Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’
Eliella
RUMORS STARTED FLOATING
MATT LILE, THE OWNER OF LULAV RESTAURANT, on his way
Monday to pick up wine barrels in Texas for use in the restaurant’s lounge, described for the Times the new name, menu and look that Lulav will assume Feb. 6: It will be the Italian Kitchen at Lulav, featuring a menu of both Southern and Northern Italian dishes at price points a bit lower than Lulav’s Mediterranean menu. The wine barrels are empty — they’ll be used as tables with butcher board blocks as tops — but the wine cellar will be full, featuring up to 25 Italian wines, Lile said. Diners will choose their wines at a large round wine table, which will layer the restaurant’s offerings in three tiers: $15, $25 and $35 wines. That way, Lile said, customers can inspect the labels before ordering. Lulav has already remodeled its kitchen and dining room and has commissioned three 3-by-8-foot paintings by artists at the Art Loft. Edison Bulbs — long slender bulbs with glowing filaments — will add to the rustic look of the lounge. Appetizers and salads will run from $6 to $8 and entrees, which will include handmade pastas and “a fantastic lobster claw,” Lile said, CONTINUED ON PAGE 44 42
JANUARY 16, 2013
ARKANSAS TIMES
7700 Baseline Road Suite 800 539-5355 QUICK BITE The restaurant is under new management. Ignacio Alvarez, owner of the La Hacienda chain, recently took control in a deal that could allow him to purchase the restaurant after a trial period. Although the menu is completely in Spanish, the friendly staff at Eliella is extremely patient with nonSpanish speakers, so don’t be afraid to ask questions. HOURS 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. OTHER INFO All major CC. Beer.
BRIAN CHILSON
in last week on our Eat Arkansas blog, but we can now confirm: Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken, a restaurant GQ once called one of the top five in the country, is opening an outlet in Little Rock. Wendy McCrory, franchise owner of the downtown Memphis location, has confirmed the plan to Eat Arkansas’s Michael Roberts. She said she wasn’t ready to confirm the location, though all signs point to space occupied by Redbone’s Downtown in the River Market until it abruptly closed on Sunday. Gus’s Fried Chicken of Little Rock, LLC was incorporated in September of last year. Officers include DGLR, an LLC that lists Daniel Bryant, the property owner of the building that currently houses Redbone’s, as its only officer, and M&S Holdings of Arkansas, an LLC that includes Carter Malloy, a research analyst at Stephens, Inc. and Jennifer Malloy. Bryant couldn’t be reached, and Malloy said he wasn’t ready to confirm any details other than his involvement in trying to bring a Gus’s to Little Rock. We’ll update this story on our food blog, Eat Arkansas, as more information becomes available.
A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING: Eliella offers several meat choices for its tacos.
Cheap, authentic, good Eliella offers wide range of Mexican street food in Southwest Little Rock.
L
ike pizza and burgers before them, tacos have become trendy, the latest example of a low-end food item gone fancy. And while we’re not against that sort of thing, it remains somewhat puzzling since the humble taco is pretty perfect in its most authentic form: protein, onions, and cilantro wrapped in a grilled corn tortilla and finished with a squeeze of lime. Lucky for us, Southwest Little Rock has become something of a taco wonderland, with multiple trucks, taquerias and tiendas serving up a variety of cheap, excellent tacos. One of the newest entrants into the territory is Eliella, a small but well-stocked taqueria on Baseline that by turns pleased and perplexed us with its food. Ordering tacos at Eliella is a cinch
— everything is a la carte and the list of meats is extensive. Familiar items like carne asada, pork, and chicken share space with more exotic items like lengua (beef tongue), cabeza (steamed beef head), and tripa (bits of beef intestine). At $1.50-$1.75 each, we decided to order up several different versions, and soon enough had a massive platter of tacos before us. A quick trip to the condiment bar netted us fresh chopped cilantro, diced onions, limes and several types of salsa. This condiment bar is a fantastic and unique feature to Eliella, made only better by the freshness of the ingredients and the excellent flavor of the salsas. Having doctored up our tacos just the way we like them, we began to feast. First up was a chicken taco, which
turned out to be the only taco that disappointed us with its dry meat and lack of spice. That disappointment was quickly squashed by our next taco, a tasty creation filled with the thinsliced beef brisket known as suadero. This beef was tender and slightly chewy, with a rich beef flavor that was accentuated by its time spent on the grill. From there, we moved on to the carne asada and were once again treated to well-cooked, flavorful, redmeat artistry. Coming through the dining room to our table, we peeked a bit into the Eliella kitchen and saw a massive skewer of pork turning slowly, gyro-style, on a vertical spit, and we knew we had to sample it. The skewer turned out to be the basis for the tacos al pastor, and this filling was a big hit all around our table. Grilled onions and citrus flavor colored the meat with a lightness that was deepened by spice and slow-cooking. If Eliella served nothing but these pork tacos, it could still stand alone as a great taqueria. We couldn’t leave the place without sampling some of the more out-of-theordinary meats, ordering one taco de lengua and one filled with tripa. The tongue was as good as any we’ve tried, tender and chewy with just the slightest flavor of minerals. The tripa was a revelation, firm bits of small intestine that were fried to a delightful crunch outside with a chewy, flavorful center. Several at our table were squeamish about trying this filling, but all agreed it was better than expected with at least one of our party calling it the best taco