Bagels & Buns

Address: 2487 Grant Ave, Ogden, UT 84401. 801.394.7142.

Review: I'll make this quick 'cause there ain't much to discuss. I had a bagel (meh) sandwich with sliced beef (meh), tomatoes (meh), lettuce (meh), cream cheese (meh), and cheese (meh). Yep, you guessed it, it was all perfectly meh. Especially meh was the bagel. There was no toothiness present in a good bagel. Its taste was flat and bland, as was the sandwich as a whole.

Rating: 4/10 (5/10 is average).

Venezolano Restaurante Andinitas

Address: 4139 S 1785 W, Taylorsville, UT 84119. 801.966.9097.

Review: Let's get one thing straight upfront: when you're looking for Venezolano Restaurante Andinitas, look simply for Andinitas; it's what's on the sign.

There are relatively few times you go to a restaurant and find something that makes you think, "Holy crap. That's a brilliant idea." My experience at Andinitas was one of those times.

Andinitas is a Venezuelan restaurant with about eight tables. The menu is comprised of about the same six meats prepared in different ways. I had an arepa pabellon. Arepas are sandwiches that use fried or grilled corn cakes as the bread component.

The pabellon arepa was filled with shredded beef, fried sweet plantains, black beans, and cheese.

As with any sandwich, it all starts with the bread (or corn cake, as it were). This one was lighter than a ho cake (which is the closest comparison to an American food I can make), but not nearly as light as wheat bread. Its density helped it stand up well the the decidedly heavy filling. The shredded beef was tasty and juicy. The beans were okay, but didn't add a lot of flavor. The plantains added an unexpected sweetness. But what made this arepa was the avocado crema. It brought all the flavors together and lightened the arepa ever so slightly. Quite good.

And now, the main attraction: the patacon.

As you can see, a patacon is a sandwich that utilizes fried plantains instead of bread. This patacon came filled with ham, cheese, lettuce, avocado, onions, and tomatoes. This dish is the one I was referring to earlier. (You remember, the "holy crap" part above.) It's so simple, and yet so ingenuous. The fried plantains are sweet and work wondrously well with the ham. The lettuce adds a crispy component, and the vegetables add needed lightness and acid. Everything went together perfectly. Fried plantain sandwich!? Who'da thunk it? Anyway, I could have ordered another on the spot if my wife would have let me. But alas, I will have to wait for the next go 'round with the patacon, which will be soon.

Rating: 7.5/10 (5/10 is average).

P.S.: Mad props to SLC Cheap Eats for first reviewing Andinitas. Those guys find some good restaurants.

Tortillas de Mano

Address: Corner of 200 E and 300 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84111.

Review: The one thing I always find lacking in taco stands is the tortilla. It's never made by hand; instead, it comes from a plastic bag you can buy at Smith's. Now, I'm not sure about you, but if I want Smith's tortillas, I'll go to Smith's and buy them. A real, quality taco stand should make its own tortillas. And Tortillas de Mano is a real, quality taco stand.

We started our meal with a pair of tacos: chicken and carnitas.

The chicken was dry cooked and not braised or wet cooked, which seems to be a popular taco stand way of ensuring the chicken doesn't turn out dry. In any case, the chicken was slightly dry, but the seasoning added big flavor. The carnitas was juicy and tender. Slathered with the standard salsas, pico de gallo, onions, etc., both tacos were mighty good. Oh, and the tortilla: money. The hand-madeness factor really helps these tacos. Very good.

And then there was the torta, which is a big sandwich made with taco fillins. I had barbacoa on mine.

The procedure for making a torta is kind of interesting. First, they cut the bread in half and slathered on sour cream. They then fried the bread on the skillet, sour cream side down, while they prepared the meat. After adding the meat, you get to add your favorite toppings, and, voila, a torta is born. The bread was a little soft for my taste, but the flavors were money. Good stuff. And for $3, it's a screamin' deal. Honestly, this is a taco stand.

Rating: 7.5/10 (5/10 is average).

Taco Taco

Address: 2931 Washington Blvd, Ogden, Utah 84401. 801.393.6526.

Review: After a hearing in the Ogden District Court, I figured it was time to grab a bite. I happened upon Taco Taco and figured, "What the heck? Why not?"

First thing you notice when you walk in Taco Taco is it seem like a pretty standard little Mexican-food joint. Then you get the menu and realize they serve some pretty cool stuff. I was enamored by the platillo de lengua, which is, you guessed it, beef tongue served with green chiles.

Now, before you get all, "Really? Tongue? That's so gross," you have to try it. Tongue is actually a really nice meat. It contains a lot of intramuscular fat, which makes it juicy and tender if cooked correctly. And the tongue at Taco Taco was cooked correctly. The chiles added just the right amount of heat and flavor. The queso fresco is a nice touch on top of the beans, which otherwise would be lacking in flavor. I wish Taco Taco served hand-made corn tortillas (the ones you get are from a supermarket), because doing so would have set this meal over the top. As is is though, it was a pretty darn solid meal, and some of the best tongue I've ever had.

Rating: 7/10 (5/10 is average).

La Estacion del Taco

Address: Corner of 600 W and 200 S, SLC, UT 84101.

