Asian in a Strange Land

We’ve tried the bread at Omonia before, but what really intrigued us was their menu full of tortas, tacos, empanadas, etc.  When we stopped by the first time we were stuffed with dim sum so we only got some breads.  This time we planned well ahead of time to be there with empty stomachs ready to enjoy a full meal.

This was a mere week after our visit to La Morena.  Me choosing to eat Mexican food twice in a span of a week?  Were there balls of snow forming in some very hot locale at that moment perchance?  No doubt I must have been losing my mind, but our positive experience at La Morena had me wanting more.

We went for the tacos and empanadas, so that’s what we ordered.  The menu helpfully lists the main ingredients of each dish in English.  The menu also says each portion consists of 3 tacos with a different price for each type, but it turns out you can order less or more than 3 not necessarily in multiples of 3.  For instance, I got 2 of one type and 1 of another while Denise got 3 of another type.  We could’ve gotten just 2 tacos or 4, 5, etc.  They’re flexible like that and they just adjust the price accordingly.

After ordering and while waiting for our food, I examined the selection of sauces available at our table.  The choices were “extra hot” and “xxxtra hot”.  Awesome.  I used neither this time, because I wanted to really appreciate the flavors in the dishes as served and with whatever sauces or condiments came standard with them.  I’m definitely eyeing that “xxxtra hot sauce” though, because… you know… *sniff*… I’m a real man and that’s how real men eat.

Sofia’s face after she took a sip of the hot sauce.  No, not really.

Denise got the Tacos de Lomo, at least I think that’s right.  She got the pork loin tacos, and “lomo” means “loin”, so I figure that’s it.  She got 3 of them, sharing 1 with Sofia.  Look at that nice slice of avocado and fresh shredded lettuce and cilantro on top of a bed of beautifully caramelized pork.  My mouth is watering just looking at it.

The tacos were made with corn tortillas, double-wrapped to all-but-eliminate the possibility of breaking the shell and leaking stuff out of the middle of the taco.  I think this is the first time I’d ever had corn tortilla tacos, so that was different.  Good though.  I’m curious to know how the tacos would taste with flour tortillas, but I can’t complain about the flavor of the corn ones.

Here’s another shot just for good measure.  I got a taste of the pork loin, and it was indeed delicious.

This was my trio from left to right: 2 Tacos de Suadero (beef brisket) and 1 Taco de Tripa (intestines).  First thing that should jump out at you in looking at this: holy fillings, Batman!  These tacos don’t mess around.  We had some nice tacos at La Morena, but these ones completely put those to shame in terms of volume.  Bigger isn’t necessarily better, but when it’s bigger because of stuffing more good-quality ingredients in there I’m all for it.  Doing the math, a single taco at Omonia is anywhere between $2.42 to $2.84 depending on what type you get.  For me the price premium over the $2 tacos at La Morena is absolutely worth it.  Not to spoil the ending here, but after eating these 3 tacos I was pretty well stuffed, whereas with La Morena’s tacos it would take more than 3 to do the job, so in the long run you might even be getting better bang-for-the-buck at Omonia.  It’s a close call in that department, but overall experience-wise Omonia’s tacos win hands down with their extras like avocado and lettuce on some and sheer meatiness on others.

The tacos came with 2 containers worth of condiments.  The first was this sauce.  You can see the chili seeds in it, so it’s hot but not too hot for my taste.  As with all hot sauce try a dab first then pour to taste.  You can always add more, but it’s hard to take it away if too much.  Definitely some heat, but good flavor too.  Maybe it’s just the cilantro.  I love fresh cilantro.

Crema is basically Mexican sour cream.  It has a very light flavor, and for me provided a nice cooling counterpoint to the heat of the taco sauce.  I’m not a big fan of sour cream in general, but this crema was great in combination with the rest of the taco ingredients and sauce.

Here’s a closeup shot of the brisket tacos.  Make no mistake: this is not a premium cut of meat.  Then again you should know what to expect when ordering brisket.  They’re not too concerned with trimming out the gristly bits, and neither should you.  It’s mostly flavorless and just adds a nice occasional crunch to the eating experience.  Denise isn’t a fan, but I’ll get her eating connective tissue one of these days.  If you’re afraid of what might be in the brisket, there’s also a steak taco.  I haven’t tried one, but by the different cut they claim to use I would assume it would be cleaner in terms of extra bits.  Wuss.

I’ll admit to being a bit of a wuss myself.  I ordered one intestine taco instead of a set of 3, because I wasn’t sure of what I’d be getting and wanted to hedge my bets.  That was a mistake.  I should’ve gotten 3 of them, because this was fantastic!  Of all the meats I tried this day, the tripa was my favorite.  It didn’t taste gritty, dirty, etc.  It was just a beautiful, salty, crispy delight.  Imagine crispy chicken skin, except meatier, and you have an idea of what this was like.  Absolutely terrific.  I believe it’s made out of cow intestines, but it seemed to have a pork flavor to it.  Maybe the crispiness and saltiness reminded me of pork rinds a bit, but whatever the reason it was great.

