November 14, 2012
In Richardson, a suburb of Dallas, Texas, they have a seafood spot called Big Shucks.
This isn’t a place to eat and watch football, unless your game is fútbol. But it does offer some Latin influenced dishes. This shrimp cocktail, rich in cilantro and tasting more like a juiced up salsa, is one of them.
Big Shucks
103 S Coit Rd
Richardson, TX 75080
(972) 231-8202
September 26, 2012
Casa Milagro is a highly regarded Richardson restaurant, and checking out reviews by Regular Joe and Bill Hensley, I decided it was promising. It was close enough to the hotel to make it worth a trip, and this eatery ended up being my #1 target while in Texas. There was no guarantee I’d have family, as my daughter and wife were attending a Supernatural convention at the time.
With some luck, my family was available for a late lunch, so we headed up US 75 to this eatery. It’s in a L shaped strip mall, and the restaurant itself is back from the road. Inside, it’s neat, unassuming, clean, and efficient.
Salsa and chips are free with the meal. The salsa here has plenty of cilantro, the red having a bite you don’t get in Atlanta. The chips were dry.
Eight different kinds of “honest to God” chile rellenos.
One of the things I was looking forward to from a Texas Tex Mex eatery was a chance to get a real chile relleno. You don’t see very many good ones in Atlanta. And very often, ordering a chile relleno in Atlanta gets you a ring of bell pepper with 3-4 tablespoons of ground meat in the middle (if Atlanta Tex Mex serves a real chile relleno, they will call it a chile poblano). So, to my great pleasure, Casa Milagro served 8 different kinds of chile rellenos.
I ended up ordering the brisket and honchos relleno. My wife had a pair chicken enchiladas with a tomatillo sauce, and my daughter had enchiladas de guiso, cheese enchiladas on which pork guiso, a Mexican pork stew, was poured.
A real chile relleno, stuffed with brisket and mushrooms.
Inside of the relleno.
Enchiladas de guiso, the hit of the meal.
Chicken enchiladas with a tomatillo sauce. Brown rice was the side.
The favorite dish of the meal was the enchiladas de guiso. We all thought it had more flavor than anything else we ate. My relleno was pretty popular as well. The tomatillo sauce on my wife’s enchiladas ran a little more sour than what she was used to, but they ended up being finished as well. All in all, Casa Milagro served a really fine meal. We left happy we had been to Casa Milagro.
The Impalas. Supernatural fans will know what this means 
.
Casa Milagro
1403 East Campbell Road
Richardson, TX 75081
(972) 234-6999
PS – for those unfamiliar with pork guiso, the Busy Gourmand has a nice article on this Mexican stew.
April 19, 2012
Little Mexico is showing some interesting lunch specials on their blackboard.
We were able to take advantage of those recently. Shown below is their hot and spicy burrito. Ground beef, beans and rice, along with a spicy salsa mark this lunchtime choice.
The chile relleno lunch special is also a whole pepper, as opposed to a ring of pepper with a little beef poured inside.
March 15, 2012
El Molcajete is a small chain, with a version out in the Hamilton Mill area, an exit or two north of the Mall of Georgia exit. Exit 85 onto Hamilton Mill, heading west, and the restaurant will be on your left. It’s in a strip mall, one that has a restaurant named ‘Oriental’ and that bright ‘Oriental’ is much easier to see than the green letters of El Molcajete.
This is a restaurant with a large menu. Parts of it look like the same old Atlanta style Tex Mex. Yes, you can find a “Speedy Gonzales” here. But other parts, especially dinner entrees, are more authentic. My daughter spotted the Super Molcajete and ordered that. I saw a spicy seafood soup and ordered that. We called my wife and she wanted fajitas to go.
You get free chips and salsa with your meal. Chips are crisp, dry, and good. Even the ‘to go’ chips retain that character. El Molcajete has 2 salsas. The chipotle salsa, the dark one, is rich in flavors and much better than the stock red.
Super Molcajete. A dish for two.
Spicy seafood soup. Plates like canned vegetable soup, but much better tasting.
The servings size here is enormous. The molcajete dish (grilled meats and veggies in a stone mortar) is a meal for two. The soup was enough for one. The grilled pepper in the molcahete has some real bite, if you eat it with seeds. But it looked so enticing I asked my daughter for a bite.
In terms of sheer display, the molcajete here is a disappointment compared to Zapatas. No bubbly cheese, the dish arrived barely steaming. The soup, for that matter, arrived with carrots as a significant component of the ‘eye candy’. Yes, it was nice that a half cluster of crab was visible, but plating a beautiful dish isn’t the focus at this eatery. Instead, it’s a clearly suburban joint. The “Speedy Gonzales” shows that. The decent food in enormous quantities shows that.
My soup had a partial crab cluster, plenty of fish, some shrimp, a good broth that got better as the meal went on. My daughter’s dish had things like grilled sausage, grilled chicken, a skewer of shrimp, the lovely pepper, and some grilled cactus. Both dishes were worthwhile.
In summary, the originality of El Molcajete makes it worth the trouble, if you’re up around Buford, to seek out. But the style of food is clearly playing to neighborhood tastes, as opposed to being a routine destination for ITPers.
El Molcajete
2590 Hamilton Mill Road
Buford, GA 30519
(678) 394-5200
February 28, 2012
El Rey Del Taco is a place with a well established reputation for good Mexican cuisine. Recently, BuHi had another of his open invitation get togethers at this eatery. This, the 285 Foodies crowd latched onto, as a respected forum couple was moving to Oregon. Mike Stock and company needed an opportunity in which to send these two off. That’s the background for this review, which won’t be very traditional.
Mike Stock and Lorenzo? I believe, in the focus. The back of BuHi's head to the left. Not a great photo but captures the mood of the day.
