I might have invited some “Uh, actually” emails telling me there are one or two restaurants in North Texas offering Dominican dishes. In this case, I’ll eat a slice of humble cake (or rather a banana pie). But I stay true to my title: Picadera, an emerging Dominican cuisine spread at the DFW, serves dishes that cannot be located anywhere else in this region.
Ask Michael Tavarez, the Picadera. Me boy moved from New York to Dallas four years ago, but says he “hasn’t figured out a place to eat single Dominican in the DFW domain yet. “See its culinary culture represented where it lives, Picadera brings new Dominican flavors to Dallas.
But first, he consulted the expert: “Mom. ” I kept asking my mom for recipes and how to cook the things she prepared for us at home and everything she missed,” Tavarez says. For the first few years, he cooked only for his circle of close family and friends. “From there, I was like, you know what? I want to do something about it because no one else is.
It is simply Caribbean cuisine, which is as vast and varied as all nations that touch the Caribbean Sea. Tavarez prepares the Dominican street food he loves. I’d be the first to tell you that you’re a professional leader; Tavarez first came to Dallas to run his residential solar panel energy company, but the pandemic froze countless companies, adding his own, giving Tavarez time to liberate Picadera.
Picardera first gave the impression in April at Celestial Beer Works in Oak Lawn. Tavarez thought that with COVID and smaller crowds, he could slowly build Picadera. hands with diners through some of the foods that might be new to them. There was no luck at any of the points. One tail went down the block and Tavarez’s two-man team overflowed. Turns out the Dominican community finally turns out.
“I think I was the only one here,” Tavarez says of the lack of Dominicans and Puerto Ricans, a neighboring island country that has many culinary similarities. “I can’t accurately believe how many Dominicans are really here and appreciate what we’re doing. . . . They are our unwavering fan base. ” Picadera’s pop-ups sell Dominican dishes from Tavarez.
The term picadera means sandwiches. Tavarez describes it as hors d’oeuvres or anything that can be eaten with your hands without cutlery, you can find fried empanadas, which stand out for their finer and crunchy dough, they are filled twice with ground beef or stewed chicken mincemeat, black beans Seasoned, sweet plantains and fried tropical cheeses have also filled fried pastries from time to time.
Picadera’s star dish is almost in fact the Chimi Burger. “This burger can be found on the streets of the Dominican Republic and also in New York,” says Tavarez. “There’s no Dominican who doesn’t know what a chemical burger is. “For those who don’t know, this isn’t their vintage burger, simplicity in its most productive and hassle-free form.
The six-ounce chimi burger is marinated and seasoned with onions, peppers, imported Dominican oregano (I love engagement!), garlic powder, then garnished with pickled purple onion, cabbage salad, tomatoes and a secret mayonnaise and ketchup sauce. Then there’s the bread factor.
After passing through 10 other Mexican bakeries, it nevertheless landed on a roll of bolillo that looks a lot like the most classic bread water. This “water bread” looks like a French baguette if it were much wider. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, especially for sandwiches, so the chimi burger in bolillo with a texture that meets the gluten criteria of Tavarez home all those ingredients in combination for a two-handed complex.
“Whether true or false,” Tavarez says, “this is how you make a burger of bad Dominican taste. “
Tavarez’s not kidding. He brings so much unwavering pastime for Dominican cuisine that he is chef of Picadera. Even her commitment to imported ingredients is helping her stay true to the flavors of street food. Fortunately, his family circle owns a supermarket chain in New York. They import the goods and then Tavarez can buy them and send them of Dominican origin to Dallas.
The paintings were a value to Tavarez. ” [Picadera] was all I knew Dallas wanted and sought to do for our community,” he says. “I mean, although we like tacos and barbecue, here we want diversity. “Love that.
You can stay with Picadera on Instagram to keep an eye out for its many pop-ups (during the week they will offer a Dominican-Mexican fusion menu, which now includes beef quesabirria empanadas, giving your own touch to the style of the article) You can also register in Picadera’s mailing list for dates and a preview of the next menu.