And look at how loaded with meat this taco is.  It’s almost as loaded with total ingredients as the other kinds, and this one only had a few bits of onion and cilantro as filler vs. lettuce and a big chunk of avocado with the others!

Seriously, if you can get over the initial horror of the unusual source of this ingredient, you need to try this.  Try to work past that mental block against “strange” body parts, because this will knock your socks off.  It’s completely worth it.  I think Denise laughed at me upon seeing my eyes open wide after my first bite.  I just can’t say enough about how good this was.  Such a simple taco, yet delicious.

With the tacos we also ordered a couple of potato and beef empanadas.  Aha!  These look like what I expect empanadas to look like.  The kind older lady who waited on us told us to be careful because these were hot when she brought them out with our tacos.  We didn’t get to them until after eating up the tacos, at which point she jokingly scolded us for letting them get cold.  Momma knows best!  Thankfully they were still nice and warm, and the crispy outer shell was still crispy as well.

You can see the chunks of beef mixed in with the potato filling.  Crispy outside; warm, meaty, potato-y inside–very, very good.  All of that goodness for $1.50 apiece.  I’m drooling again.  We ate one and took home the other for a hearty snack.

What would a trip to Omonia be without taking home some breads?  Sofia got a heart-shaped cookie, and Denise and I shared a couple of pineapple-filled breads.  Good, but not incredible.  I think the awesome taco and empanada experience has me less enthusiastic about the bakery component of Omonia.  It’s not that the breads are bad, but the tacos and empanadas are amazing.  Still, we’ll probably continue to get breads and cookies when we go, but we won’t be going for the express purpose of getting breads and cookies.

I believe what follows is a first for me.  I’m combining this post with a brief report on a 2nd visit when we once again had tacos at Omonia a couple weeks later with our friend Scott, his daughter Riley, and another friend of ours Rebecca.  We convinced them that Omonia was the real deal for tacos, so they agreed to come along.  Scott and Rebecca are our eating buddies from our first trip to Ding How’s dim sum, and this was our 2nd eating adventure together.  Looks like we’re starting to form a real foodie club.  May it long continue.

The chicken taco is similar to the pork loin one, except of course swapping in chicken for pork.  There’s also a tomato slice in there and I think sautéed onions.  There are supposed to be sautéed onions in the pork loin taco also, but I didn’t notice them in my pictures.  Could just be buried under the mounds of other goodness.  Flour tortilla this time too.  I’m not sure if we asked for that, but no matter.  It was still good.

Scott, Rebecca, and I all ended up with Tacos al Pastor, which contains pork loin and pineapples as the star ingredients.  These were a bit slimmer than the ones we got on our first trip.  Sample variation?  We’ll just have to visit again and see.  Oh, the hardships we face…

I sound like a broken record, but again these were great.  The pineapples are a nice fruity touch, and the pork was delicious with some smaller, darker pork bits in there too.  Chorizo maybe?  Doesn’t say so in the ingredients list, so maybe it’s just crunchy bits that cooked off the pork chunks and were scraped onto the taco at the end.

Of course we got some bread to go.  Sofia I think had a cookie that I didn’t manage to take a snap of before she ate it, and Denise and I had this chocolate bread.  It’s really regular sweet bread, and the only chocolate parts are those wavy lines on the surface.  Bummer.  I was expecting chocolate filling.  Ah well, win some lose some.  Still good, and a beautiful piece of work too.

I just can’t say enough good things about Omonia.  Now I know what I’ve been missing all these years with the fake Mexican fare we get from the popular Mexican restaurants in town.  Not that they don’t do a good job with their food, but tasty as it is it’s not the real deal.  I always knew intellectually something was amiss but never had a true standard to compare to.  Now I do.  From now on Omonia is my gold standard for Latin-American cuisine.  People who grew up with this cuisine and know better might scoff at me, but this is as good as I’ve had so I’m sticking with it.  Anybody up for another trip to Omonia?  I still haven’t had their tortas, breakfast burritos, quesadillas, etc., although it’ll be hard not to just fall back on the delicious Tacos de Tripa by default.

Omonia Mexican and Colombian Deli-Bakery
1290 E. Country Line Rd.
Ridgeland, MS 39157
(601) 983-1253

“In front of North Park Mall next to Mattress Direct and Dog Spot”

466 N Bierdeman Rd.
Pearl, MS 39208
(601) 420-5942

I know I included their address and contact info last time too, but they’re so good they deserve to have it listed again!  This time I’m including their Pearl location, which I haven’t been to but would imagine is just as good since it was their original location–the one by Northpark Mall is new.

Added 3/1/2010:

Oops, I forgot to mention their drinks.  They have fruit and milk smoothies on the menu.  First time around Denise got a mango smoothie.  She enjoyed it, but we didn’t pay attention enough to notice if they used fresh fruit.  The second time she got a papaya smoothie and watched them chop up a fresh papaya to throw in the blender.  Nice!

Also on that second visit, Rebecca got some fried plantains and said they were good.  We also tried some chicken empanadas, which were just as tasty as the beef ones unsurprisingly enough.