Category: Food Review

Food Review: Arandas Tacos Isn’t Foolin’ Around

In recent years, Branson’s food game has really started to diversify. Today, there are Thai restaurants, a few sushi restaurants, an Indian restaurant, and now there is a fantastic, very authentic, Mexican restaurant. Arandas Tacos is not your typical tex-mex joint. Rather, there are options such as tongue tacos or chorizo tortas or tripe sopes. If these sound scary, don’t worry,  they also have chicken and steak options, too. Here’s the breakdown:

The Environment

This restaurant is located in a small shopping center, directly across the street from the Tanger Outlets entrance.
On the inside, it is nothing special. Sort of small, but clean. We arrived for lunch around 1:15, and we were almost the only people there at that time.

The Food

There are two things that are immediately different about this restaurant than any other Mexican restaurant I have been to.
1. You don’t get chips and salsa once you are seated. Rather, you get a basket of “duros”. I had never had these before, but they were pretty tasty. They are simply fried dough, but they are very light and crispy.

 

 

Duros, free appetizer

2. There is a toppings bar!!! This is my favorite aspect of this restaurant. There are multiple salsas and toppings, such as mango salsa, cilantro, lettuce, chopped onions, etc, to put on your tacos or any other dish you order.

Tacos

Since the toppings bar is available, when you order tacos, you simply get two small corn tortillas filled, pretty heavily, with whichever meat you choose.

I ordered 4 tacos for $7.99 and tried the chorizo, cabeza (beef cheek), lengua (tongue), and al pastor pork.
The al pastor was my favorite. It was very tender and not heavy in grease. The chorizo was my second favorite. It was very flavorful, and again, not too greasy. This is usually the problem I find with chorizo. In third place came the lengua. I have had great tongue tacos before, but these were not good, at all. They were a little chewy, probably overcooked. Lastly, the beef cheek was disgusting. It was so fatty I couldn’t even swallow one bite.

Anyway, after trying all of the meat, I headed to the toppings bar to make my tacos pretty and tasty.  I put a light green salsa on all of them. This salsa was flavorful, yet mild, and helped break up the savoriness of the meats. I put mango salsa on the al pastor, onions on all tacos, and tons of cilantro. Yum!

Taco Salad

This was, by far, the best taco salad I have ever had. It was pretty large and only $7.99. I ordered it with chicken, which was perfectly tender and well-seasoned. The toppings were so generous that I did not even have to visit the toppings bar. Three sauces also came with it: a traditional red salsa, sour cream, and a spicy ranch. The spicy ranch got dumped all over the taco salad because it was very tasty! The crunchy bowl was fried perfectly as well, I love those things!  I will definitely come back to order this taco salad every time I am in Branson!

Overall

This restaurant is one of my favorites in Branson now. It is unique enough to give you a new type of Mexican food experience, but not so different you aren’t sure what you are ordering.
The staff was very nice as well. Our waitress answered questions about what certain dishes were and offered to refill our duros and waters in a timely fashion.
There is even a coupon in one of those Branson coupon books I picked up from my motel lobby that had 10% off here, so the price was great, too. I will definitely be back…many times.

Food Review: Mud Street Cafe in Eureka Springs

Drew and I made a quick trip through Eureka Springs after leaving Branson, MO to head to Bentonville, AR. According to many online reviews, Mud Street Cafe is the best place to get lunch. So, we gave it a shot. Here’s the breakdown:

The Environment

Located in downtown Eureka, this is a great location to grab breakfast or lunch. They do not serve dinner. Look for the sign, as the restaurant is located in the bottom floor of a building shared with other shops.

Once you enter, there is a pie/ dessert display, as well as a board full of the daily specials. So far, so good!

The actual interior is super cozy. There are dimmer lights than one might expect of a breakfast and lunch joint. Though, with no windows, I guess that should be expected.
There are “normal” tables, as well as couches to sit on. There is also some unique artwork on the walls. Finally, there is a corner full of some games you can play while waiting for or enjoying your coffee or meal.

The Menu

   

The menu is full of salads and sandwiches. Nothing that sounded too unique, and the prices seemed a little hefty.

The Food

We started off with $2 unlimited coffees. There is a coffee bar you can choose which, out of three, coffees you would like. There are plenty of additions to add to your coffee: cream, honey, many types of sugar/ fake sugar, cinnamon, cocoa powder, nutmeg, and vanilla. We had fun drinking about three cups each of this delicious coffee. There are even to-go cups to take with you when you leave. This is definitely a great deal for some great coffee.

Chicken Waldorf Salad, $10.95
Description: A grilled, seasoned chicken breast served with a traditional Waldorf salad of apples, celery, walnuts, pecans, and grapes with a honey lime dressing, accented with Cheddar cheese, dry roasted peanuts, and a wholegrain roll.

This is the dish I ordered and it was delicious! While it seemed a little small for a $12 salad, there was ample chicken and other toppings. The chicken was tender and well-flavored with a little spice. The house-made dressing was killer! It looked like a heavy ranch, but was rather very thin and light, as I prefer. It was sweet and worked perfectly with the salad’s components.
The wholegrain roll it came with was delicious all by itself. I would get this again.

Grilled Tuna Sandwich, $11.

Description: Grilled yellow fin tuna steak on sourdough toast with lettuce, tomato, and red onions.

Drew ordered this dish, and we have never ordered a tuna steak before. He ordered it medium, which ended up being a bit too overcooked/ dry. This is not the fault of the restaurant, of course. Next time, we’ll order it medium-rare, as the waitress suggested.
The sandwich was large, with the tuna being bigger than the bread…nice! There was a tangy remoulade sauce that came with it.  Adding all of the sauce to the sandwich helped with the dryness of the tuna and made the sandwich delicious!
The bread was too thin and because soggy quickly, though. I would prefer a heartier bread for this sandwich.
While I was not sold on this sandwich, Drew liked it a lot and said he would get it again.
Again, the price for this seemed a little expensive, as it just came with chips. Though, I suppose in downtown Eureka Springs, you must expect to pay a little more?

We did not get dessert, though most patrons did, and they looked delicious. There were also plenty of fancy coffee drinks that were tempting, but we skipped out on. There were even alcoholic dessert coffee drinks that sounded amazing. I think next time, I will skip out on the food and head straight for a delicious fancy coffee dessert.