Not Taking a Pass on the Sandwiches at Paseo

Paseo

1760 1st Avenue South

Seattle, WA 98134

Katie and I have an odd ritual when we are on vacation. No, it's not anything that will make you blush, or entice you to call the authorities. It's rather tame. We like to tour sports venues in the city we are visiting. Lumen Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks was unfortunately closed to tours when we visited in mid-March, but lucky for us T-Mobile Park was open for twice-daily tours of the stadium where the Seattle Mariners play. We quickly booked the 10am tour and made plans to head to Paseo for lunch once the hour and a half tour had concluded. 

Paseo, a Caribbean sandwich shop is one of the most highly acclaimed spots in all of Seattle. They have over 5,300 reviews written about them on Yelp, with a four and a half star rating. They were also named 2nd and 3rd of the top 100 places to eat in the country, in separate years, by Yelp and were voted the 2nd best sandwich shop in the USA by Food Network. Very high praise, and right near T-Mobile Park, so after walking all over the ballpark we were excited to finally sit down once we were at Paseo. 

From what I can gather online, Paseo has two locations, this one on 1st and another one on Fremont. Their website also lists one that's coming to Issaquah, a city southeast of Seattle. I also did a deep dive and learned that Paseo had some money problems in 2014, and was sold by the original owner. I'm not quite sure who is the current owner presently, but Seattleites don't seem to care who is running this place now, they just keep showing up to devour the sandwiches. 

The menu at Paseo features 12 sandwiches, five entrees, two salads, appetizers, and sides. All but one thing, the jambalaya is going to set you back more than $15. Breakfast is also an option if you make it here before 1pm Tuesday through Saturday, and it's served all day on Sundays and Mondays. I was intrigued by their breakfast, but I couldn't visit Paseo without trying what they are the most famous for, their sandwiches. Let's see what we thought. 

First up is their best seller, and a sandwich that was voted the best sandwich in America by Esquire Magazine, the Famous Caribbean Roast ($12.50). This sandwich starts with marinated pork on a toasted baguette and is finished with romaine, caramelized onions, and garlic aioli. The first thing I noticed when the sandwich was in front of me was that there was a lot of pork piled on here. I really enjoyed the tender pork, but I had other bites that were a little on the dry side. I also would have liked a heavier hand when they applied the garlic aioli. It was kind of relegated to the background and was overshadowed by the pork and the onions. The bread was solid and kept its form throughout the life of the sandwich. It was good, just not great. 

The Caribbean Roast might get all the love from their customers, but don't sleep on this Paseo Press ($14). This one had the same roasted pork on it but added thick-cut smoked ham, swiss cheese, caramelized onions, and garlic aioli. Again the aioli could have been utilized a bit more here, but this had other ingredients to help pick up the slack. I loved the double pork combo of the ham and the marinated pork shoulder, and how it melded nicely with the swiss and the fantastic onions. This was definitely my favorite out of the two sandwiches that we tried at Paseo. Be advised that this sandwich is just called the press, it doesn't mean it's a pressed sandwich. A lot of people have vented about this online. 

I really enjoyed our visit to Paseo, but it would have been hard for them to live up to the hype I had in my head reading about them having the best sandwich in America, and being one of the best restaurants in all of Seattle. These were exceptional sandwiches, and definitely not what I was expecting from Seattle. Caribbean sandwiches 3,000 miles away from the actual Caribbean? It works for sure. Yes, I'd ask for extra garlic aioli next time, which I think would push these sandwiches up even higher in my personal sandwich rankings. I'm glad we could cross Paseo off of my Seattle restaurant list, while also crossing T-Mobile Park off our list of stadiums we have visited. 

Out of five autographed baseballs, (because T-Mobile Park is going to host the 2023 All-Star Game, and I'm sure a lot of the players will be signing plenty of baseballs for the fans that weekend), five being best to zero being worst, Paseo gets 3.5 autographed baseballs. 

For more information about Paseo, head to their website by clicking here: https://www.paseo.com/

Around the World in One Meal at Chaparosa Grill - CLOSED

Chaparosa Grill and Spiritz

30271 Golden Lantern

Laguna Niguel, CA 92677

Looking for something different, and not wanting to stray too far from home, Katie and I headed to Chaparosa Grill in Laguna Niguel. I had been to the old location of Chaparosa Grill a long time ago, and remembered liking it, but not enough to remember what I had eaten. On this Tuesday night, there are about five tables occupied in the restaurant, and the bar is little more crowded.

Chef Tony Corke has created a very unusual menu for our area, one that is Caribbean inspired. He is an English trained chef, who has spent a great deal of time in the islands of the Caribbean, and that seems to be where he draws his inspiration. There are other influences here as well, mainly Italian and Asian as well. Let's see if this mish-mash of a menu works well or not.

Sorry, for the blurriness of the picture, here we have the Strawberry Gorgonzola Salad. This was Katie's salad, served with balsamic dressing. Katie liked her salad, but thought that it needed more dressing on it. We both thought they were generous with the amount of cheese and caramelized walnuts that were on this salad.

