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to bring the flavors and colors his mother
used to bring to life in her kitchen to hungry
mouths here in Queens.
With Las Catrinas, the stars finally lined
up for both aspiring restaurateurs to take
the leap, and for Polo to bring his vision to
Broadway, just one block up from the train.
Polo aims to bring the spirit of tapas-style
dining to Las Catrinas — come with hungry
friends, because the small plates here are
best when shared en masse.
The team here — including restaurant
manager Jennifer Szudlowski and fellow
restaurateurs Dino Philippou and Taso
Pavlou — wants to inject the shop with the
back-to-the-roots vibe of Tulum street food.
Between the tacos, excellent cocktail menu,
and multitude of calaveras (skulls are everywhere
— the oven from the previous pizza
shop in this space is still here, painted like a
great grinning Dia de los Muertes skull), the
truck-style influence is more than obvious.
But enough about the ambience — let’s
dig in.
Our first dish, in keeping with the tapas
vibe, was a damn fine ceviche with a delightfully
citrusy tartness countered by a
smooth, creamy avocado. The white fish,
delivered fresh every other day, was light,
fresh, and left plenty of room for the next
course. Every single ounce on the plate was
done entirely in house, and while they admit
it makes it harder to do, the result on
the plate refused to be ignored.
A twist on classic chicharrones was next.
Whereas a traditional chicharron would
deep fry the pork, Las Catrinas opts to deep
fry a thin bed of dough and top it with pickled
pork skin (“cueritos”), cabbage, avocado,
queso cotija and sour cream with a dash
of hot sauce. The dough was quite crispy,
but a bit lighter than the fried dough fare
you might find at a street fair, and the pork
was soft and tender. The hot sauce rounded
it out with a lovely kick.
Our next dish, a towering beef milanesa
cemita with red onion, avocado, homemade
sweet chipotle, quesillo and papalo,
was a real treat for a sandwich lover like me.
Make no mistake, this is no “work lunch”
kind of sandwich, unless you get paid to
nap immediately after. This sandwich could
easily feed three pro wrestlers. But the
beef, breaded and smashed thin (much like
a schnitzel, in retrospect), was deliciously
smoky, and the chipotle hinted at a nice
sweetness to bring it home. If it could be