Omara's y Pollo El Inka

New restaurant remains very much the same, churns out unique Peruvian delights

Omara’s is really tucked away, across from the pastel-colored Continent off of 161 and Busch Blvd. A google search reveals absolutely nothing about the restaurant, so it has the cleanest of slates. I think it might have gone through a name change (nee: Andino Chicken), but the inside and menu is almost certainly the same as I remember.. The rotisserie chicken (Pollo al Carbon) that they pride themselves on is still as present as ever, ¼ of a chicken for $5.00. Compare this to the California chain El Pollo Inka, which sells a ¼ chicken for 8.25…

The appetizer, Papa Rellena, is a sight to behold. Mashed potatoes stuffed with ground beef and spices are deep fried into a golden brown orb. Just a light crust keeps a hungry diner from getting to the perfectly-textured mashed potatoes. Served with fresh and lime covered pickled onions with little diced hot peppers mixed in on the side, this dish was executed perfectly.

The pollo al carbon could have been crispier (where the chicken was crispy was absolute bliss), but the chicken was full of flavor. In a typical rotisserie chicken, a bite is flavorful if you get part of the spice-rubbed skin, but once you get into the chicken, it is not. At Omara’s the spices and herbs penetrate the chicken so that every bite is flavorful, even when the spices have to compete with the stronger taste of the dark meat. The chicken came with a choice of sides which I can’t quite recall now. The cassava fries were starchy and good if dipped in something, but nothing remarkable. The store manager/waitress/part-time cook/owner? brought out a yellowish sauce, which might have been for one of the dishes or perhaps all three, I wasn’t really sure. It has sort of funky tanginess to it, and a definite kick. She said it was made from the aji amarillo, a yellow chile pepper only found in Peru. The sauce is completely unique, and you’d be hard pressed to find it in the Midwest, so we should consider ourselves lucky to have it in Columbus.

Lomo Saltado is as typical as Peruvian dishes come. I had the pleasure of having some Lomo Saltado in Peru, so I speak with a little bit of expertise. And while I was pretty disappointed with the dish when I had it in Cuzco, I’m happy to say that Omara’s preparation was much better. The dish is strips of beef stir-fried with peppers, onions, and tomatoes over a bed of French fries. The dish is slightly garlicky and salty with a hint of soy, almost verging into Chinese food territory. The beef strips were well-cooked and trimmed of fat very well, and the dish as a whole came together quite nicely with a generous sprinkling of cilantro on top, despite the seemingly odd inclusion of French fries (believe me, it’s as traditional as Lomo Saltado comes). The wedges of tomato, which can lose texture and make sauces watery, held together and stayed refreshingly crisp and fresh. How college kids haven’t discovered Lomo Saltado is beyond me, because it sounds like the perfect 1 a.m. drunk meal—filling, nonsensical, and flavors mixing that they’ve never tasted before.

I was way too stuffed for dessert, but our multi-talented manager/waitress insisted that we try a little, on her. She mentioned a flan, but instead brought out a small serving of beige/yellow ice cream, which she said was lucuma flavored. I took a bite, and thought to myself, “hmm, this tastes sort of mapley or caramely.” My brother, who was dining with me, said, “this tastes exactly like butter pecan,” which, after thinking about it, was pretty close to the flavor. I asked her what lucuma was, and she said, “it’s a fruit, from Peru. You can’t find it anywhere else.” The image of a fruit that tastes like butter pecan was mind-boggling and amazing. So if you don’t go to Omara’s for the extremely flavorful and cheap rotisserie chicken, or the deep-fried mashed potatoes, or the lomo saltado that’s better than Peru’s, check out the lucuma flavored ice cream that sort of tastes like butter pecan. Omara’s could use the business, considering that it was pretty empty when I went, and the owner was eager to give me her card. Omara’s execution of very rare and unique dishes makes it a standout. But let’s just hope that business will pick up, or else these rare Peruvian flavors could just become rarer.

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