In Search of Good Food: A little Latin flair for the World Cup
By DAVID ERSOFF, Journal Contributor
After a few weeks of non-traditional food locations, our search for good food gets back to a traditional brick and mortar restaurant with Miami Latin Kitchen, 971 East 70th Street, Shreveport.
I have driven by Miami Latin Kitchen so many times I couldn’t even imagine counting. I just never pulled in to try it. I am regretting that now, discovering I have cheated myself out of some good food for way too long. Thankfully this is something I won’t have to live with going forward.
With the soccer World Cup going on, I wanted to spend the next few weeks finding some good food from around the world. Driving down 70th street early last week, just the name stood out to me. Miami makes soccer fans think of Lionel Messi, with him playing his last few professional seasons in Miami. Latin, of course, represents so many of the World Cup teams in this year’s tournament.
I decided on a lunch trip to Miami Latin Kitchen, and brought along one of my daughters, who loves trying new foods.
I ordered the Shredded Beef Corn Empando, done with a Venezuelan flavor. I can’t say how authentic it was, having never had real Venezuelan food, but what I can say is it was very good. The dish was packed full of shredded beef and had great flavor, nothing like I’d had before.
My daughter went with the Reina Arepas; she chose to have hers fried. Sadly, I was not afforded a taste, which should let everyone know how good she thought her Arepas was. She later told me that it was packed full of chicken and all the ingredients, including the avocado, were fresh and full of flavor. She particularly liked the bread it came on.
I wanted to try a couple more items to get a better sense of the different flavors, I went with two orders of the mini wheat Empanada’s, and four of the chicken and Louisiana options. The chicken was seasoned, so it had a little bite to the seasoning, but not enough to require a full drink being at hand. The seasoning was very good. The Mini Louisiana ones were filled with corn, cream cheese, cheddar and a little spice. I could eat about 20 of these at one sitting — they were that good. The Louisiana Mini Empanadas were favorites for both of us.
Miami Latin Kitchen has many other dishes that I will be trying soon, and plantains are a big part of the menu. They also have several items give us some different flavor profiles for breakfast.
Contact David at dersoff@bellsouth.net