Yearly Archives: 2010

Panaderia Oaxaquena

Posted on May 3, 2010 by | 5 comments

Mexican Bakery and Grocery
63 S. Murray Hill Rd., West Side
614-878-5220

Click here to map it!

Attentive alt.eats readers will recall that we’ve been more than willing, in the past, to feature markets that prepare their own food items for consumption on-premises.  With this post, we’re going to stretch this a bit to include markets that make exceptional food items which may require a bit of home preparation to complete… because damn, these guys make some amazing molé!

Tucked away just off of West Broad Street, Panaderia Oaxaquena is a full fledged grocery store which includes a meat counter, produce section, and bakery. As such, molé is just one of their house-made offerings – they also have their own Mexican-style breads, cheeses, sour creams and more.

We were tipped off about Panaderia Oaxaquena by G.A. Benton of Columbus Alive. He included their molé in his ‘Get Real for Cinco de Mayo‘ article in 2009. Good molé is hard to come by and even harder to make (making molé sauce from scratch can literally take days), so that was all the enticement we needed.

You can choose from molé negro or molé rojo, and the package gives instructions for completing the dish. You can read about our interpretation here.

As for the cheeses, highlights include quesillo, a type of string cheese that can be grilled like halloumi.

Crema comes in two varieties – the regular white and pale pink. We haven’t been able to find out much about the pale pink one, so if anyone know why it is pink and what it is used for, please let us know.

You can also find these flatbreads called tlayudas, which are often served with beans and cheese, like a large tostada.

As PO is also a bakery, we bought some bread, hot from the oven, which steamed as we greedily broke into it. Soft, light white, and delicately flavorful. You can see the bolillos below which are used for tortas (Mexican subs).

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Posted in Bakery, Grocery store, Mexican

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Sweet Pot

Posted on May 3, 2010 by | 6 comments

Cuisine: Jamaican
1485 South Champion Avenue
614.449.8131

Places like Sweet Pot are what make alt.eats tick:  ‘Where the hell are we’ location?  Check.  Dilapidated shack of a building that makes up for its shabbiness with a double dose of unaffected charm?  In spades.  Novel menu items?  No doubt.

And, for extra credit – beverages for, umm, putting the lead in your pencil?  Yeah, they have that.

Sweet Pot’s building is somewhat forboding… think Calanley with a few more windows.  Step inside, though, and the vibe is more that of a run down gulf coast shrimp shack.  A series of glass panes separate the dining room from the kitchen and allow customers to see everything going on in the back of house.  On our visit, we saw massive pans of jerk chicken being pulled together – they were obviously busy with a large catering order.

Which is not to say that we felt neglected.  Ordering occurs at an opening in the window, through which you’ll also receive your food.  The folks running the window were happy to answer questions and were notable for not tailoring their answers to what they thought we’d like.

Well, perhaps with one exception – when one of the females in our group asked about some of the more unusual sounding (and expensive) drinks on the menu, the response was “Those are not for you… they’re for him!”

So, I ordered two ‘Tiger Bones’, a couple of ‘Bedroom Bullies’, and a ‘Magnum’. Alright, so maybe I didn’t.  But they serve ’em and they’re certainly not shy about letting you know who they’re for.

Returning to the more gender-neutral portions of the menu, we settled on orders of goat curry, jerk chicken, oxtail, and a mystery fish dish that whose appearance at our table was the result of some confusion at the order counter.

The goat curry was excellent – a generous portion of tender, flavorful meat devoid of excessive gaminess. The curry seasoning was fairly mild, allowing the full flavor of the goat to shine through.

The oxtail was also good – tender meat in a rich stew and particularly notable for being less fatty and greasy than other iterations of this dish.


The jerk chicken was both enjoyable and a bit of a curiosity – enjoyable in the sense that the chicken was properly grilled and nicely flavored, and curious in that it tasted more like barbecued chicken than what we’d normally think of as jerk-seasoned meat.

The fish was the red-headed stepchild of the bunch.  It struck us as being a fairly dry baked white fish of some (undisclosed) sort that was doused in an eye-poppingly acidic vinegar sauce and topped with shreds of veggies.  A similarly tart slaw accompanied.

All of the above were the ‘small’ portion sizes, and they pile ’em high.  All were served with beans and rice with peas, which were roundly deemed exceptional.  Whether you choose to eat-in or opt for takeout, you’ll get your food in to-go clamshells.  And, in the best of alt.eats tradition, the availability of menu items vary based upon day, time, whim, and perhaps astrology readings.

