no worries.  Like the citruses, it will be overwintered indoors or in the future greenhouse.

Olive fruit is very bitter directly off the vine, so that’s why olives are always sold brined. (Honestly, I’d never thought about this…  Makes sense, though!)   Mediterranean olive trees are extremely long-lived – if I take good care of this one, perhaps I’ll have a great great great great nephew or niece who will want it… although I’m not planning on any necessary inheritance this way!

The Arbequina olive is named for the region in Spain it has been propagated from, at least from the times “they” started naming things.  (I keep wanting to call it the Aquafina olive…)  This one is ripe when it has turned brown, and this variety is typically used in the making of olive oil, although it can be eaten as a fruit, too.  Um, brined…

Meh olive tree photo from a distance. The poor thing has to fill out some!

If I wish to make my own olive oil, mechanical cold pressing can yield “extra virgin olive oil”.  While this may well be within the scope of my abilities here, I doubt I’d get very much from one plant, despite the number of baby olives on this one!

A Mini-Dwarf Apple Orchard:  

Apples by and large tend to need to be pollinated by other apple flower pollen from different varieties/cultivars.  There are some exceptions, but this is generally true.  Why one variety can’t pollinate another tree of its same variety… I dunno, but there you have it!

This batch from Raintree Nursery is supposed to be willing to pollinate each other with fervor (they flower at the same time).  All are miniature dwarfs, grafted onto root stock that promotes a smaller growth pattern.  Making it easier to pick than, say, waiting for deadfall.

They’re shipped out from cold storage, and there’s no dirt on their roots.  Indeed, they got wrapped in wads of recycled shredded newspaper, wetted down for the journey.  They arrived at my house while I was away, either Friday or Saturday, and I got home Sunday.  Then, they had to wait until yesterday (Tuesday the 16th of May) to get to my future home to be planted.  I was able to keep them relatively cool.

And so, we dug the holes into moist soil (lotsa rain recently), inserted plants, topped them with garden soil, and on the 17th, watered them copiously, and then I circled them with rocks, and added cedar chips for mulch.  I put in stakes using a Velcro product intended for tomatoes, to keep them attached to these stakes.  Note: chosen boundary rocks are subject to replacement over time for aesthetic reasons.

Although there’s not much growing around where these guys were planted, the soil is actually rich.  There’s been house construction and other events of soil moving!  The close row of three is probably 30 feet from the house proper.  Photo from my future bedroom.

Four incipient apple trees!  It got quite unexpectedly hot today.  I bet you can guess the last tree to get cedar mulch, just from the mulch color!

Reading the above as if it were a book:  Of course, anybody’s guess which is what!!

• The header (photo view faces south):  Cherry Cox Apple M2
• From left to right:  Left:  Striped Gravenstein
• Middle:  Honeycrisp M2
• Right:  William’s Pride

The Australian Finger Lime, blooms opening!:

Check the earlier post about this tree, but about a week ago, the blossoms started to open:

Blossoms open, Australian Finger Lime. Note pink bud center right.

 

GF Flourless Chocolate Cake

Probably my personal mottos, but:

“Life is short.  Eat  fish and veggies first.”  – Anon?  

“How can you have your meat if you don’t eat your pudding?” – Pink Floyd?  

I had fourteen of us over at my new, almost finished, home this past Saturday night, and puzzled quite a bit over what to do for dessert.  Dessert not being something I eat with any frequency, personally, and not because of some idea I’m “depriving” myself for health – I’ve simply entrained myself not to care for sweets to the degree that most people enjoy them, but I seem to have had a start early in life in this direction.  (I’m told my parents would toss out the leftover Easter candy for Halloween, and the leftover Halloween candy for Easter – but back then I did enjoy candy corn and milk chocolate, even if I never wanted hard candies, gummy candies, jelly beans, marshmallows or the like.)

Anyhow, I settled on making a flourless gluten-free chocolate “cake” for dessert.

Simple and straightforward.

At any rate, this recipe may be found as: Healthier Flourless Chocolate Cake, at DetoxInista.com.

