tacos Archives - Curiously Carmen

Sal Y Limon

January 22, 2017

I normally don’t go for Mexican food- actually, scratch that, I never go for Mexican. I don’t remember the last time I had Mexican prior to this month. OH wait, I think it was Las Margaritas almost two years ago, for Dine Out Vancouver 2015.

I don’t really know why, I guess because there are so many restaurants to pick from in Vancouver that Mexican food goes off my radar! But lately this month, I have been trying more places. And by places, I mean Chipotle (Yes, I finally tried Chipotle and I can see why people rave about it) and this review, Sal Y Limon!

Sal Y Limon is located inside a small strip mall off Fraser. Parking is a tiny bit of a mess, so I recommend trying to find parking on the side streets. I don’t understand why the architects of this strip mall made it like a zig zag shape, ineffectively making the parking lot messy as well.
Once inside, it is pretty spacious although it can feel cramped during peak hours. Once you get in, you order your food at the till. The workers will bring you your food with the corresponding number stand.
Shrimp taco, $2.75: The shrimp taco is on the far left. I am a huge shrimp lover and devoured this! The shrimp was big and juicy, with a fresh and crunchy batter. It was topped off with crunchy and fresh veggies, and a spoonful of spicy mayo. So good! All the flavours went perfectly together!

Pollo pibil, $2.60: I ordered two different chicken tacos! This one was the slow roasted marinated chicken breast. It was soooo tender and packed with flavour. The pickled lettuce and cilantro also went really well with the tender chicken breast. Out of the two chicken tacos, I definitely recommend this one!

Pollo asado, $2.60: Same price as the chicken breast. This one is really simple, just chicken meat seasoned with salt and a bit of pepper. I found it a bit too plain, considering the explosion of flavours from the other two tacos. However, if you want something simple, this is the one to order.
Shrimp taco, $2.75: See comments above

Pollo pibil, $2.60: See comments above

Tinga vegetariana, $3.00: This was one of the vegetarian tacos. Although I didn’t try it, my cousin enjoyed it although she thought it was pretty spicy (she doesn’t do spicy food at all, so might not be that bad for spice lovers).

It came with mushrooms, zucchinis, onions, and napoles (Which I just learned from writing the post is that napoles are a vegetable made from cacti. Who know that you could eat part of a cacti?! See how blogging teaches you things? =P)

Pierna, $9.05: Instead of ordering tacos like my cousin and I, the boyfriend ordered a burrito! And boy, was it massive. It was bursting with rice, beans, cabbage, sour cream, and more.

The boyfriend ordered the pierna, which is pulled pork. He also added cheese for an extra cost. I didn’t try it but he said it was amazing, and wouldn’t stop talking about how good it was! I mean, I wouldn’t doubt him…it looks amazingly delicious!

Overall, Sal Y Limon is a great place to go for Mexican. I am not a Mexican food expert so I’m not sure if it’s authentic or not, but I can attest that they have delicious and fresh food! Also, the prices are so cheap!

Yay!

{Food Truck Compilation} JJ’s Trucketeria, Guanaco, and Super Thai

February 3, 2015

Food truck invasion! I decided to compile these 3 food trucks into one post as they seemed like it would be three very short posts on their own. These places are a compilation of two visits with coworkers during the Street Food City festival, which was part of DOVF. But, most of these you can have without Dine Out Vancouver. I should have included Vij’s food truck in here as well, oops!

Guanaco is a Salvadorean cuisine food truck, I think it is the only one of its kind in Vancouver but correct me if I’m wrong. I wanted to take a walk around the food truck festival and my coworker decided to come with me as well!

I had already eaten, but I was in the mood for a small snack which is why I settled on this place. My first choice was The Reef food truck, but their Jamaican patties looked kinda gross in the warmer so after walking around three times, I decided to just come here. Ugh indecisiveness.

I ordered two of their snack sized tacos, chicken and chorizo. I felt like a small snack, and felt that $5 would be a reasonable price.

The chicken was tender, while all the vegetables were fresh and crunchy. I liked the addition of fresh onions and loads of cilantro! The taco shell was soft and doughy, with a bit extra powder.

DSC04610-300x168 — Photo credit: Blast Media

Super Thai: On that same day, my coworker ordered the chicken pad thai from Super Thai. I didn’t try any, but she was happy to offer her opinion on it.

She liked how it was warm and comforting on a cloudy day, and said it was pretty flavourful and not watery like other pad thai that she’s had.

However, near the end, a lot of the noodles started to annoyingly stick to the bottom of the take out box, and took too much effort to un-stick. Perhaps it’s the texture of the noodles that makes it do that.

She also thought it wasn’t worth the price she paid. I also think it’s worth nothing that they were sold out on half their menu items by 2 pm that day. I wanted to order the coconut curry rice but there was none left! =(

JJs-Trucketeria-1 — Picture from Follow Me Foodie

JJ’s Trucketeria: While I went to Vij’s, two of my coworkers ordered from JJ’s instead. Funny story, none of us actually knew the name of this place. I didn’t take a close look at the place, and my coworkers didn’t see a name on the truck.. so we just referred to it as the yellow food truck.

I’m not even sure how we figured out the name, LOL! As you can see from the picture, half the name is on the covering which you’re not able to see unless you’re far away, while the other part is covered with their menu.

