Los Equipales

Albuquerque has no shortage of Mexican restaurants, but this year I noticed one that I have never been to, Los Equipales on Silver west of San Mateo. I noticed this restaurant while I was at my younger cousin's football game. I asked my family about it and none of them had been there. So I looked it up online and found a fair amount of good reviews about this place. The building is a former bank with a wall around it. This is not a great location, but this business has been open since 2005 so they must be doing something right. Los Equipales specializes in Mexican seafood. I took my friend Rudy who is very familiar with Latin American culture says that this place feels very Mexican so I am excited to see if their food matches the atmosphere. We are seated promptly and there are not a lot of patrons in this well decorated restaurant. It has a patio feel but it was indoor.

We began the meal sopes, pictured on the left, which as a meat topped cake of some sort and the complimentary veggies with sauce combo. The sauce I would say is similar to ranch dressing. My friend from California was looking for sopes, but we were unfamiliar with what she was asking for. These little cakes came topped with meat, veggies, and what seemed like a cheese sauce. This was new to us because we are familiar with sophapillas but not too familiar with the Mexican sopes. This dish was really good the cake was nice and light in texture and the toppings were flavorful and so plentiful that they would fall off the cake when squeezed.

For my main course, a friend and I each ordered the Arroz Marinero, pictured below and to the right, which was a rice dish with a seafood medley of shrimp, oysters, scallops, clams, calamari, and squid. The portion was pretty good sized. My other friends had the Robalo Borracho that was a piece of marinaded fish and my other friend the shrimp enchiladas. I tried the shrimp enchiladas, pictured below to the right, and that was a great dish too. It was shrimp served in a rolled corn tortilla.

I am not too good at make decisions at times and this was one of those times. I really enjoy Mexican desserts and if the delicious meal was any indication of what the dessert was like we were in for a treat. So we ordered the Arroz con leche, the flan, and the pastel de tres leches. These were all great.

Overall I would give Los Equipales a rating of three and a half stars out of five. They could improve in atmosphere, but the food is really great.

http://www.losequipales.com

El Pollo Real

When we Americans in the US think of the country of Colombia we think of what we get from there, some of the things that some of us think of are not good, while some of the products of Colombia had to be made by a divine being. I have good thoughts when I think of Colombia, I was fortunate to have met some Colombian engineers that became good friends early in my career. The things that come to my mind when I think of the products of Colombia are coffee and a lovely lady that sings, Shakira. Despite having Colombian friends we did not eat in too often. One of them cooked for me once, but he was not too experienced in the kitchen. The Colombians did introduce me to aguardiente, an anise flavored liquor that is derived from sugar cane, which I enjoyed consuming with them. Fast forward about six years.

About a year ago, as I understand, a charbroiled chicken restaurant opened up and they added Colombian food to their menu. This restaurant is called El Pollo Real and is located where an acquaintance of mine ran a Filipino restaurant. The location is Trubull and Louisiana in a strip mall. It was unfortunate that New Mexico's only Filipino restaurant shut down, but the restaurant business it really tough.

The location is not in the best part of town, but this section of town has a lot of different nationalities that have opened up businesses there. El Pollo Real is located in a strip mall that is not in the best condition. A group of friends and I walk in and the restaurant is designed as an afterthought. It was basically put together as they went. The tables are mismatched, the decor consist of miscellaneous Colombian items, and the flag of Mexico and Columbia. The TV is left on and shows various videos. While we were there we caught the Full House marathon and Colombian music videos. We started the meal with empanadas, chips and salsa, and the sausage sampler, which consisted of blood sausage and chorizo. The picture to the right is some kind of fruit drink, I think it was called a Lulu, that was made with water instead of milk, I'm a little lactose intolerant, it was blended with ice. It was very good, but I'm told it's better with milk. I also had a cup of Colombian coffee which was good, but I have had more mentionable coffee from a paper cup. The empanadas were
amazing they had a nice hard fried crust and were stuffed with some kind of meat. The meat on the inside was tender and flavorful. To the left is the sausage that we cut up to share the blood sausage was the darker sausage and the chorizo is the sausage that is sort of red. The blood sausage had a light texture to it. It seemed like it was made with rice or some kind of grain in there. The chorizo was a little spicy. Both sausages were good, but as you can tell from the photo they were greasy. We also ordered the charbroiled chicken which is the main attraction here. The chicken had an awesome crust on the skin. The chicken was not dry at all. The skin had a great black color to it. It was served with a hot and flavorful green salsa and picked onions of some sort. I am not a picked food fan, but I had to try it. The pickled onions were OK. We also ordered the Bandeja Paisa or a Paisa Platter, which is a traditional Colombian dish as I understand. The platter was a steak, chorizo, a fried plantain, an avocado, an egg, and this was served with beans and rice. The food overall was very good and different.

This was a great experience to try some new cuisine. I would give El Pollo Real a rating of three out of five stars.




http://www.elpollorealnm.com/