More Deals, Deals, Deals!

COOLinary is getting all the attention around town right now, and with good reason. A record number of restaurants are participating, and the menus look great. A lot of these are really good deals. But over on the North Shore, restaurants are doing the same thing the month of August. It’s called Tammany Taste of Summer. I have often said we have fantastic restaurants over here, and I’m glad they are doing the same sort of enticing. I will cover both, but for this piece I’ll stay close to home.

The first one of these specials menus was lunch at The English Tea Room, a delightful place tucked away off the main drag in downtown Covington. It’s in a little cottage crammed with memorabilia from the UK. It’s kitschy and fun, but mostly just a delight. There is no one from Britain here. One owner has roots in Scotland and his wife is from Austin, but they couldn’t be doing a better job of representing the UK if they had grown up in the shadow of Buckingham Palace.

The sheer volume of tea choices is daunting, like trying to understand the terroir of wines and the nuances such a detail brings to what you taste. Co-owner Jan Lantrip blends an astonishing number of teas, so when I went I just asked her to bring me a black tea with fruity notes. She told me a regular customer loves mango and mint, and drinks that exclusively. Sold. I had a pot of that as part of my $25 Tammany Taste of Summer lunch. 

The pot of tea came with my choice of the three course lunch. For $30 I could have chosen the Windsor High Tea, something one should experience at some point somewhere. 

My lunch special choices were a bowl of fresh fruit or a spring mix salad in the first course, the spinach and artichoke individual quiche, or breakfast quiche were the entrees, and dessert options were strawberry shortcake or lemon tart.

I chose the salad which was enormous, and included greens, and tomatoes, shredded carrot, purple onions, and sliced cucumbers. It came with Tangiers Lemon White tea-infused Ranch dressing. I loved this salad.

The quiche was an individual tart with a flaky crust. I loved the combo of spinach and artichoke and of course cheese. An herbed biscuit came with this plate. It was fluffy on the inside and crusty on the outside, with just the right amount of herbs throughout. It was a very filling lunch.

I really didn’t have room for dessert but strawberry shortcake? This was a pile of sliced berries lightly sandwiched between two scones and topped with strawberry sauce and whipped cream. The vanilla scones here are the exact image of what a British scone should be. Not too sweet but just sweet enough, these are great.

I couldn’t finish this but I was glad to try it. With the pot of tea I had, it was the ideal finish to a meal like this.

This place is great and I don’t go enough. I’m glad I had the nudge to revisit.

The next place we visited was an old favorite. We went to Del Porto. That used to be a regular on our rotation, but for some reason we hadn’t been in too long. In perusing the menus for Taste of Tammany I saw they had spaghetti and meatballs. Tom called that kid food but ML and I always  (and still do) love it. I wanted to see the Del Porto version of this.

The starter on this menu was my very favorite hummus ever. It is the white bean purée with toasted focaccia crostini that is a signature item here. Our dessert order was Vanilla Affogato. These were our choices. A Caesar salad, Vegetable Panini and Tiramisu were the choices we left.

This white bean purée is divine. Coarser than most such things, it is the exact right heft for the hearty Focaccia Crostini. (I capitalize that term because I can hear Tom now asking if he played for the Saints.) There is a generous amount of olive oil and Kalamata olives in the center. It is always served with a single caper berry, which makes me love it even more. Special.

The meatballs and spaghetti were delicious, as expected. The meatballs were not too small or large, just at that manageable sweet spot in every way. Not too hard or crumbly either. The spaghetti was also cooked exactly right. It was served sort of pomodoro-style, with the noodles and sauce integrated before serving. A little brothy on the bottom, which I didn’t mind. This is not a cooked-all-day red sauce. Still fabulous, always.

I asked for the espresso to be omitted from the Affogato, so I was served housemade vanilla gelato with a little chocolate biscotti on the side. This too was as wonderful as the rest of the meal.

Going to Del Porto registers as a treat to me. I sat in the handsome dining room pondering how lucky I am to have such a place “in the neighborhood."

The other place that I tried is a place I haven’t been to but once before. It’s a little Latin food place in Madisonville called Empataco. This little place is sort of a gas station restaurant at the crossroads of highways 21 and 22. It’s a cute place with very good food, and it is the same owners who have the upscale and really delicious Valencia Spanish restaurant in downtown Covington. These people know what they are doing, and I sometimes wonder if Empataco is keeping Valencia afloat. I hope not but it is capable of doing that. The place does a very good business.

The Taste of Tammany lunch gave a choice of either beef or chicken empanada for the first course, and for entrees a choice of birria tacos or a trio of arepas: one each of beef, chicken, and pork. And the dessert course offered flan or Tres Leches cake. All this for $20 including a drink.

Empanadas are a favorite, and this was very good. I chose the beef empanada which was ground beef with corn kernels inside a flaky fried dough. It was a good ratio of meat to bread and fried greaseless. I got some dipping sauce from the sauce bar and this rather large empanada was filling enough to stop there.

My choice of the arepas trio settled a question for me. I don’t like arepas. I have tried them enough to declare this. This was more like a corn dough sandwich with two distinct discs on either end. Inside was perfectly braised beef, excellent shredded chicken, and tender pork al pastor with red cabbage slaw. The arepas were toasted nicely and this would have been great except I just don’t like corn dough. I loved everything else about this dish.

And the Tres Leches cake was a huge piece that had a great flavor and was fluffy inside. This was very nice. A blanket of whipped cream coated the top, and cherries decorated it. It sat in a sauce made with condensed milk.

While I was standing at the counter I noticed bags with half a dozen tamales inside. I got some beef tamales and they were also very good. The same perfectly braised and shredded beef filled the inside, and the masa coating was tender and integrated just a bit with the beef. 

Tammany Taste of Summer brought me back to Empataco, and I think I will go back with ML, who is ever in search of great nachos.

This is the whole point of the exercise. I have had that experience of revisiting old friends like Del Porto and The English Tea Roon and experiencing new ones like Empataco.

I will have that experience of revisiting old friends and also discovering new ones a few more times this month as I take advantage of the special menus offered all over on both sides of the lake. I hope you do too.