Asian Fest

A belated review finds many positives in execution

I don’t know how much good there is in reviewing Asian Fest after it already happened, but since it’s of culinary worth, and many of the stands come back in following years, I felt it worth covering. Asian Fest is great place to spend a couple of hours—sit back, watch a performance or two, poke around the booths, grab a bite to eat, and watch some sepak takraw, the amazing soccer-volleyball backflipping sport of southeast Asia. But stay any longer than three hours or so and it begins to wear on you. So you go back to get more food. And what options you have! Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Thai, Laotian, Japanese, and Cambodian are all well-represented here. Take a lap and see what looks best.

If I recall correctly, the place was called Jenny’s Vietnamese—they definitely didn’t have an affiliated restaurant, I remember that much. It was in the northern most part of the food place, on the western half…but enough about names and geography. I picked this place solely on how great their chicken looked on the grill. They were grilling up short ribs and what looked like chicken wings (what I soon found out were chunks of chicken, maybe thighs. These were glazed in a salty sweet sauce and charred very well. The short ribs on the other hand…they were charred, too, but there was very little meat on the bone, and you had to pick through a lot of fat. The chicken was spot on, however.

The fantastic appetizer set the bar high for the rest of the day. Later I got a dish at a Korean stand (blanking on the name) that was just grilling up a lot of spicy pork and bulgogi (marinated barbecued beef). The spicy pork, which was marinated in pretty much the same stuff that cabbage is marinated in for kimchi, was fantastic. Giant curling slices were soft, flavorful with the marinade, and spicy. This was great execution, and easily worth the five dollars that it cost by itself, although I’d recommend getting some rice or a side dish with it. The bulgogi was a little tough, unfortunately. Bulgogi normally looks something like meat you’d find on an Italian beef sandwich—thinly sliced sirloin. The beef was, unfortunately, nowhere nearly as flavorful as the spicy pork. The kimchi was what kimchi should be—pickled and spicy, crunchy and sour, disgusting and delicious all at the same time.

And for dessert? One of the unconventional stands, the Filipino La Herba Buena, provided the goods. I stopped in once a few years ago, and the place offers some pretty funky imported stuff, including some pretty exotic drinks and frozen ice cream pops (I recall calamansi soda, for some odd reason). Apparently the specialty store also has a little restaurant in it, too. Well, I digress. The crushed ice with tapioca was, simply, crushed ice with tapioca balls at the bottom, and covered in a liquid that I can only describe as syrup-flavored. Still pretty refreshing on an 80 something degree day, but not necessarily something that I’d order again. The banana fritter, however, was a very good, two bite chunk of banana deep-fried. A nice, simple, and delicious end to a rewarding day at Asian Fest.

Look out for Asian Fest, May 2010

Franklin Park

La Plaia

Good ingredients and sauces, but value and menu underwhelms…

La Plaia encapsulates the unlikely. The restaurant is in the very back of the Columbus Square, where culinary delights abound—Mi Li’s for Vietnamese, Yuen’s for Vietnamese/Chinese, the newly-moved Smackie's Barbeque, and Nazareth Deli for Middle Eastern. Based on a recommendation, and considering my luck with restaurants in this strip, I figured I had a good shot of finding a gem in La Plaia. The restaurant is as unassuming as they come; it didn’t even look open when I arrived. Despite the unassuming outside, the inside is very dressed up. White tablecloths adorn tables and a skinny long aquarium splits the room in half. But in the first instance of unlikeliness, I was asked by the waitress, “do you have a reservation?” I scanned around the room, seeing that my surroundings were a little fancier than what I expected, but I scratched my head. It was 7:30 and there was one table occupied in the restaurant. I shook my head no, thinking that she might have possibly been joking, and she replied, “that’s okay,” and showed me to my table. Was this restaurant tricking itself into thinking that it was better or more successful than it was? Does everyone just come in at 9? A funky musty smell also hit me as I walked to the table.