Vegetarians take note – Sweet Pot has a significant meat-free offering.

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Posted in Jamaican, Restaurant, vegetarian

Taste of Bali

Posted on April 21, 2010 by | 11 comments

This restaurant closed late 2011. If you are looking for Indonesian dishes in Columbus you may find some at Lily’s on Bethel Road.

Cuisine: Indonesian
2548 Bethel Rd
614.459.7230

Click here to map it!

Taste of Bali is the only Indonesian restaurant in Columbus, and the only Indonesian restaurant we’ve ever been to.  This simple fact made it harder for us, as newcomers to Indonesian fare, to compare the quality and authenticity of their food.

With that caveat behind us, here goes…

As the menu can be somewhat daunting in its unfamiliarity, Taste of Bali have a variety of set menus with different names such as ‘vegetarian’, ‘spice lover’ and ‘adventurous’. Since we were a large group, though, we opted to order a la carte.

We started with the Bali Sampler, a mixed plate of appetizers including sate ayam (chicken satay) which was pretty run of the mill, pangsit goreng (deep fried chicken dumpling), crispy crab and vegetarian spring rolls, none of which was overly memorable, and risol (a chicken and vegetable spring roll) with a slightly creamy but largely flavorless filling.

Our server, who was very accommodating and helpful, offered some suggestions and we had also come armed with some recommendations. Beyond those, we also tried some of the ‘new’ menu items. One of these was a salad called gado-gado comprised of steamed, mixed vegetables topped with lettuce, deep fried tofu, a boiled egg and peanut dressing and was served with shrimp crackers. The mixed vegetables were straight-from-the-freezer green beans, carrots and sweet corn. The dressing was more of a sauce and there was a lot of it.

Sambal goreng kentang were fried diced potato stir fried in sauce; a tasty side dish and one I would order again.

Mie goreng was stir fried egg noodles with shrimp, cabbage, scallion, chinese vegetables and egg. It was a little overcooked and surprisingly bland.

We ordered a couple of different chicken dishes: Ayam bakar jimbaran which was grilled marinated chicken and Ayam bumbu rujak which was grilled chicken breast in red curry sauce. Unlike a Thai red curry, the ayam bumbu was just chicken, somewhat overcooked in a rich sauce.  The bakar was competently executed grilled chicken marinated in a sweet sauce.

Redang daging was a flavorful stewed beef with spices in curry sauce and was one of the most popular dishes.

Gurame Goreng was deep fried fish served whole with sambal ulek (hot sauce) and lalapan (salad).  It was slightly overcooked and bland, at least without the accompanying sambal.

Gudeg is a combination of opor ayam (chicken breast in white curry sauce) and telor balado (egg boiled and pan fried in chili sauce) and jack fruit. Jackfruit is a great meat substitute for vegetarians and vegans and was another popular choice. The egg was very spicy.

One thing we noticed overall was that most of the dishes were very sweet, which may be partly attributed to the use of coconut milk in many of the dishes.

Dessert options include fresh young coconut, bubur ketam hitam (warm black rice pudding topped with coconut milk) and shaved ice with fruit and condensed milk, with either es durian or es teler with sweet jackfruit, avocado and young coconut in sweet coconut milk. The sweet icy desserts were a great antidote to the spicy dishes. Being frozen, the durian was not as stinky as its reputation but still slightly odiferous. It tastes much better than it smells.

Taste of Bali has a children’s menu and caters to vegetarians. Their menu also offers some pan-Asian dishes and notes healthy menu options.

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Posted in Indonesian, Restaurant, Uncategorized

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Restaurant Karla

Posted on April 12, 2010 by | 2 comments

Cuisine – Mexican
Approx 4099 W. Broad (in the strip mall at the corner of W. Broad & Georgesville Rd.)

Click here to map it!

We’d been to Restaurant Karla (then called Cenduria Karla) when it was located on Sullivant Ave., and liked it a lot.  More recently, Lydia from Los Potosinos suggested that she thought it was the best sit-down Mexican restaurant in town. Basically, we had high expectations for this place… and that can often lead to a bit of a letdown, even when good.

But not in this case.

As you might guess from the photo above, these guys are in transition.  They’ve only recently moved into their new space and haven’t yet sprung for appropriate exterior signage.  Look for the banged up El Huarache sign, and you’ll find them below it.

