Food Pics of the Week (FPOTW): Mariscos 1133

Mariscos 1133 (***)

1133 11th St NW Washington, DC 20001

Last weekend, we hit up Mariscos 1133 - a seafood spot in DC for brunch. It's kind of interesting because I don't really think seafood (for the most part) goes with brunch/breakfast. The place was just ok for me. It wasn't bad, but I think I would prefer to dine there for dinner rather than brunch.

Oysters al Carbón con Crabmeat and Ceviche

Left: Oysters al Carbón con Crabmeat - I'm not really sure why they didn't keep the name all in Spanish or in English. LOL, I had to triple check to ensure that I typed carbón (charcoal) and not cabrón (a male motherfucker or bastard). This dish was interesting because I really didn't think parmesan cheese and grilled oysters would work out. Strangely enough, the dish was quite tasty. It probably was the best dish of the afternoon.

Right: Ceviche - This was very meh because it was a bit too 'soupy' for me. Maybe this type of ceviche popular in Mexico.

Seafood Huevos Rancheros

What a hearty dish that is great for someone who is always in a constant state of hangry. The ranchero sauce was absolutely amazing.

Pisco Sour

LOL. I joked with the server saying that he served the drink in the wrong orientation. I assume the drink was supposed to be placed in a way so that I would see an M instead of a W. Now, is the M because the restaurant is named Mariscos 1133, because the restaurant is on the corner of M Street, or both? ;)

Food Pics of the Week (FPOTW): La Malinche

La Malinche (***)

8622 Colesville Rd Silver Spring, MD 20910

We tried to do something a bit different for a recent happy hour. I guess visiting this place wasn’t thinking outside of the box since this restaurant is next door to the other restaurant (J. Hollingers Waterman’s Chophouse, link to FPOTW entry: ***) that we typically frequent for happy hour.

Marinaor Malintzin (c. 1500 – c. 1529), more popularly known as La Malinche, a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, became known for contributing to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521), by acting as an interpreter, advisor, and intermediary for the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. She was one of 20 enslaved women given to the Spaniards in 1519 by the natives of Tabasco. Cortés chose her as a consort, and she later gave birth to his first son, Martín – one of the first Mestizos (people of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry) in New Spain.

-Wikipedian.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Malinche

Since the restaurant is described as Spanish and Mexican tapas spot, we decided to get a small spread of food that included patatas bravas, croquetas, boquerones (white anchovies, one of my favs), and mussels. Oh of course, we had beers and margaritas since it was happy hour.

First, I’ll say that the service was very exceptional because the entire service staff was super friendly. Unfortunately, the food was not that great. Lemme clarify that. The food was not nasty or gross, but it just didn’t meet our expectations. Well . . . I guess it didn’t meet the hubby’s expectations. Since he is from Spain, he takes his tapas very seriously. 😉 I’ll cut La Malinche some slack because the patatas bravas were pretty good. When all the food came out at the same time (less than 10 minutes after placing our order), I had a feeling that food would not be amazing. We were right because the croquetas tasted like they were fried a few weeks ago and reheated in the microwave before arriving at our table.

If I visit La Malinche again, I’ll probably stick to the patatas bravas and the margaritas. While the food was not that great for me, I’ll say the restaurant has a very generous happy hour.

FOOD PICS OF THE WEEK

Cantina Taqueria & Tequila

1838 7th Ave New York, NY 10026 (Harlem)

How does one celebrate running his first race of 2022? This guy gets tacos and margaritas.

Cantina is a local Mexican staple in Harlem (well maybe it's more Tex-Mex). For this outing, we decided to go to another Cantina location - one that is a 15-minute walk instead of an 8-minute walk from our place because the service at the closest Cantina is a bit of a struggle.

My tacos of choice were al pastor, chili-lime chicken, and Baja fish. We went a little crazy with "salsa" sampler and the tater tots con queso.

It's not a fun taco night without frozen margaritas. I probably was on margarita número tres or cuatro at this point . . . who cares if it was 28F outside?

Going forward, this will be my go-to Cantina because everything was on point - food, services, bebidas, a limited amount of ignorance. The loud music would be the only thing that I would change. Random question: Why do restaurants play their music so freaking loud (especially when the restaurant isn't even half full)? Is it to make folks drink more booze? Is it so folks will eat faster and leave so the restaurant can flip the table? I've noticed this trend in quite a few places in Harlem.

Side Story:

Funny story about the other Cantina (the one that is an 8-minute walk from our place). After moving to Harlem, Cantina was the first restaurant where we dined for late lunch. As most know, I'm pretty good with handling my adult beverages, but the margaritas from that day hit me like a bus. In my defense, I was a bit sleep-deprived because the movers arrived at my place around 8 am so I pulled an all-nighter packing. After lunch, we both went back to the apartment, and I slept for a good two hours. The plan was to go to Target right after lunch to get things for the apartment. During our Target visit (FOUR HOURS LATER), I think we were still feeling the effects of the margaritas because we ended up buying a whole bunch of crap that we DID NOT need, but none of the stuff that we actually needed like a freaking shower curtain or blinds for the bedroom.

My drunk a**, needed a redo to properly spell my name - it's spelled Kwame.

Speaking of crap we did not need for the apt, we did buy a wooden "K", "P", and "&".

FOOD PIC OF THE WEEK

Calle Ocho (***)

2756 Broadway, New York, NY 10025

I have been going to Calle Ocho (Cuban fusion) since the early 2000s, and it always hits the spot. To be perfectly honest, Calle Ocho was a favorite for my grad school buddies and me because the restaurant has an all-you-can-drink sangria brunch with the purchase of any entree.

LOOK AT ALL OF THESE DIFFERENT SANGRIAS!!!!