Changes I made:  I cooked and served this in a glass quiche pie pan, instead of cooking and decanting from a spring-form cake pan (I don’t own one of those, and don’t wish to).  I had to punt when I couldn’t find the honey (did I say I am in the process of moving?) and use coconut palm sugar, which is still better than refined cane sugar.

Prep Time:  15 minutes.
Cook Time:  20-25 minutes.
Rest Time:  Let it cool, then chill in fridge (although can be served at room temp)
Serves:  16.
Leftovers:  Up to a week in fridge.

• 4 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate (typically one bar)
• 1/2 cup butter from grass fed cows; 1 stick in the US.  (Or, coconut oil.) 
• 3 whole eggs, shelled.
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (mine was unsweetened, too, online from Savory Spice Shop).
• 0.94 cups sugar (coconut palm sugar or brown sugar) + 0.2 cups water (OR if you have the honey, 3/4 cup honey!  Yes, I had to find a conversion table…)  

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Melt the chocolate and butter together in an oven-safe skillet, in the oven, for 4-5 minutes, don’t let it melt absolutely completely.  Pull it out and mix by hand with a spatula.  Pour into a mixing bowl and scrape as much out of the skillet into the bowl as possible.  (Or, you could technically add everything else to the skillet!)

Beat the eggs, add to the chocolate / butter.

Add the cocoa powder and sugar, and mix by hand.  A whisk is best, but again, not sure where mine went!   The slotted spoon worked dandy, if a little slower!

Oil and wipe down a quiche pan with a little grape seed oil.

Add the batter, spreading evenly across the pan.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the center feels done (a little firm – it will firm up entirely as it cools).

I made this two days in advance, and stored, covered, in the fridge.

Slice to serve.  It seemed popular!  While it is relatively low in sugars, it is still VERY rich, so a little will go a long way!

P.S. – this is the very very first item I’ve baked in the oven portion
of my range in my new home!!!

Serving this up at Fiesta Friday, hosted this week by Jhuls and Su.

 

 

Container Citrus Trees!

A post about Future Food!

I’m far too far north here in Connecticut, and further yet in Massachusetts, to be able to plant citrus trees in the ground.  But many of them will take well enough to life in containers.   They can sit out much of the year, and be placed in the basement (or better yet, the future greenhouse) during the dodgy season.

Finger Lime, with flowers

I’ve ordered four citrus trees to date.  If I prune properly, these should be manageable.

The most unusual one is shown above – the Australian finger lime.  Tiny pinkish blooms, thorns (alas!), and fruit that will be elongated like fingers.  Inside the peel, the fruit is supposedly little tart balls, probably about the size more or less of salmon roe.  Little bursts of flavor!  (I can see getting some ikura – the salmon roe – and interspersing some of these finger lime balls within, for both the color and taste effect!)  Since this one is flowering, I do expect some fruit this season.  This bush has more flowers on it than since it arrived here, about ten days ago.

Bearss Lime

This is the standard lime tree that bears the same limes you find in most groceries. It is named Bearss lime, dunno why the double-S.  It is seedless.

Did you know that if you don’t pick the limes when they are green, they will turn yellow, just like lemons?  I didn’t!

Thai Lime

Thai/Kaffir lime trees will fruit, but in Thai cooking, it’s the leaves that count.  I love me some Thai cooking, and so…  I will have to see if regular Bearss leaves have any culinary use, or indeed if anyone ever eats them or not.

Blood Orange

Blood oranges are a thing only rarely seen in my supermarkets. Very rarely.  But, they’re SO tasty!

The specimen above has a few insect nibbles in its leaves… I looked to make sure no insects were riding along, and all seems fine.

I’ve been putting these plants outdoors, but bringing them into my garage if the predicted temps look dodgy.    You need to keep them warm enough – I am setting them out if the temperatures are above 50 F.  (In-ground, and established, they can tolerate lower temps, but I’m playing it safe.)

They love sun!

They also need plenty of water and good drainage.  I planted them with a combo of peat-moss soil, and citrus soil (Lowes), with river rock pebbles at the bottom of their pots – to facilitate drainage.

If these thrive, I’ll be buying a couple other citrus cultivars next year.

