And so it continues ... a brand new set of tastes for 2017 ...
here's the SEVENTEENTH of FIFTY tastes of FLORIDA
(coming to you on sequential Thursdays. All. Year. Long.)!
Establishment: El Guanaco
Location: Oakland Park
Meal: Dinner
Drink: Sangria (red)
Pre-Appetizer: Warm chips and salsa
Appetizer: Salvadoran Combination #1
(chicken tamale, sweet corn tamale, pupusa, fried yuca, salvadoran cream and cheese, pickled cabbage, red sauce and spicy salsa verde on the side)
Main: Grilled Salvadoran Steak/Carne Asada
(served with pico de gallo)
Side(s): Rice, black beans and sweet plantains
Side (that was supposed to be an appetizer): Chicken Soup/ Sopa de Pollo
Dessert: n/a
Server: Gabriella
Website: http://www.elguanacooaklandpark.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/www.elguanacorest.net/
Not for nothing, but eating here was a year in the making. El Guanaco was on the list of places to try in the first set of 50 tastes based on an episode of 'Check Please' here in SoFlo on the PBS, and we even had dinner plans in May of 2016 that were changed at the last minute because they were on a Wednesday ... and this place is closed every Wednesday. Luckily, though, it was not forgotten when it came time to find a latin inspired eatery for a Cinco de Mayo celebration for the second set of 50 tastes. This place prides itself on both its Mexican AND Salvadoran food preparations and so despite the "holiday", we went mostly Salvadoran in our choices, and that led to the Troy-score detailed below:
AMBIANCE: 9/10 (there's no getting around it ... this place is on the small side -- but cute all the same ... and although it's not exactly a communal set up [see photo], your table is almost always going to hear the conversation at the tables nearby during the meal [on our night, that meant listening to a discussion on superhero movies amongst what I assumed to be a group of fleet-week boys], so a point lost because that can be a bit of a "luck of the draw" scenario when it comes to "shared ambiance")
FOOD: 9/10 (there was an overabundance of deliciousness as the size of the main dish plus the appetizers quickly upgraded this to a feast ... warm chips at the start with a dark and spicy salsa to set the mood and that extra flavorful steak with tasty rice that wasn't too sticky were the highlights ... the feeling of authenticity came from that appetizer plate which featured the traditional Salvadoran papusa ... and that chicken noodle soup that arrived late [see below] was uniquely unexpected in its size, in its preparation with a huge chunk of bone-in chicken and a mini corn on the cob smack dab in the middle of it and in its inclusion of chayote ... just half a point deduction for the fact that I wanted my papusa filling to be a little wetter or sauced or something not so dry and a second half a point deduction for the fact that the beans were 'meh'-flavored)
SERVICE: 8/10 (we were lucky to get the last table at the time we arrived which was by the front door ... sadly, our attempts to switch to a booth along the wall once one opened up and before the food had arrived were denied by our server [one point off] and there was a rather long wait for the apps [a second point off] -- so long in fact that the chicken noodle soup that should have been served early on in the meal didn't even arrive until after the main plate [the final point deduction] ... a few smiles and a bit of friendliness at the *end* of the meal earned a point back)
BACON: 7/10 (being such a fan of bacon as I am -- so much so that it gets its own category in the score calculation such that a place can go from a 100 to an 80 just by not offering it anywhere on the menu, I have grown to be sensitive to cultures that might not feature any bacony goodness ... especially if they are being authentic to the dishes from their countries ... as I don't doubt the authenticity of these Mexican and Salvadoran culinary creations, I have to award half the points just out of respect to their culture ... and then two more -- one because the papusa we chose had pork filling [the closest to bacon I had that night] and one because those beans likely had some pork product flavor influencers)
BONUS: 10/10 (+3 for that sweet sweet sangria though, +3 for the quantity and quality of the food in the feast far outpacing the cost, +3 for that unexpected chicken noodle soup and +1 for being a place to which we will return if only because I talked myself out of getting the beef tongue steak and now I feel like I might have missed out on something)
TroyScore: 43 out of 50 -- aka 86, a B
