The QBA Cuban Kitchen tweeted (on Friday) about a new special that caught our eye – Enchilados de Camaron. I love shrimp, and taking a closer look at the special, it was clear this had nothing to do with Mexican enchiladas. This dish was shrimp, peppers and Spanish onions over rice. Sounds great!
Today’s Lunch is enchilados de camaron from the QBA Cuban Kitchen ($7).
There were a bunch of medium-sized shrimp (8 or 9) with lots of red and green bell peppers and Spanish onions with minced cilantro and a very light tomato sauce. The shrimp were cooked just right, except for one I got that was a little mushy. Other than that one, the shrimp were very tasty.
I don’t usually like lots of bell peppers in a dish unless it’s sausage and peppers, but these were mild enough that they didn’t overpower everything else. There was still a definite bell pepper taste, but the shrimp, onions and sauce came through just fine. The same thing was true of the Spanish onions – they added flavor, but were not overpowering. In fact, the onions were subservient to the peppers in this dish – they were not equal partners.
I also added some green hot sauce to the dish. It did add some heat, but what it really added was herbiness. There was a little cilantro in the dish originally, and the green hot sauce kicked up the cilantro taste and added jalapeno to the mix. Lunch didn’t need hot sauce, but it did add an herb-y dimension to the dish.
The rice was a little overcooked, but that might have been because I got out for lunch later than usual. Not terribly overcooked, but a little.
Today’s Lunch gets an 8 out of 10. Overall, I liked it a lot. There was a certain tropical flavor to the dish, and it was not too peppery or sharp to enjoy. I had to eat lunch quickly because things at work got a little crazy, but it was still very enjoyable.
