Food Review: Crepes Paulette, Where Have You Been All My Life?

I have never been a fan of crepes, honestly. The crepes I have tried have always been too mushy and one-toned in their flavor. But the crepes from Crepes Paulette changed all that. These. Were. Awesome. Here’s the breakdown:

The Environment

There are two locations for Crepes Paulette: one is a food truck and the other is a permanent building. I have never been to the food truck, but this large, modern building was open and clean and a great place to enjoy a perfect crepe.

You order at a counter which is next to a window where you can watch your crepes being made. When your meal is ready, they bring it out to you.

The Food

The menu is huge! There is one whole page full of savory crepes, most of which are made with a buckwheat crepe, which is organic and gluten free. Then the other page is full of sweet crepes, which are made with a sweeter, traditional crepe.

The Garden $7.15
Description: pesto, spinach, mozzarella, egg.

Top: The Garden Bottom: The Thai

Even though I ordered this without the mozzarella, it was still delicious. I expected a whole egg to be in the crepe, though they just do a simply eggwash on the crepe when cooking it. Doesn’t a runny egg in a crepe sound divine, though?
Anyway, back to this crepe. There was plenty of spinach and just enough pesto to give it great flavor. I would suggest adding tomato to give it a little acidity. The buckwheat crepe was delicious. It was crispy around the edges and savory, not sweet at all. I really enjoyed it on both of our savory crepes.

The Thai  $7.85
Description: Grilled chicken, cabbage mix, Paulette’s gingery peanut sauce, egg.

This crepe was, by far, my favorite of the three we tried. It was like a banh mi crepe. It was full of tender chicken and crunchy veggies. I ordered it with a medium heat (they explained this just determines how much sriracha they put in it) and it was perfectly spicy, with just enough of a kick to give it great flavor, without burning your mouth.
The gingery peanut sauce was delicious. It was also significantly larger (had more filling) than The Garden. So, I feel like this is a good deal for the price, as well. I loved this crepe! I would eat this every day if I lived in the area.

The Turtle   $6
Description: Fred’s sweet and salty caramel, dark chocolate ganache, and pecans.

This sweet crepe was darn near perfect. The sweet and salty mix of caramel and chocolate ganache was very tasty. The best part, though, was that these sauces settled at the bottom and were perfect for dipping each bite into…..and then drinking the rest of it when the crepe is gone. No shame.
The pecans were a nice contrast of texture, though they would be even tastier if they were toasted.
The sweet crepe also has crispy edges, but not much flavor. That was fine with me, though, because the chocolate and caramel were all the flavors I needed.

Overall

I love this place. I hate it is three hours away from my house. If I were to make a list of reasons to move to Northwest Arkansas, this would be in my top 3.
The only complaint is how long it takes to get your food. I knew from online reviews it would take a while, especially if it were crowded. So, we showed up and ordered by 10:40 a.m.  It took 20 minutes to get our savory crepes and only about 10 minutes to get our sweet one, which we ordered afterwards. By 11:15, the place was getting packed. I can’t imagine how long it would take to get lunch here around noon.
If you have a favorite crepe from this place, give me some suggestions on what to try next time!

 

 

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.