An Indonesian in Mississippi. Not as catchy as "An Englishman in New York"
Burrito Mexpress
“Burrito Mexpress”!? Really!? The name of this new restaurant in Clinton filled me with nothing but doubt. Thankfully Denise convinced me that we should try it, and because of that we’ve discovered the first authentic Mexican restaurant in Clinton and the best tacos in town.
Babalu
Babalu Tacos & Tapas is a trendy new restaurant on Duling Avenue in the Fondren district of Jackson that serves (surprise!) tacos and tapas, among other things. Denise tells me there used to be a tapas place in Jackson, but it must not have done very well because it’s long gone. Having wanted to try tapas for a long time but not having the chance to, Babalu is a sort of answer to that wish. “Sort of” because if I had to categorize it (and I’m just as hopeless at categorizing food as I am music) I’d call it Mexican/Spanish-Southern/American fusion. It has a distinct Mexican base with its tacos, empanadas, enchiladas, etc., as well as Spanish with tapas; but the end product is very much informed by American sensibilities in general and Southern sensibilities in particular. So it’s not authentic tapas but, as is increasingly apparent to me, food doesn’t have to be 100% faithful to original regional/national recipes to be good.
As for the “trendy” bit, Denise and I are decidedly un-trendy. We don’t wear the latest fashion, drive a late model car, or even bother to go to the movies or watch popular TV shows to stay current. So as it seems everybody in town has eaten at Babalu twice already, we just got around to our first visit last week. Now we’re sorry we didn’t go sooner because in this case “trendy” has a healthy helping of substance to go with its style. » Continue Reading…
Taco wars
La Morena, Omonia, and La Guadalupe. Now that we’ve been to all 3 Mexican/Latin-American restaurants in the Country Line Rd./Old Canton Rd. area (the only 3 that I know of, but as always please correct me if I’m wrong), there’s an obvious question that begs to be addressed–which of them serves up the best tacos?
The three amigos
County Line Road plus a short strip of Old Canton just north of County Line has become a hotbed for Latin American cuisine. The joints we know of in that area are La Morena, Omonia, and La Guadalupe. We had been to La Morena and Omonia, which left La Guadalupe as the only restaurant we needed to visit. We finally got around to it yesterday, and once we did we wish we had done so sooner.
The spread
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. » Continue Reading…
La Morena
A blogger named YAR who runs the Carpe Jackson food blog told us about La Morena in the comments section of my post about Omonia, so of course we had to try it out a few weeks ago. It’s hidden away in a little nook of a strip mall just off Old Canton Road that looks to be populated mostly by Mexican or Latin American businesses. The storefronts aren’t visible from the street, so you can be excused for not even knowing it was there. I didn’t know until YAR told me, so thanks for the tip. There are only 4 tables, but the bar space makes up for that somewhat. It wasn’t a busy night, so we were able to sit down right away.
As an aside, when it snowed in December we were coming back from a Mexican restaurant. This time when we got out of our car to walk to La Morena we had some snow flurries fall on us. It’s a sign! » Continue Reading…
Omonia
After dim sum (yes, waaaay back in November) we stopped by Omonia Mexican and Colombian Deli-Bakery. They’re on County Line, and as you can see by the hastily covered-up sign, they’ve taken over what used to be a Quizno’s location. I asked the gentleman serving us, and he said they had only been open for 3 weeks. Aha! So we weren’t exactly pioneers, but it felt like we were at least part of the first wave of people to discover this place. » Continue Reading…