Flipino BBQ pork, fried egg, and garlic rice. My coworkers were nice enough to share with me as the portion was too big for just one person. The meat was very tender and well seasoned, while the fried egg was cooked perfect and oozed onto the garlic rice.

My favourite part of this was the garlic rice! Although I only had a few bites, I loved the slight garlic flavour. This is perfect Asian comfort food on a rainy day.

Although, I would recommend having gum or mints handy due to the garlic rice.

That sums up my food truck adventures last month, including Vij’s Railway Express!

What are the names of your favourite food trucks? Better question, what is your opinion on food trucks- love ’em, or prefer a traditional sit down meal?

Thanks for reading!
-Carmen

Las Margaritas (Dine Out Vancouver Festival 2015)

January 25, 2015

Hi everyone,

First off, have you noticed the domain change? Yep, I have retired my old site and will be posting on curiouslycarmen.com from now on! Same me, different site =)

Dine Out Vancouver Festival is upon us for yet another year! While many people do not like DOVF because they claim you won’t get the “full” or authentic experience, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to try it out. Also, you’re not limited to just ordering off the DOVF menu, you are able to order from the regular menu as well. Some places offer great deals that you wouldn’t see elsewhere.

There were so many restaurants I wanted to try this year, but had to refrain myself or I would be spending waaayy too much money on food. Instead, I asked the boyfriend to pick some restaurants that he wanted to try and we would narrow it down from there. For my first dine out, I went to Las Margaritas, which I’ve been wanting to go for quite some time now!

Las Margaritas is easily distinguishable from the rest of the shops on the block. It was a nice, exterior Spanish design with bright colours. You can’t miss it!

Our reservation was made for 7:30, but the parking gods were on our side that night and we showed up 10 minutes early. The restaurant was really busy, and I overheard them saying the wait for walk in customers would take at least one hour… so glad that we made a reservation. They weren’t ready for us since we were a bit early, and we were seated around 7:35.

One small detail that I appreciated about this place was their tiled tables! I loved the detail and thought it looked really good.

For a place with the name margaritas in it, you better expect that they have delicious margaritas. While we were waiting for our spot, we read the menu and found out that they were famous for their margaritas, so we decided to give it a try. We ordered the melon margarita ($8.95), which came with Sauza Gold Tequila, melon liqueur, pineapple juice, peach nectar and their own sweet & sour mix.

I really enjoyed the flavours of the margarita, and could not taste the alcohol in it at all even though it was a double shot. It was really fruity, and had some pulp in it which was a nice added surprise! It was not exactly a slush texture though and didn’t have a rimmed glass, but I didn’t mind.

To start off, we received complementary salsa and tortilla chips, which apparently they were famous for as well. The tortilla chips were crunchy and tasted pretty standard, but they were served warm which was a nice surprise! The salsa had a strong onion and fresh taste to it. Overall, really good for a complementary dish!

One of the options for the DOVF appetizer menu was the pozole, a chicken and white corn soup simmered in chilies and spices. On the side was an assortment of fresh red onions, dried chili peppers, and oregano. The chicken in the soup was extremely tender and well marinated, while the broth itself was absolutely delicious… I’m getting hungry just thinking about it again.

Adding the oregano, pepper, and fresh onions to the mix, you have yourself a sure winner. My favourite dish of the night.

The second appetizer we ordered (we pretty much shared everything btw) was the scallop ceviche. Everything in the ceviche was very fresh, with a hint of fresh lime juice. The chips were a bit too oily for my liking, however. I ate the cerviche with the leftover complementary tortilla chips instead.

Now, time for the main course! This was the chile en nogada, aka a poblano pepper stuffed with ground turkey meat, sauteed with onions, peppers, tomatoes, and apple. It was covered with a walnut cream sauce and pomegrante seeds, and came with a side of salad and beans. This was our least favourite dish that night.

There was a lot going on in the poblano pepper, but to us, the ingredients didn’t mix well together and was disappointing.
The second entree we had was the chile Colorado. It was cubed sirloin beef simmered in a chile guajillo and New Mexico chile sauce, with a side of white rice refried beans and corn or flour tortillas.

This dish was executed really well! The cubed sirloin beef was very tender, and went really well with the fresh red onion. The rice had some corn in it, so it wasn’t as boring or plain.

We also did not know that this dish came with tortillas, there was around 5 wraps. I guess I didn’t read far enough, I was sold on “cubed sirloin beef”. We ended up making our own “tacos”, filling it with the sirloin beef, rice, and salad/beans from the other dish, and topped it off with our choice of four hot sauces that were brought to our table.

I’m really glad that it came with the tortillas, otherwise we wouldn’t have been really full since the poblano pepper was a dissapointment.

For dessert, I chose the tres leche cake.Caramel lovers will love this cake for sure! It is called a “tres leche” cake because it is soaked in three different types of milk. I personally prefer my cakes to be light and fluffy, I didn’t like how it had a wet and soggy texture to it.

However, the flavour of the cake was definitely there, it’s just my personal preference that I didn’t like the soggy texture.

The boyfriend ordered churros that came with a chocolate dipping sauce. One bite of the churros and I had filled by sugar and dessert quota for the week, maybe even month- I kid you not. It was extremely sweet since it was rolled in sugar and chocolate sauce. All you sweet tooth lovers out there, this one is for you. I’ll stick with my savoury snacks instead.

Have you tried Las Margaritas, and if yes, how did you like it?

-Carmen