Handelicious Kitchen

This review covers the takeout service at this new place.  Handelicious Kitchen is a catering and event service that is also experimenting with on-demand food.  The owner is still working on how this will work.  There are several prepared dishes listed in the Grab and Go section of the website, but when I came they were trying something else--a limited set of items that gave a few options for a meal.  There were two chicken items, potatoes, two rices, two pastas and a vegetable.  I had the honey chicken, roasted and sauteed potatoes, turmeric rice, and green beans, and they threw in a few tea cookies.  All items were cold so I made a plate and heated it at home.

The chicken was OK, it's hard to do chicken tenders and make them real appealing but these were not bad. The potatoes were tasty, done a little soft but with good flavor.  The turmeric rice was very good.  The turmeric was for coloring, you don't taste it, but it has raisins and almonds that provided nice contrasting texture.  The sauteed green beans were the best item, done with roasted sesame seeds, they had great depth of flavor. The tea cookies were tiny chocolate chip and they were a bit burned, but I like them that way so they tasted great to me.

Handelicious Kitchen has a beautiful space for dining in, which one does by arrangement.  They have a Friday night open time where you can come dine in and select a meal from a subset of the menu.  Their bathroom was clean and ready when I visited.  It would be appealing to eat there for an event, but I don't think their takeout concept is quite ready for prime time.

My Yelp Review

Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins at Rayford and Kuykendahl

This location is actually a combined Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts, and is having their grand opening so I stopped in to give them a try.  

The Dunkin menu has wrap sandwiches on it so you could think about it for a true lunch.  I wanted one but they were out of wraps--both the chicken and the chorizo kind.  I ended up with a maple sugar bacon croissant and a pumpkin donut, with a chocolate shake to wash it down.

I liked the maple sugar bacon sandwich.  It lives up to its name.  The bacon is quite salty and sweet, so with the egg and croissant the sandwich has a lot of flavor.  

I ended up with the pumpkin donut by default.  The selection of donuts wasn't great, and they didn't look appealing.  The pumpkin donut was not bad, however.  I would get it again.

The shake was disappointing.  It was quite thin.  No whipped cream or cherry.  They put ice in it as well as ice cream, so it drank more like a chocolate macchiato without the coffee. Not great.

The whole experience was just meh.  Do not blame the staff, they are trying hard.  One nice note: They don't automatically add tip options to the price, though they do have a tip jar.  I think they still need more time to get their act together.

My Yelp Review

Super Shawarma

We were excited to try this new food truck at the Plaza de los Food Trucks.  We got a beef and a chicken shawarma, a side of falafel, and a mint lemonade.

The sandwiches are pricey, $16-18.  They are also huge.  They can easily be split to serve 2 or 3 people. They are neatly wrapped in a large pita and finished on the grill for great flavor.  They fall apart a bit as you eat them, you'll need a fork to finish up, but you definitely will not go hungry.  The beef shawarma was pretty tender and had a nice sauce.  The chicken was quite tender and tasty.  

The highlight for me was the falafel.  A side of falafel is 10 pieces, so you get a lot for the price, but you can't get just a few.  The falafel was fried fresh and had a marvelous crust on the outside.  The tzatziki sauce served with it was great and complemented them very well.  You can get a whole sandwich made with falafel, which would be worth trying.

The mint lemonade was a real kick--strong lemon and mint flavors.  It worked really well with the food.  There wasn't a lot of it but there didn't need to be.

There were a lot of nice touches.  We got four sauce cups with the meal--two labeled garlic, one labeled for falafel, and one without a label.  I think that one was babaganoush.  The garlic sauce is powerful, but worked well on the sandwiches.  The babaganoush was good also.  They labeled our sandwiches, something not everyone does--they had the protein and also directions on how to open the wrap.  The people were friendly and service was great.  This truck sports three flags--Syrian, Venezuelan, and American--so we believe it's a Venezuelan take on Mediterranean food.  Definitely worth a try.

The Plaza de los Food Trucks is continuing to improve, with lots of seating and most of it covered now.  A very comfortable place to eat, or to wait for takeout.

My Yelp Review

Taco Inn & Churreria Porfirio

I stopped in on a busy Sunday after church to try this new restaurant out.  I have to say it left me a bit confused.  I had the chilaquiles with steak and a jamaica agua fresca to wash it down.  Took some churros home with me.

The jamaica was good, it's my favorite agua fresca.  Not super strong but complemented the main course well. I was a little thrown by the chilaquiles.  This is a traditional Mexican dish for using leftover tortillas.  You can put a lot of different things over the tortillas but they are usually fried and softened up.  The dish I got was served over corn tortilla chips instead, and they were not soft, so it ate more like nachos.  The toppings were Mexican white cheese, beef and a brown sauce.  Not appetizing in color but the flavor was ok.  The churros were the highlight of the meal.  Made fresh, they were nice and hot, crispy and sweet.  So the Churreria Porfirio portion of the place has promise.

What does this restaurant want to be?  I have no idea.  The look on coming in is like a fast food place--fairly spare decor, plastic chairs and basic tables, menu up on a display.  The staff wants to seat you but the front of the house people don't seem to really have a plan for it, though they were quite nice the rest of the way.  The pricing is definitely for a full-service restaurant--appetizers in the $10 range, entrees $13 and up.  Seems like they want to be more upscale but that's not supported by the ambiance.  When I visited the restroom it was clean (again very spare) but the lock on the men's room door did not work so major embarrassment potential there.  The place has a following and it wasn't terrible but for me it would be fairly far down the list of places I would pick.

My Yelp Review