Tag: irving

Travels: Food of Dallas!

Drew bought me tickets to The Killers concert for my bday. This doesn’t sound like THAT big of a deal, but seeing them was, by far, my #1 bucket list item. And we got front row. It was the best night of my life. Really, the best show I’ve ever seen. If you ever get a chance to see The Killers, do it.

Anyway, we decided to make a long weekend out of it to enjoy Dallas, so  here’s the summary of all the food we had while we were there.

(Click on the titles to read the specific reviews of the following places we ate at.)

Empa Mundo

We started here with a late Friday dinner. It was one of the best meals we had all weekend.

Nammi and the Dallas Farmer’s Market

Saturday we started the day by heading to the Dallas Farmer’s market and eating an amazing Banh Mi!

Crushcraft Thai Street Food

For a late lunch, we then hit up this fantastic Thai place!

For Sunday’s breakfast, we strolled down downtown Grapevine and stopped in The Main Street Bakery.

I got a chocolate almond croissant for less than $2.50. It was delicious!
The inside was full of almond paste, which is perfectly sweet, and one of my favorite flavors. Though, the chocolate was neither overridden by the almond nor did it override it. The flavors worked really well together and made a melty, gooey, middle with a perfectly flaky, buttery crust. YUM.

    

In-N-Out

For Sunday’s lunch, we finally tried In-N-Out and I directly compared it to the East Coast’s Shake Shack in this review.

On our drive home, we stopped by the popular Fuzzy’s Taco shop. It is a chain, but one we don’t have in central Arkansas, and I felt like some tacos.

The chips and salsa, $2, was very good! The chips were seasoned and fresh, and the salsa was full of roasted, pepper-y goodness. Definitely a must-get here.

However, the tacos was pretty awful. I asked for no cheese, and they also kept any sauces off…not cool. I wanted that garlic aioli on my tacos! So, I tried a pork taco, a stead taco, and a fish one. The grilled fish was inedible. One bite and it tasted as if it had gone bad. So, we didn’t even try that one again.
The other two were good enough to eat, but pretty dry.
I would NOT recommend going to the Fuzzy Taco Shop, unless you’re getting chips and salsa to go.

Food Review: Empa Mundo in Iriving/Dallas, TX, Where the Empanadas are Out of this World!

While starving and arriving late into the Dallas area, with a hotel in Iriving, I frantically looked online for a good, fast place to eat near where we were staying. A top-rated place called “Empa Mundo” sounded perfect. I love fried empanadas!  Here’s the breakdown:

ENVIRONMENT

Located in a not-so-fancy shopping mall, Empa Mundo is a small restaurant , but with a good amount of seats. You pick up a menu at the back counter, give it to whomever is at the counter when you’re ready. You fill out your menu with a marker, similar to a sushi menu.

Miming was the only one working tonight, and she was busy taking orders, making and frying each empanada fresh. I figured this may take a while, since the restaurant had a few people in it and many to-go orders as well, but Miming was surprisingly fast and we got our food in a little over five minutes!

MENU

I really appreciate a simple menu, so I loved this one. It makes my ordering anxiety go down drastically. There is a list of empanadas, all costing $2.99. Descriptions of each are listed with a picture. There are also cookies at the bottom for $1.50.

Just check how many you want of each, turn it in, and they’ll be out soon!

FOOD

I knew from online reviews the empanadas would be small, about 5 inches long. I also wanted some leftovers to stash in the hotel fridge. So, we ordered 8 and a cookie.  My husband and I only ate 3 empanadas and 1 cookie (split between us) before we were stuffed and took the rest to go.

Chorizo Empanada- $2.99
Description: Sausage, potato, peppers, onion (pictured on left)

This empanada was very tasty. It wasn’t overpowered by the full-on chorizo flavor you might find in a chorizo taco. It also was not greasy in the least, which I appreciated. But it had enough chorizo flavor that it is very good. The chimichurri sauce on each table is the perfect addition to this one. Glad we ordered two of these!

Camote Empanada- $2.99
Description: Sweet potato and marshmallow (pictures above on right)

I am not a huge sweet potato pie fan, but Drew picked this one out. Of course, it ended up being, by far, both of our favorites of all the pies. To be fair, it was the only dessert one we ordered. I wish we had ordered pumpkin as well, and three more of these camotes. I couldn’t taste any marshmallow, but the sweet potato filling was so filled with spices it was absolutely flavorful and delicious. Get these!

Texas Brisket Empanada- $2.99
Description: beef, potatoes, onions, chillies

This one was suprisingly delicious. I figured the chorizo would be my favorite, but this had even more flavor. It was very beefy, non-greasy, and probably my favorite of the meat pies. Or at least this one and the chorizo are tied. Again, glad we got two of these babies as well!

Others:

Tuna: (with onions, tomatoes, peppers, and olives) As gross as that sounded to me, it wasn’t bad at all. Not my favorite, probably won’t get again, but it does make tuna taste very savory.

Pulled Pork: (pork, celery, carrots, BBQ) This was a perfectly sweet bbq pork pie. It was very different from the others as it was sweeter than savory. I loved the contrast of it with the brisket and chorizo pies. It was so tender as well. I would definitely get this again.

Criolla: (beef, onions, olives, raisins, eggs) I was suprised how delicious this one was as well! I am not a fan of raisins and olives only partially. But these ingredients were worked so well into the filling, without being over-utilized, that a sweet and savory pie was created. I loved it! I would get this one again as well. It is unique and very delicious.

Alfajor: (dulce de leche and coconut cookie)

This was our only disappointment (besides not ordering more). The cookie was very dry and there wasn’t much flavor. Skip on this one.

OVERALL

We left with a TON of leftovers, which were all very satisfying even straight out of the fridge. Miming was so kind when I asked for a to-go box. She asked how I liked it, she gave me to-go chimichurri sauce. She even said you can order ahead and they can freeze them for you. While I did consider ordering some frozen ones to drive home with, I’m on a diet now so that would have been bad.
But I definitely will go back here whenever I’m in the Irving area!