Based on location and other factors, I was expecting a casual, moderately priced Italian restaurant. Instead, I was struck with forty five dollar price tags for veal chops and NY strip steak. Not ready to judge…quite yet. Salad and bread came out after the order was taken. The salad was nearly great—fresh field greens, an olive oil/lemon dressing and a fresh slice of beefsteak tomato all added up to a solid start to the meal. But the first taste on the tongue is…salt. Quite unfortunate, especially because it’s a salad; this is a dish usually not salted. All the elements of a good salad were there, and the slice of tomato was outstanding (they really take pride in their ingredients at La Plaia), but it was difficult to get over the saltiness. And so the theme of a restaurant “trying to be something that it’s not” continued throughout the meal. The bread that came with the salad looked like it was hard and crusty from the outside, but was soft and chewy and had no give to its crust (and for a restaurant serving $45 veal chops, butter packets? Really?). And the pasta on the menu is not homemade, according to the waitress, but the only pasta certified by the blahblahblah in Italy. Sorry, but the crudest version of homemade pasta is more impressive than the most expensive, finest box of pasta from Italy. The discrepancy between price and preparation causes the average diner to consider the word value throughout the whole meal. The waitress was sure to reassure, “all of our pasta sauces are homemade by the chef, everyday.” Better be the best darned sauce I’ve ever had to warrant sixteen dollar tortellini…

The Chicken Philippo was pan seared chicken breast in a white wine butter sauce and served with a slice of prosciutto over it, cheese, and diced tomatoes. The sauce was very nice, flavorful but not overwhelming. Tomatoes were fresh, but between the cheese and prosciutto and the seasoning of the dish, it was salty. Can you fault the chef if it was the prosciutto that made it salty? The thinly sliced Italian cured ham really wasn’t necessary in the dish. Also, a promised kick of spiciness with hot peppers never showed itself. I think the dish might deserve some pasta to go under it, too—it would at least make the value of the dish fairer.

Tortellini with peas and mushrooms was good, but nothing outstanding. Pasta dishes get a choice of sauce on the side, and so for the tortellini, it was the Ameritriciana sauce—tomatoey with a kick of habanero pepper and speckled with Romano cheese. The sauce was very good, more complex than the average tomato sauce, but the tortellini forgettable—peas and mushroom were on top, not inside, as one might think. And so you think, 16 dollars? Is it really worth the money for a good sauce but the rest of a dish I can make at home? The potato gnocchi with the house tomato sauce played out the same way. Again, a very capable sauce, but the doughy gnocchi was not outstanding in any sense. Portions on this dish and the others are probably more than they need to be; I came away feeling overstuffed after the meal was done.

One almost gets the feeling that La Plaia is fooling themselves. The waitress believes the restaurant to be the most popular, fanciest restaurant in the city, which it is clearly not. The chef believes the food to be gourmet, but it won’t be until they start going the extra mile outside of getting gourmet ingredients. And the menu is priced according to the gourmet, fancy standards that La Plaia doesn’t quite live up to. La Plaia could have been the golden nugget of a restaurant hidden in a strip mall, but it was fool’s gold all along…

Koi

Chinese newcomer still has long way to go

I was on my way to another restaurant on Cleveland Ave when I saw the sign for Koi, a Chinese restaurant, where another Chinese restaurant, Shangri La, used to be (I went there once—it was unremarkable). This place couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old, so I thought it deserved a shot. Taking a quick glance at the menu, it appeared that it was the standard Chinese-American fare. Upon closer inspection, there was a small “authentic Chinese” part of the menu. The authentic Chinese dishes, often hidden on a Chinese menu, are always something to look for not only because of their uniqueness and difficult-to-findness, but also because it’s likely the chef is comfortable making these traditional dishes. The authentic section only contains ten items or so, and there’s surprisingly little gross factor offered on this part of the menu (the steamed monkfish liver and stir-fried jellyfish that one might find on a Chinese menu was not present). After consulting with the waiter, I decided to try the pork with chili pepper, the water spinach, and the mango chicken (a pretty unconventional Chinese-American offering). I was disappointed to hear that the fresh water spinach was in fact not on hand, and the best the waiter could do was offer stir-fried lettuce (an interesting but unappealing choice). I decided to take my chances with the ma po tofu, a standard among Chinese restaurants.

The pork with chili pepper stood out as the best dish, by far. A generous serving of skinny pork strips covered with bright green onions and sliced jalapenos, which lure the eater in with its appearance similar to green pepper (they’re sliced long ways, not the typical baseball nacho slice that one normally encounters). Considering that many of the jalapeno seeds are still evident within the dish, this was not a mild, gentle pork dish. It does a little more butt kicking than I expected. The dish maintains a nice crunch between the jalapenos and the green onions. It appeared— I might be wrong on this—that there were pea shoots in there, too. They didn’t add much, except to the overall greenness to the dish. Sliced garlic provided nice flavor and contrast from the spiciness.

The ma po tofu hit some of the right notes. Tofu was well cooked, silken and delicate in the slightly sweet ma po brown sauce which didn’t really make me want to eat more of it due to its odd aftertaste (no indication of fermented black beans in the sauce, either). The minced pork added texture, but wasn’t remarkable in any way. Where this dish was really lacking was the spice. It barely registered at all on the tongue, maybe a 1.5 on the 10 point spiciness scale. Unfortunately, the traditionally spicy Szechuan dish failed to deliver in this case.

