Blogger’s note: This is the first installment of an ongoing new blog category called Menu Explorer. The purpose of these posts is to celebrate specific menu items that are particularly awesome or unusual at eateries in Shreveport and Bossier City.
The more time I spend poring over the menu at Los Potrillos Taqueria in Bossier City, the more I appreciate just how special the place is. As I wrote in my original blog post about the restaurant, Los Potrillos is a taqueria serving 13 varieties of Mexican-style tacos, including some hard-to-find varieties like lengua and cabeza. Perhaps I was too busy eating tacos to notice, until recently, that the house specialty at Los Potrillos appears to be outlandishly over-sized, flaming-hot platters of meat.
Under a menu section called “Steak Dishes,” diners can choose from the mammoth parrillada Mexicana ($65.99, designed to serve “four or more people,” it’s a sizzling meat platter that covers the entire table), the smaller parrilla Mexicana ($37.99, a smaller version of the parrillada) and the classic molcajete ($35.99, served in a volcanic rock bowl but still really, really large). On a recent Friday evening, I set out to gather up some friends and order the parrillada, which I suspect is probably the largest serving of meat available in any restaurant in Shreveport or Bossier City.
Though there were four of us, we were encouraged by our server not to order the parrillada Mexicana, but to stick to the shallow end of the pool and order the classic molcajete. The huge, sizzling bowl came out stuffed with caramelizing onions, juicy pork carnitas, tender cactus, perfectly cooked shrimp, spicy strips of chicken and flank steak and charred jalapeños. Mostly, we plucked sizzling-hot meats out of the molcajete and assembled tacos using the two large platters of guacamole, pico de gallo, sour cream and tortillas that accompanied the order.
The dramatic presentation of the molcajete made it fun to attack this huge dish with a table full of hungry friends. If you’re bored with the typical restaurant experience and you’ve got a gang of meat-eating friends who are up for a challenge, I suggest a trip to Los Potrillos. Depending on how many friends you’ve got, order one of the sizzling meat platters. If you are crazy and/or popular enough to order the parrillada Mexicana, please send a photo to 20×49.com at cjay@sbctb.org.
Like Los Potrillos Taqueria on Facebook.
If you enjoy this kind of info on local food, download the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau’s Eat Here: A Food Lover’s Guide to Shreveport-Bossier.
