As part of this year’s resolutions, I decided to check out a new restaurant each month. City Palate ran a feature about great places to dine for under $50. Following their advice, we tried Casa Latina on 17th Ave SE (in the industrial part of the international avenue). Now, everyone has their own criteria for good food, cleanliness and good atmosphere, so I’ll try to be specific:
- The place: nice, but do not expect anything fancy. Some 10 tables, lots of plastic. From our table, I could see right into the kitchen, which wasn’t that nice. I liked the bright colored walls and the latino-type decorations.
- The food: my companion ordered the Tipical 2 – a charbroiled steak with beans, salsa, white cheese and something else. This was a really good choice, at around $15. The steak was absolutely delicious. On my part, I ordered one of the fish dishes, at around $17. This proved to be a very uninspired choice: it’s true, I got a whole tilapia. But everything on my plate (with the exception of a handful of salad) was deep-fried. Very deep-fried. So deep-fried, that I couldn’t taste anything – I could only crunch the food…
We paid around $38 (without tip) for the two main courses and two Cokes (as a plus, they do have cans, which I prefer over the tap). If you ask me, it is expensive. I’d say places like this (for me, these are ‘bistros’ rather than ‘restaurants’) should never cost more than $25 for a simple lunch like ours. But this is Calgary…