The mango chicken was the last to come out. It was in a thick, bright sauce—never really a good sign. It would probably suffice to the person who appreciates a nice sweet and saucy orange chicken, but it didn’t appeal to me on this day. The consistency of the sauce mixed with the slices of mango approached mushy and grainy. It’s a good sign, however, that mango was in the dish, and not just in the syrupy sauce.

Koi is still very new onto the dining scene, and it shows—the barebones interior, Styrofoam plates, and plastic forks and knives all prove that the restaurant is getting its feet wet. But a limited Chinese menu and mediocre execution on a few dishes might indicate that the restaurant is just not where it should be. The pork with chili pepper comes recommended, but know that you might be taking a chance with one of Koi’s other dishes.

Koi

3754 Cleveland Ave
Columbus, OH 43224
614-471-5400

Mi Bandera Taqueria/Cafeteria Salvadorena

Mi Bandera Taqueria
Brand new Mexican restaurant surprises with great flavor

Adjacent to Mi Bandera Supermarket is Mi Bandera Taqueria, advertised with a grand opening sign but nothing else. Chairs block what would be the entryway, with a sign pointing customers to the entrance of the supermarket. The taqueria is one of those where one must walk through the store to get to the restaurant—while common, this is hardly something exclusive to Mexican restaurant—the restaurant-in-a-pharmacy immediately comes to mind.

The old school reappears on the small counter where one orders—“ring bell for service.” There were a few specials when I visited, including a steak and potatoes dish, another beef dish, sopes and, curiously enough, pupusas. Pupusas come from El Salvador (and occasionally from surrounding Honduras and Guatemala), and in my limited experience I’ve seen Mexican dishes on Salvadoran menus, but never a pupusa at a Mexican restaurant. Tortas are the other main offering on their menu, but they tend toward the expensive side ($7 and up). Drinks were out of a fridge save the horchata, which had a very nice balance of rice and cinnamony sweetness.

The asada tacos, served “taqueria style” on doubled mini corn tortillas with lime, onion, cilantro, and radish, were spot on. Not too much fat on the asada, but griddled well, picking up a little char. The garnishments were fresh and crisp (one shouldn’t expect any less when eating in a supermarket), and worked perfectly with the tacos. What I found remarkable was that this was the grand opening of this taqueria (who knows how long it had been open, but it couldn’t have been longer than a month, I think), and the flavor of the asada was so good, it was as if it picked up flavors from a grill that had been in use for twenty years. The al Pastor was good, but nothing spectacular. A spit was not evident, so it’s not worth going out of your way to get them. The holy grail of al pastor is heavily caramelized chunks of pork that are well-marinated and juicy with tiny pineapple chunks; anything less and you’re not getting the al Pastor experience. The sope, I will admit, had a little odd taste at first. There was nothing unusual about the ingredients (lettuce, tomato, Chihuahua cheese?, crema, chorizo), but the combination of the chorizo’s flavors with the crema and the tomato made it taste a little like ranch dressing. But when the second bite came around, everything was alright. The chorizo was very crumbly, staying on the sope and the flavors blended really well.

The final dish I got around to was the pupusa. My brother Harry was at first very apprehensive about the chicharron factor. We all have the pre-conceived notion of the pork rind, whether it be the fatty, deep fried, disgusting “snack,” or the wonderfully flavorful and delicious lo-carb treat. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground, does there? The pupusa came out, and the masa disc showed no signs of being filled with anything. Harry wondered aloud, “is there even chicharron in there?” I piled the pupusa with the vinegary cabbage slaw, poured on some runny red sauce, and found out. It was…delicious. The chicharron, which I had expected to be crunchy and crackly, was actually soft, tempered in juices and encased in the pupusa. It had all the flavor of a great pulled pork, and was perfectly complemented with the lime covered cabbage and sauce. The cabbage accompaniment is sometimes pickled and spicy, but this preparation was clean, crisp, sweet, and perfect for the pupusa. The cheese was barely noticeable, but I didn’t care as I got down to the end of the pupusa—it was very good.

The verdict on Mi Bandera? Well executed, flavorful dishes, all from a newcomer on the scene. Cheap tacos (1.25 each) and very fair prices on sopes and pupusas add up to great value and a pleasant surprise from the supermarket taqueria. Pictures to come…


Mi Bandera Supermarket (restaurant is attached)
Beechcroft Centre
1965 E Dublin Granville Rd
Columbus, OH 43229
(614) 888-9510

Cafeteria Salvadorena
If you make pupusas, they will come...

