Mangu
Tonight we were deciding on a place to have dinner and after remembering that Charlie's is closed on Sunday, we set out to try the new Caribbean restaurant in Pflugerville, Mangu. It's located behind the Tinseltwon theatre in a bright yellow house. It's a strange little set-up but we're always up for an adventure.
We were off to a slow start with the service, but since it's new we forgave them. By slow I mean, 4 or 5 waitstaff walked by us for about 20 minutes or so without checking on us, taking our order, saying hello, etc. They would actually look at us and continue walking by or leaning against the bar as if there were no customers in the restaurant. Once we got some attention, things got better.
The menu is difficult to read, hard to follow, etc. which was a little funny to me after working on a disastrous menu job where my goal was to organize the menu in an easy to navigate fashion and the client just thought it was crap...so I can see how a menu might end up looking like this one. I know just enough about Caribbean food to know what to start looking for on the menu. I finally found the chicken section on the very back. The Paella which looked pretty good in the photo, takes 30-40 minutes to prepare...which might not be so bad if we hadn't already been there that long before ordering. I decided on the Steak Asado (that's close...can't remember exact name on menu now). The entrees are served with your choice of three sides. I chose white rice, black beans and a house salad which is more like a Caribbean cole slaw. Tim had a pan seared marinated chicken breast with black beans, yellow rice and salad.
I forgot to mention that after they realized that no one had waited on us, they brought us a couple of appetizer plates to sample. One was fried plantain chips with a garlic sauce and the other was Fried Yuca served with a marinara sauce. I LOVE garlic so the plantains were a nice vehicle for garlic sauce. I had a small taste of the Yuca. It reminded me of a steak fry. Tim really seemed to enjoy it.
My steak was quite tasty, cooked medium and topped with some fresh minced garlic. The beans were cooked just right and the rice was fine. I was looking forward to the house salad until I discovered it was actually a slaw type of salad. It was very good, just not what I was expecting.
Tim ordered a pieced of the Tres Leches cake for us to try. It was very good and was actually what I had always pictured this cake to look like. I'll have to get a real Tres Leches fan to try it and let me know if I'm right about that.
Our meal with 2 teas and tax was about $29. They have a full bar, small outside patio and a TV for watching sports.
They also have take-out food available by the pound or by the dinner. They have a nice dinner for 4 with meat, rice, beans and dessert for around $25.00 that feeds four people.
I'm not sure how long they will be there. My favorite restaurant in Pflugerville, Cafe 101, has closed and their food was absolutely scrumptious in my book. Mom's Cafe closed also we found out this weekend (see Tim's blog below). It seems to be a hard market in which to succeed, but I wish them the best of luck.
JT
We were off to a slow start with the service, but since it's new we forgave them. By slow I mean, 4 or 5 waitstaff walked by us for about 20 minutes or so without checking on us, taking our order, saying hello, etc. They would actually look at us and continue walking by or leaning against the bar as if there were no customers in the restaurant. Once we got some attention, things got better.
The menu is difficult to read, hard to follow, etc. which was a little funny to me after working on a disastrous menu job where my goal was to organize the menu in an easy to navigate fashion and the client just thought it was crap...so I can see how a menu might end up looking like this one. I know just enough about Caribbean food to know what to start looking for on the menu. I finally found the chicken section on the very back. The Paella which looked pretty good in the photo, takes 30-40 minutes to prepare...which might not be so bad if we hadn't already been there that long before ordering. I decided on the Steak Asado (that's close...can't remember exact name on menu now). The entrees are served with your choice of three sides. I chose white rice, black beans and a house salad which is more like a Caribbean cole slaw. Tim had a pan seared marinated chicken breast with black beans, yellow rice and salad.
I forgot to mention that after they realized that no one had waited on us, they brought us a couple of appetizer plates to sample. One was fried plantain chips with a garlic sauce and the other was Fried Yuca served with a marinara sauce. I LOVE garlic so the plantains were a nice vehicle for garlic sauce. I had a small taste of the Yuca. It reminded me of a steak fry. Tim really seemed to enjoy it.
My steak was quite tasty, cooked medium and topped with some fresh minced garlic. The beans were cooked just right and the rice was fine. I was looking forward to the house salad until I discovered it was actually a slaw type of salad. It was very good, just not what I was expecting.
Tim ordered a pieced of the Tres Leches cake for us to try. It was very good and was actually what I had always pictured this cake to look like. I'll have to get a real Tres Leches fan to try it and let me know if I'm right about that.
Our meal with 2 teas and tax was about $29. They have a full bar, small outside patio and a TV for watching sports.
They also have take-out food available by the pound or by the dinner. They have a nice dinner for 4 with meat, rice, beans and dessert for around $25.00 that feeds four people.
I'm not sure how long they will be there. My favorite restaurant in Pflugerville, Cafe 101, has closed and their food was absolutely scrumptious in my book. Mom's Cafe closed also we found out this weekend (see Tim's blog below). It seems to be a hard market in which to succeed, but I wish them the best of luck.
JT