Review: Heaven has given us certain street foods so that we may be happy. Pizza is the first among these foods, but a close second is the taco. There's something magical about paying a buck for something so tasty that you can eat while walking down the street. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, I was driving from a Saturday business meeting and happened upon a taco stand. How could I resist, honestly?

This taco stand is called "La Estacion del Taco" and offers the following staples:

What the menu doesn't show is the menudo, pozole, and other delights offered but not written. While the menudo tempted me, I decided to go with a taco triad: lengua, asada, and carnitas.

And these tacos come with all the trimmings: roasted jalapenos, grilled, onions, a selection of salsas and pico de gallo, radishes, etc. The lengua (yes, tongue) was perfectly cooked. It had that melt-in-your-mouth quality you want from well cooked tongue. The asada was a bit flat in the flavor department. It simply didn't have much seasoning or spicing. The carnitas, however, was flavorful and moist: quite good. The trimmings were very good as well. The pico de gallo was refreshing and light, and the hot salsa actually had a kick. Something another patron pointed out was this taco stand actually served sour cream, which was a nice touch. My one gripe is the tortillas. They are store-bought and lacking in that good corn flavor present in a freshly prepared tortilla. A better tortilla would have put this place over the top. As it is though, the tacos were pretty darn good, especially for a buck each.

Rating: 6.5/10 (5/10 is average).

Michelangelo Ristorante

Address: 3005 Highland Dr., Salt Lake City, UT 84106. 801.466.0961.

Review: We lived down the road from Michelangelo Ristorante and have driven past it a thousand times. We finally decided to try it out on my wife's birthday.

We began with prosciutto e melone: a classic pairing. The prosciutto was good quality, salty, meaty, thinly sliced. The melon was out of season and, in addition to being a bit tough, had not fully developed its sugar. Because of this, the prosciutto took over and the dish was too salty.

Next came the pasta dishes. I ordered the gnocchi al pesto, another classic dish.

Gnocchi are nothing more than cooked potatoes, flour, egg and salt. A truly good gnoccho is light and feels like a pillow in your mouth. (This might sound a bit far-fetched, but thus is the magic touch of really good gnocchi makers.) In contrast, these gnocchi were dense and bland. The pesto was more cream based than the traditional pesto genovese, and lacked any flavor of pine nuts or parmigiano reggiano, or basil for that matter.

Much the same could be said for the gnocchi al pomodoro.

Amazingly, there was no offer of parmigiano reggiano with this dish (a perfunctory gesture). Not that parm would have saved the dish from the blandness of the sauce, but it would have helped.

My wife had the ravioli filled with spinach.

The ravioli were supposed to be served with a sage and butter sauce, but it inexplicably came served with a sage and cream sauce, with a little bit of butter added. This aside, the ravioli were quality. They possessed that pop of spinach when bitten into. The pasta portion was thin texturally smooth. If the sauce had been what it said it would be, this dish would have been great.

And, because it was the wife's birthday, we ordered some desserts. She got the a cannolo, which was filled with sweetened ricotta, chocolate, and orange zest, and topped with berries.

While the cannolo was properly crunchy (something that doesn't happen often because they're filled hours before eating and become soggy), the flavors in the ricotta were muddled. There was no hint of orange, and the berries did not add much flavor to the dish.

I had the torta di frutta (misspelled torta de fruta on the menu).

This torta is, in reality, a crostata with a lemon cream filling covered in seasonal berries. The crust, which really should be the star of any crostata, was soggy and dense. There was neither flakiness nor flavor present. The filling had almost no lemon flavor to it, and thus was simply a bland creamy, sugary filling. And with no lemon to cut through the fat of the filling and contrast with the berries, there just wasn't much personality.

In the end, I would come back for the ravioli, but not for anything else.

Rating: 4.5/10 (5/10 is average. The ravioli saved the rating from being lower).

Mekong Cafe

Address: 7777 S State St, Midvale, UT 84047. 801.566.5747.

Review: The moment I walked in the Mekong Cafe I thought, man the food looked gorgeous. I saw generous plates of beef and pork and I was ready to partake. Unfortunately, I had eaten too much meat the preceding days, so I decided on the take-out vegetarian platter, which is a mess of vegetables (eggplant, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, and bamboo shoots) and tofu mixed with a spicy brown sauce.

The cashier asked how spicy I wanted the dish and rattled off the possible levels: mild, medium, hot, authentic. Authentic it was.

Surprisingly, the dish wasn't nearly as good as I had hoped. The vegetables still had a bit of bite to them, although their freshness was gone. The broccoli and mushrooms were quite tasty, but there was little flavor extracted from the other vegetables. The sauced lacked the complex interaction of contrasting flavors (e.g., sweet, sour, salty, heat, bitter) you expect from really good Thai food. And at authentic level, the heat index was significantly lower than expected.

Even though I wasn't a fan of the vegetable platter, I am going to reserve overall judgment of Mekong for now. It might be a case of food looking better than it tastes, but I cannot help but think the dish I ate was the exception and not the rule. I'll update after I've been back for some curried beef or something of the like.

Rating: On hold.