FYI: The Samba, Roja, Gramada Punta Cana, and Blanca are my favoritas.

Man those were the days when we did not have time limits for our all-you-can-drink brunch needs. Now, most places have a 1.5 – 2 hour time limit, which is fine . . . I guess.

For my most recent brunch visit, I went with something new and ordered the

Camarones Ahumados

Normally, I order the same things (ropa vieja or chilaquiles), but I am glad that I decided to go with something different.

While I love coming here, I will say that the prices have gone up a bit. Since I have been dining here for about two decades, I guess that’s understandable. Back in the day, dishes were about $20 and included all-you-can-drink sangria. Now, the delicious brunch options are around $40. I mean it’s not a huge deal because most places typically add an extra $15-$20 bucks if you want an all-you-can-drink option. I guess Calle Ocho now includes the all-you-can-drink in the price of the entree. There is no way in the world that anyone should pay close to $40 for a bowl of shrimp and grits. I guess this kind of sucks for non-drinkers to pay that much for a brunch entree.

That said, the muffin basket (err box) is totally worth it.

One tip if you dine here: As long as you continue to order food, the sangria will keep flowing. When we dine at Calle Ocho, we usually get a dessert after brunch so we can have one or two more sangrias for the road.

Food Pic of the Week - Get out Edition

The Pisco Y Nazca (***) 

1823 L St. NW, Washington DC 20026

The hubby and I needed to get the heck out of Dodge for a couple of days. By “the hubby and I”, mean me. Also, by “Dodge”, I mean NYC. We decided to make a trip down to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia (my hometown) with a three-day “layover” in Washington DC. Also, it just so happened to be the week of our second wedding anniversary. During this trip, I have to say that we definitely had some good food, especially in DC. It felt like we were eating all the time. However, in our defense, pretty much all of the museums (with the exception of The Museum of the Bible) were closed due to the pandemic so we spent a LOT of walking around to enjoy the sights. Funny enough of the museums were going to be open the week AFTER our trip. According to my Apple Watch, we averaged about 15 miles of walking each day.

Since we were constantly in hunger mode from all the walking, I was so glad that we stumbled upon Pisco Y Nazca. Just in case you did not know, Peruvian food is one of my favorite cuisines.

We were both shocked by the amount of food included in the restaurant’s tasting menu. For $55, the tasting menu included: 1) a flight of pisco sours; 2) a flight of leche de tigre shot (shrimp ceviche), toston, and ceviche cremoso; 3) a causa sampler (crocante, tartare, pollo); 4) a choice between lomo saltado, pescado a lo macho, or chaufa de mariscos as an entree; and 5) pionono a la mode for dessert.

I gotta say this was the first time that I was completely full from a tasting menu. Actually, there was so much food that we had to ask our lovely waitress, Luz, to pack up our entrees and desserts to go. I will say that the pescado was not super delicious on the reheat. :(

I definitely have got to keep this place in my mental Rolodex for my next trip to DC.

Random thought about DC:

Growing up (middle and high school age), I never saw the lure of or excitement with DC. Maybe this was due to only relating DC with school. I do not know, but there must have been some rule stating that all Virginian school-aged children had to go on at least one field trip to DC every year. For that reason, I kind of thought that DC was a “boring” city. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that politics is very important and exciting. As an adult, I absolutely LOVE visiting DC because of the historical and (now) social significance of the district. Since visiting Georgetown (as a potential graduate school), I’ve always had a good time in DC. By “good”, I mean AMAZING. Honestly, if I was not so stubborn in attending a graduate program in NYC, I probably would have attended Georgetown for my graduate studies. I wonder where I would be now had I gone through with that decision.

That said, I CANNOT wait until my next trip to DC.

FOOD PIC OF THE WEEK

Mission Ceviche (***) 

 1400 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10021

We were on a mission to enjoy some ceviche and pisco sours.

Mixto Ceviche

Seco Norteño

Tres Leches

Of course, pisco sour

Cocina del Sur

40 W 38th St., New York, NY 10018  

Well, this is not really a food pic of the week; it's more of a quick post about the most recent Yelp Elite Squad - NYC event that I attended.  According to its Yelp page, Cocina del Sur is a "fast-casual restaurant serving traditional South American dishes right off the grill. [They] serve up a delicate balance of healthy eating and quality Latin comfort food based on locally sourced & organic ingredients" 

Random: I've noticed that we have not had many Yelp elite events over the past couple of months. I wonder what's going on. I like my free stuff. 

Anywho, the event was pretty fun, but there were not too many people in attendance because the restaurant is a bit small. Cocina seems kind of like an in and out kind of place. I probably talked to about 4 people in total, and I don't think that I wanted to befriend them on Yelp.

A pretty "simple" rice bowl with chicken, salmon, and steak with chimichurri sauce (I think it was chimichurri sauce) and some other random fixins. The Brussel sprouts were pretty delicious. Oh, there was a mango (or was it pineapple) salsa that was out of this world. Actually, they should sell that in a jar. 

I liked the spot, but I would not travel out of my way for a rice bowl in midtown. But, game on if I'm in the area. 

Since the restaurant is out of the way for me, of course, I was the first winner of a free meal. 

Random II: What do you think about arepas?

I ask because every time I hear someone in NYC talk about Latin food, he/she will always bring up arepas. Well . . . it's usually tacos first, then arepas. "OMG! _ has the BEST arepas in NYC." And, I'm like  I guess

Here's the thing, I do not dislike arepas. I just haven't found anything that makes them so amazing. If I order chimichurri steak and an arepa happens to be included then great. But, if I were to order chimichurri steak and the kitchen forgot to put the arepa on the plate, I probably would not even care (or even notice). Eh, different strokes for different folks.