Beer.
Nearby tacos, mixed meats.
Mixed special. Barbacoa de chivo on top, lengua towards the bottom. Jalapenos were pickled and pretty mild.
I recall a lot of conversation, and beer, and having a “mixed special” plate, including lengua and barbecued goat meat. Meats were good, lengua having good flavor without tasting “boiled”, goat flashing a bare hint of wild gaminess. That’s the thing that should attract your attention here, a versatile display of meats in use. Yes, Bliss praises it for getting the little things right. Buhi can go into depth about each and every dish. But good meats, affordable prices, amiable staff and product that’s not sitting, but moving from kitchen to table, all should clue you into a place worth exploring, and a menu you can’t exhaust in a trip or two.
What do they have? Besides tacos and specials, the menu lists burritos, tortas, quesadillas, shrimp dishes, fish dishes, specials of various kinds, fajitas I believe, and combinations. The menu is large, and as long as you’re not looking for Tex-Mex yellow cheese dishes, you’ll have plenty of choices here.
El Rey Del Taco
5288 Buford Highway
Atlanta, GA 30340
February 20, 2012
Though there is a certain chain restaurant that has most of the press (and traffic) these days, another much smaller chain has slipped into Snellville. Alvarado’s Mexican Food is on 78, a little south of the 78-Scenic Highway intersection, a little past the Just Brakes, and very easy to miss. It’s the second in a chain, the first being in Doraville. It’s surprisingly neat inside, with a menu above the counter, and on laminated, brightly colored takeout cards.
Menudo is served on Saturdays and Sundays. Alvarado's is also running a breakfast burrito special.
The fare is largely authentic. Standard sized tacos run a little higher than most taquerias, around $2.19 (though the card says mini tacos are available for $0.99 each). You can get tortas, quesadillas, burritos, and breakfast items. There is a sauce bar, with good picked carrots and jalapenos, a mild red sauce (I could drink it without any issue) and a more zesty salsa verde.
I had three tacos when I went. The fish taco was mild and tasty. The carnitas taco was full of a “pulled pork” style meat, and also good. The lengua ran a little more chewy than most lengua, but it had taste, and lacked the “just boiled” flavors I’ve had in places before.
Alvarado’s Mexican Food
2597 West Main Street
Snellville, GA 30078
Alvarado’s Mexican Food
5944 Buford Highway
Doraville, GA 30340
(770) 655-6987
February 4, 2012
Don Chava is in a strip mall a bit north of the corner of Beaver Ruin and Buford Highway. It has some interesting food options, such as 99 cent regular tacos, $1.99 lamb tacos, and the most amazing bowls of birria I’ve ever seen (see for example, this article, for a glimpse of the stew). More aptly, though, Don Chava had the first bowls of birria I’ve ever seen. For a while I was wondering how yuk gae jang with oxtail made it into a Mexican joint. But those bony chunks of good looking meat were probably something else – goat, for example.
A trio of fish tacos
I enjoyed my fish tacos, good mild fish with a bright zesty pico on top. Don Chavas has three salsa available, all at a bar. Their spicy isn’t very spicy at all, and I used heaps of their salsa verde on my tacos and chips.
In one sense Don Chava is the anti-Zapatas. The service is come and go, since there is only one staffer who takes orders, serves food, and cleans tables. The menu – the good one – is the dinner menu (only one copy of this, up at the counter, and it is the one you want to order from), and it tends to have items that cost more. This place isn’t perfect. I don’t like the oily chips much and it’s hard, in a one meal review, to judge the consistency. But judging from the Anglos coming in to sample the tacos and talking it up, this place already has a good rep with a certain set of eaters.
Don Chava Birrieria y Taqueria
5316 Buford Highway #104
Norcross GA 30071
(678) 534-3500
January 26, 2012
Zapatas is a good looking restaurant on Jones Street in historic Norcross, one whose major claim to fame are the molcajete dishes they serve, dishes served in a hot stone mortar. I had never been able to get there for lunch, though, something that clearly had to change. Recently I showed and tried some of their lunch options.
I find many of their lunch options to be heavy with carbs, not entirely optimal for a diabetic, or just too heavy in calories in general. If I were to recommend one, though, I’d recommend their tacos. With two, they also can serve beans.
Barbacoa and pastor tacos, with frijoles charros
Tacos are 2.50 each. Two tacos with beans cost 6 dollars. Zapatas has a large glass window open to Jones Street and the T shaped intersection nearby, making it very suitable for both eating and people watching in the early afternoon.
Please note that the going rate for tacos near Norcross is between a dollar and a dollar fifty, so if you’re going here to eat lunch, you’re paying for the ambience, the looks of the restaurant, the location, the service. And yes, Zapatas delivers all that. I saw plenty of businessmen in pairs, businessmen hovered over their portable devices or laptops – Zapatas has free wifi – or engaged in conversation with their peers.
The salsa is good here, tasty and bright with the flavor of fresh cilantro.
Overall? Recommended for lunch, but watch for the carbs.
Zapatas
15 Jones Street
Norcross, GA 30071
(770) 248-0052
December 8, 2011
The taco sign, $1.19 each, catches your eye, but the tostados de camarones are the winner here. Warm fresh corn, tasty enough to tempt a diabetic anchors this shrimp salsa cruda.
Authentic, down to earth, and yes, highly recommended, especially if you have to eat a lunch or dinner for less than ten dollars.
Don Pedro Mexican Restaurant
5130 Buford Highway
Norcross, GA 30071
(770) 242-1920
November 26, 2011
Near Perimeter Mall, just to one side of Barnes and Noble, used to be a Fire of Brazil. That restaurant has closed, and replacing it is Chuy’s.
As the sign says, it will be opening December 6th of 2011.
