Beyond the cheese enchilada ...
The last time I went to my favorite Mexican restaurant, La Botana, there was a new special on the board - Quesadilla Nopalitos. It is a quesadilla stuffed with sauteed cactus strips, black beans and other goodies; and it is delicious. The specials always are. And that got me to thinking of a prime strategy vegetarians can use for good restaurant eating: Going off the menu.
Now, La Botana has a fine vegetarian section on its regular menu, with a lot of variety. I might never have ventured to try the specials until one day as I was ordering, the waiter asked whether I was vegetarian. It turned out that he was vegetarian, too. He particularly recommended the burrito caliente - stuffed with pinto beans, sauteed onions, and diced, fried potatoes, and covered with a chipotle-cream sauce. So I tried it, and was hooked on it, and on La Botana’s other specials.
For a while, the vegetarian enchiladas de mole nearly edged burrito caliente out as my favorite: Cheese enchiladas on a bed of rice and pinto beans, topped with mole sauce and spicy onions. (If you decide to try that one, be sure to be clear about what you want - there’s a similarly named dish on the regular menu that includes chicken.) In fact, I’ve ordered it so often that I haven’t yet tried the veggie chimichanga….
La Botana’s creative chef keeps dreaming up new specials; not all are vegetarian but many are. And the best part is, once you find a favorite they will make it for you, even after it no longer appears on the special board. La Botana is at 1547 Hanes Mall Blvd. in Winston-Salem, near the Wynnsong 12 movie theater.
In future posts, I’ll talk about other restaurants with specials to make a vegetarian’s heart beat a bit faster. Meanwhile, let me know if you know of any restaurants that have really special specials.