 

Dining Out: Aroma Bar and Grill, Great Barrington, MA

Aroma Bar and Grill, Indian Restaurant
485 Main Street (Route 7), Great Barrington, MA

On my way home from meeting a contractor in Pittsfield, I stopped to take a quick and inexpensive lunch at the Aroma Bar and Grill.  I’d eaten here once before years ago (if I were rating things then, it would have gotten a 4.5 star review…), and hoped it was still in existence.

It is.  And it is still quite good.

The rasam soup (a lentil based vegetarian offering from the south of India) was just as wonderful as I remembered it to be.  A great combination of spices.

Yes, that’s cilantro floating on top! I adore this soup! Nope, not photogenic, especially on a phone…

Aroma’s lunch specials were a main chosen from the vegetarian, chicken,  or lamb sections of the dinner menu (a smaller amount, of course), vegetable pakora, rice, raita, and your choice of naan, poori, or roti.  I chose lamb dilruba and garlic naan.  (My absolute favorite Indian main is lamb saag – I have a thing for the seasonings of Indian spinach dishes, but I decided to try a preparation I’d not ever eaten before.)

The vegetable pakora was awesome.  I could make a meal off of that (and the soup).  My portion included cauliflower and broccoli,  lightly frittered and delicately seasoned.

Lamb dilruba is described as lamb served in a mild brown sauce with mushrooms.  Actually, the waitress gave me a choice of mild, medium or hot in spiciness.  I chose medium heat.  This was very good, and the lamb was quite tender and tasty.  However, the sauce, which owed a lot to tomato, was not outstanding – very good, but simply not boat-rocking.

The raita was good, lightly seasoned and refreshing.  The rice, for some reason, was tepid in temperature.   I’m thinking they incompletely re-heated leftover rice from the night before?  (This was just after noon, which is why I am wondering.)  So, the rice was disappointing.

Notice that garlic naan attempting to warm up the rice beneath? I do wish there’d been more pakora (item at 3 o’clock) but I did leave this restaurant happily satiated.

Service was prompt and courteous.  My meal was under $20, and I was satiated.

The restaurant appears to be divided into two sides, the other side being the bar.  I stuck with ice water…

They serve a Sunday brunch buffet.

Rating:  3.7 out of 5, mostly docked for the tepid rice.  (Otherwise at least a 4, but hey, the tepid rice almost certainly came from the previous night… it’s a major part of the cuisine…)  I WILL be back.  That soup!  That pakora!

 

 

 

 

Dining Out: El Comalito, Amherst, MA

El Comalito (Mexican & Salvadorian), 460 West Street, Amherst MA

The next two or three posts I’m making are dining out experiences.  I’m pretty busy packing and sorting my home in preparation for a move to be very kitchen-creative.  This dining out excursion happened because I’d just finished visiting a wood burning furnace outlet, and was on my way to visiting my future home to see how things were doing there, and to drop off a load of books and other stuff.

Taco spread.

Photos by phone – real cameras are way too intrusive at restaurants.

And I don’t stop for Mickey Dee’s… or Bugger King.   Panera’s, yes, but that was too far out of my way.  Google being my friend, I found this place!

I ordered the avocado salad with balsamic vinaigrette, which they served on the side.  This would have been a meal in itself!  I took half of it home (minus the avocados, which just won’t keep – I ate all of them then and there).  The tomatoes of course are hot-house, which is just as well, since I should limit nightshade consumption.

Lots of avocados!

For the main:  three gluten-free Puerco/Pulled Pork soft tacos.  This was a LARGE platter, and came with a green salsa.   I also got a small bit of pico de gallo.  Yep, nightshades, but these were tasty.  I included the refried beans and the rice – you had to get the rice WITH the beans or the beans alone would have, for some inexplicable reason, cost more.

These were very good, the pork tender yet a bit crispy in the right way; and the rice was done well, not soggy.   The green salsa was outstanding.

If I head back, I want to try the Salvadorean pupusas – I’ve never had them.  Unfortunately, they require 20 minutes of additional wait time, and I was On the Road, and had destinations to meet.

Service was a tad slow, but not uncomfortably so.  There are plenty of gluten-free and a few vegetarian options.

Zoom in on them tacos!

Rating:  3.75 out of 5 stars.