My salad was the Chaparosa Dinner Salad. This is your basic dinner salad that you will find anywhere. This really needed more blue cheese dressing on it. After I got more dressing, this salad became better.

For an appetizer we went with the Asian Nachos. These composed of wonton chips, cheese, peanuts, Thai-marinated chicken, and a wasabi cream sauce. The top layer of this was good. As we got down to the bottom, the Thai sauce that was marinating the chicken was way too sweet. Also, some extra cheese would have been good on this. The wasabi cream sauce was not prevalent in this.

Katie has not had good luck with scampi lately, and Chaparosa's Shrimp Scampi is no exception. This bland dish was served over angel hair pasta, with capers in a lemon-white wine sauce. Garlic was nowhere found in this offering. Katie liked it, but felt mislead by the scampi claim of this dish. She would have been satisfied more if they would have called this what it was, shrimp served over angel hair pasta. I personally would have liked this a little better if the sauce was a little thicker.

Lastly, was my entree. I went with one of their Caribbean Specialties, the Bahama Beef. This is sautéed filet mignon, with a green onion and sweet chili sauce, served over rice with roasted peanuts. The flavor of this was exactly as I suspected, but the meat was not so good. It was hard to cut, and as tender as a piece of chuck steak. I should have tried one of their spicier dishes, because after the sweet of the Asian Nachos, the sweet of this dish did not sit well with me.

I really wanted to like Chaparosa Grill. I liked that Chef Tony came around and talked to all the tables. The

staff were all very nice and got the food out in a timely, almost too fast manner. The menu is very diverse, maybe too much so. There is a lot going on here. Maybe we just chose the wrong items to try, but that is the risk you run when operating a restaurant, you only get a first chance to make a first impression.

Out of five passports, (because the menu feels like you are eating around the world), five being best to zero being worst, Chaparosa Grill gets 2 passports.

For more information about Chaparosa Grill, click here: http://www.chaparosagrill.com/index.html

Feeling Irie at Jamaica Gates?

Jamaica Gates

1020 W. Arkansas Blvd.

Arlington, TX 76013

So Katie and I went on vacation to Dallas for five days in April. Our purpose for the trip was to see the sights, go to a hockey and baseball game, and of course, find and sample the best food that big D has to offer. This is part six of seven in our Dallas series. So sit out that line dance, and enjoy this special edition of Eating My Way Through Dallas.

When you think of Texas, you obviously think of Jamaican food right? Okay, maybe not, but after watching Diners Drive-Ins and Dives, this had to be added to mine and Katie's list of restaurants to try. We were going to Arlington to watch a Rangers game, so we made a point of stopping by to see if this could be two places in a row that Guy Fieri steered us in the right direction.

Jamaica Gates is in a large shopping center that has seen better days. It looks like this place used to be a fast food place converted into a sit-down restaurant. Jamaica Gates had about ten people eating there when we arrived on a Friday at about one o'clock. The overzealous/odd waiter really steered us towards the lunch buffet. The buffet was $8.92 and seeing as all the entrees were over $12.92, this seemed like a great deal. Let's get on to the food.

Before we hit the buffet, we ordered the Three Item Portland Sampler. This consisted of the following three items.

The first item is the Sticky Citrus Wings. These were really great. The wings had a decent amount of meat on them, but the reason this was so good was the citrus sauce. Really sweet and had an awesome flavor. I could have eaten about twenty of these.

Next was the Fried Plantain. I must admit that I am not that big of a fan of plantains. These were okay, but Katie liked these a lot more than I did. They were mildly sweet.

Lastly, we had the jerk shrimp. I liked this item also. The jerk sauce was good, and the shrimp were cooked right. I could have eaten a lot more of these also.

So this was my plate from the buffet. The highlights were the Gates Curry Chicken. This really had a distinct flavor that was not too over-powering. The only complaint I had about this was the tiny bones that were left in this dish. I had to be careful when eating this. The Rude Boy Jerk Chicken is on the left of the plate. Very good sauce once again and the chicken was not of the highest quality, (the piece I ate had a lot of fat), but it was really tasty. The two side items were just average. The rice was plain tasting, and the cabbage was all right, but both of these really heated up when I added the product below.

This pepper sauce was very good. It really made the rice and cabbage come alive. I will have to see if this is available in my area.

For dessert, we chose the Pineapple Upside Down Cake. This dish really helped put out the fire after having more than my fair share of the pepper sauce. Nice and sweet, this moist cake was very good.

I liked Jamaica Gates. It was nice having something different, something that you do not have every day. I do not think that their food is top of the line, but the sauces really make this place memorable. I also liked that this place is authentic. You can actually picture this meal being served in Kingston or any other city in Jamaica.

So out of five Doctor Birds, (the national bird of Jamaica, see you learn stuff on food blogs!), five being best to zero being worst, Jamaica Gates gets 3 Doctor Birds.

For more information on Jamaica Gates, click here: http://www.jamaicagates.com/