Another restaurant worth noting is Cafeteria Salvadorena, a literal hole-in-the-wall on the east side of Columbus. I figure I’ll kill two birds with one pupusa on this review. The restaurant is off of Steltzer, across from a park with barbed wire fencing around it. It’s set back, maybe 200 feet or so from the road by a large expanse of deserted parking lot. It looks like there was some kind of cheap supermarket next to it at one time, but it’s long abandoned. Every other storefront next to the place is empty and falling apart as well. The inside is welcoming, filled with Salvadoran flags, quilts, and images. Pupusas were spot on—they tasted more homemade than the Mi Bandera (maybe a different masa?), but there were only a few options—cheese, cheese and beans, and cheese and loroco, an edible flower that is a traditional ingredient in a pupusa. The loroco is interesting, but it doesn’t add or detract much from the pupusa. The pupusas overall were pretty good—gooey melty goodness, but nothing out of this world. The rest of the offerings looked to be standard fare. Chicken a la plancha was tasty—flattened and grilled, but perhaps a little on the salty side. Be careful with the language barrier—one of the things I ordered got lost somewhere along the way, so double check to make sure they understood everything you asked for.

If you’re looking for great preparation of pupusas and a real Salvadoran experience, Cafeteria Salvadorena’s a good fit. The surroundings are so desolate, you might want to go just to show your friends pictures and say you went. It’s also a good option if you’re in the neighborhood (just south of the airport).

Cafeteria Salvadorena
3208 Allegheny Ave (off of Steltzer Rd)
Columbus, OH 43209
(614) 338-0552

The Introduction- aka, the culinarycolumbus manifesto

The culinarycolumbus manifesto, aka the reasons why this blog exists.

1. I love food.

There are those who are perfectly fine with eating mediocre food all their life, or the same food all their life. There are those who would, if they could, consume all their meals in pill form so they could get that extra time to do whatever they please (I was incredulous when I found this out). And then there are those who would bear the icy cold and the sweltering hot for a good meal, those who would do anything to find the hidden gem, the hole in the wall that is eye-opening, mouth-opening, and mind-opening. Consider me one of “those” people.

2. The food community in Columbus is underserved.

For a town that is around a million in size, what the heck are we doing without a legitimate group of people talking about it? Sure, there are a few blogs talking about restaurants, but when these are the most legitimate discussions of food in the city, it’s usually not a good sign. Ideally, there would be a forum for people interested in food in Columbus but unfortunately, my technological ability, resources and time greatly limit me. But when the city’s only major newspaper doesn’t publish a restaurant review in the food section, when the city’s biggest magazine publishes 18 straight three star reviews, when the city’s biggest alternative newspaper doesn’t even publish a weekly review, there is something amiss. Hopefully my few reviews will enlighten and bring attention to restaurants that no one is covering, or willing to cover.

3. These restaurants are virtually unknown.

Is there any way of knowing that these restaurants exist? It’s possible that there’s a single yelp review on the internet, or the publishing of the restaurant’s name in the yellow pages, but otherwise, there’s no way. I think of 7 Regiones, a restaurant just off of Broad St. in west Columbus, which, for one, is spelled incorrectly on every online listing, and only has one cryptic three-sentence review from 2006 going for it. The place has the best tortas in town, I’d be willing to wager, but it’s impossible to even find the place without the wrongly spelled name. So not only does culinarycolumbus aim to cover the culinary scene in Columbus, but in publishing some of these little known restaurants, it’s my hope that people may become “culinary Columbuses,” explorers of new worlds.

4. People don’t give good food credit in Columbus, or they give bad and mediocre food credit.

A surprising amount of people think that the Olive Garden is a great gourmet dinner. I don’t think that they necessarily have bad taste, per se; I think a lot of them aren’t aware. I have a lot of family in Chicago and have a pretty good grasp of food in the Windy City, and I’m always thinking to myself, “this place would make a killing if it was in Chicago…” So really, we don’t need to sell ourselves short—in realms Mexican, Middle Eastern, Vietnamese and Somali, Columbus restaurants compete if not excel.

I suppose it’s worth noting that this blog and the reviews on it are my “SIP,” or Senior Independent Project. I am a high school student whose graduation is fast-approaching, but I don’t find these truths to be very relevant to my exploration of restaurants. Other than, for the next two weeks, it’s my full time job. So let the eating begin!