Belying any expectations gleaned from the exterior, the interior of this place is clearly no afterthought.  It’s quite the elaborate set-up, actually, including a performance stage and what we took to be a small dance floor.  We assume it was largely inherited from the former tenants, but nonetheless, it’s a surprisingly complete and highly detailed space with a caballero theme and loads of Mexican character.

Service is similarly well thought-through.  Our server was efficient, pleasant, and attentive without being the least bit overbearing. When we asked for queso fundido for our app and the molcajete for two, her nod and quick wink suggested we must’ve ordered well (or perhaps just less predictably than the average gringo?)

Chips and a fresh, mild salsa kept us occupied until the app arrived.  Queso fundido (above) is basically a dressed-up melted cheese dip, and as far as such things go, it definitely satisfied.  The cheese was tangy and perhaps tinged with garlic (think Mexican fondue), and the generous quantities of chorizo spiced it up nicely.  When it arrived, the large portion size prompted us to agree that we weren’t going to eat it all for fear of not being able to stomach the main course. That turned out to be a tough promise to keep…

…and then ¡holy molcajete!

The name of this dish refers to the stone pot it comes in… you can barely see it in the photo, but it’s under there.  It’s been heated up to keep the food warm, and filled with a staggering assortment of vegetables and proteins, including nopales (cactus), onions, jalapenos, beef, ham, chicken, chorizo, and several large shrimp. A plate with beans, rice, guacamole, and lettuce accompanied, as did some fantastic warm, homemade tortillas.  Seasonings on all were nicely (but not aggressively) spicy and the properly cooked shrimp and moist chicken were the standouts among a nice range of options.  As the photos adequately suggests, portions were generous and doggie bags were a must.

While there are certainly meat-free dishes, strict vegetarians should be wary (as with most Mexican restaurants) – even meat-free options often include lard, chicken broth, or the like.  Pescetarians should be able to find contentment in Karla’s reasonably large seafood offering.  Regardless of diet, its unlikely that a dining duo would leave with a tab much larger than our $26 bill.

Karla also offers a popular $6.99 daily special that comes with soup, various weekend specials, and is open for breakfast.

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Posted in Mexican, Restaurant

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Bilan Cafe Restaurant

Posted on April 7, 2010 by | 1 comment

Cuisine: Somali
3949 Cleveland Avenue
614.337.2442

Click here to map it!

“You open?”

A nod indicated that they were.  Couldn’t have guessed from either the exterior signage or the lack of lights on inside, though it was 12:30 and we’ve come to believe lunch is the ideal time to dine at Somali restaurants.

We seated ourselves in the basic but clean dining room and were served complimentary mango juice and bottled water. Inspecting the menu revealed a relatively modest assortment of the usual suspects… plus a few new to us.  We asked about some of the unfamiliar items.

“We don’t have that today.”

…which brings us to the default approach we’ve come to fall back on at Somali restaurants – just ask ‘whatcha cooking today?’. After a brief discussion with our server, we settled on goat with rice, KK, and their recommendation for a substitution on a chapatti-based menu item (we weren’t told the dish’s name).

The ‘dish with no name’ came out first – a nicely seasoned chicken dish with onions, green beans, sweetcorn and peas in a mild curry-like sauce. It came with chapatti strips (which we used to pinch morsels from the chicken dish), iceberg lettuce, and lemon wedges.  The chapatti was a bit on the tough side, but the chicken was roundly appreciated.

Next we tried the KK (chapatti strips cooked with chicken and vegetables).  This was more like Banadir’s (curry-esque) than Calanley’s (tomatoey), but less well received than either – just a bit too mild, and slightly on the gluey side.

The goat was good in varying degrees – from bite to bite,  it could be anywhere between ‘eh, not bad’, and ‘damn that’s a thing of beauty!’.    When it shined, it was a tender piece with plenty of the exceptional curry flavor.  The meat was bone-in, topped with sauteed onions and plated with a generous portion of a nice basmati rice.

As we went up to the register near the kitchen to pay, we looked back upon a much-changed dining room.  Lights were on, people were everywhere. It would appear as though their unofficial opening time was somewhere around 1:00pm.

Bilan’s service is friendly, if perhaps a bit slow.  As with most Somali restaurants, there appear to be few vegetarian-oriented dishes.

Note – chapati, jabati, chapatti… ?  Transliteration would appear to be an inexact art, especially when dealing with the less well established cuisines.  In this blog, all italicized words are copied straight from the menu of the restaurant being reviewed.

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Posted in Restaurant, Somali

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