Above: Fried, yet light and crisp—nobody does tempura vegetables better than Miyabi. 9.
By Wini Moranville
Given the extensive menus at many ethnic restaurants, sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. Here are some can’t-miss dishes at a few of our favorite globally focused spots.
- Empanadas at Mi Patria: Empanadas—savory hand-held pastries filled with meat or cheese—are a signature snack in Central and South America. Every meal at this casual Ecuadoran venue should start off with an order of the warmly spiced, blistery-crisp half-moons. But share ’em—they’re huge.
- Green Curry at Thai Flavors: The amazing-ness of this coconut-milk-laced, aromatically spiced, sweet-salty-spicy-nutty curry is hardly breaking news. Indeed, loving this dish is almost like loving the medley on the B-side of “Abbey Road.” Who doesn’t? Still, it never gets old.
- Pork and Egg Roll Bùn at Aroy Dee: This vermicelli rice-based dish is a study in contrasts: Savor warm, chewy-in-a-good-way pork with cool and crunchy vegetables and soft and slippery white noodles, with chopped egg rolls for yet another crisp and savory dimension.
- Tacos at Fernando’s Mexican Grill: Here, they wait until you order to press the dough balls into tortilla disks—how fresh is that? Top them with moist, seasoned steak bits, pico de gallo, salsa verde and cilantro-flecked red onions for taco-truck-fresh, killer-good tacos that you can enjoy indoors, all year round.
- Vegetable Tempura at Miyabi 9: Forget all the lackluster versions of tempura you’ve ever endured, because here’s your new gold standard (pictured, above). The off-the-beaten-path mix of vegetables (which can include such wild cards as okra, Japanese lotus and kohlrabi) arrives with a heavenly fried coating that’s generously dappled yet impossibly light and crisp.
Wini Moranville writes about food, wine and dining for dsm magazine and dsmWeekly. Follow her on Facebook at All Things Food–DSM.
