I found this interesting, small restaurant that provides Latin dishes with a Mexican twist. That got my curiosity enough to venture out to the area I usually don’t visit.

The inside is pretty small, so it gets packed pretty quickly. The fact that they are a popular spot also helps, of course. It has exposed brick wall on one side, and very vivid, bright colored wall on the rest of the walls. They had some interesting Mexican themed wall decors.

 

All the furniture was just simple, ordinary, no frills kinds. They managed to bring in some live plants and flowers to liven this place up. I liked the pretty pink carnations on the tables. It is something about the real flowers on the dining table that gives that extra sweetness to the whole experience.

They have a bathroom in the back, and they had a lot of photos, and some cards displayed on the wall. Kind of homey. I liked the blue owl on the wall, a bit random, but owls are cute, any place, any time, including inside the bathroom.

We went there during brunch, and they had some interesting brunch menu. I heard everyone talks about their Tres  Leches pancakes, which sounded really interesting, but we decided to try other items. For one, I also heard that the pancakes are a bit small, and also, we were thinking of ordering dessert, so we didn’t want to get too much of sweet stuff altogether. We ordered Costillitas Benedicto ($18), which comes with slow braised short ribs, butter milk biscuits, poached eggs, and Abodo hollandaise. I felt it is a bit pricey, but the potion was really nice. Their biscuits were nice and sweet, airy, and flavorful. I usually like English muffins with Benedicts, but this was a nice change, I really enjoyed it. The ribs had a nice flavor, and was very filling. The eggs were cooked just right, giving that great egg porn when I broke it… It also came with home fries, which were tasty also. The hollandaise had some extra spices and a little kick to it, I thought it was good, creative dish.

We also ordered Desayuno Mexicano ($16) which was a homemade zucchini quesadilla with potato croquette, scrambled eggs, and salsa verde. For a dish that does not have any meat, the price tag felt a bit high. The quesadilla was tasty though, nice amount of zucchini and cheese, simple yet flavorful. Salsa verde had good kick to it, adding more spicy flavor to the quesadilla.

However, the winner of them all was their potato croquette, believe it or not. It was so good, creamy, velvety, and I think they had cheese in there too, it was so good! The outside was fried crispy and crunchy, but the inside was still soft and just melt in your mouth. I wish if it came with more than just 2 croquettes…

After the brunch, we decided to order just one dessert to share. They only had Flan or Tres Leches Cake. Since we didn’t have their Tres Leches Pancake, we decided to try their Tres Leches Cake ($7). It was a smaller piece of cake than I expected, and was not as good as I wanted it to be. The cream on the bottom was too watery, I wanted them to be a bit more creamy or saucy than watery… The cake it self was “a-ok,” nothing special. It was not worth the price tag, but everything is kind of pricey here. If the quality and quantity match the price tag, I have no issue with that, but this cake certainly didn’t match quality nor the portion.

The staffs were not very friendly. The service was ok, not great. The food was good, but I am not sure if I would go back again. If I do, I will skip the dessert next time. If I am in the area for another reason, then I would like to try their creative menu again, but I don’t think I will travel there just to visit the restaurant.

Cascalote Latin Bistro – 2126 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10029