The place: El Meson, West Carrollton. Owned by the Castro family, the restaurant began in 1978 as a small pizza parlor and over time transformed into one of Dayton's most beloved restaurants, with a seating capacity of 450. El Meson specializes in Hispanic cuisine – Spanish, Caribbean, Central and South American, even Filipino – anywhere the Spanish culture has taken root. El Meson also offers catering and has a conference center for corporate meetings.
Restaurant Week Menu ($25.13 per person, with $1 donated to charity):
First Course: Your choice of Sopa Gazpacho with tomatoes, cucumbers and green peppers or Ensalada de Casa House Salad with mixed greens, cucumber, tomato, cilantro and onion with a tropical mango vinaigrette.
Second Course: Your choice of Pollo Saltado (chicken) with tomatoes, onions and yellow peppers, served on a bed of steak fries or Cuban Pork Tenderloin with onions and garlic in a Caribbean citrus sauce, served with rice and Cuban black beans or Cazuela de Mariscos Colombian (stew) with shrimp, fillet of fish, scallops and calamari in a tomato, onion and garlic stew, served over rice and Cuban black beans.
Third Course: Mango Cheese Cake
What we thought:
We invited our favorite morning show host, Nancy Wilson from K99.1 FM to join us. That was good thing because El Meson has three special meals for Restaurant Week on the menu, and with a third Diva, it allowed us to try all three offerings.
We started with a round of adult beverages. Sandy tried the El Meson Cosmo, which comes in a traditional glass, garnished with a quartered lime. It’s a sweet, wonderful start to a lovely meal. Connie had the Dragonberry Mojito with mint, strawberry and lime. Nancy ordered Sangria. All three are perfect summery drinks.
Our delightful server, Julie, brought us a small basket with chunks of white bread and a small plate of salsa to dip the bread. It’s a very different experience, eating salsa with bread, because the salsa is soaked up in the bread, so you get much more flavor from the juice than you do with chips.
One thing that came out in our table discussion was the fact that the salad was the perfect size. The small bowl holds just enough salad so you save room to enjoy your entree. Nancy was really grooving on the mango vinaigrette that came with the salad. Connie, a lover of all things cucumber and tomato, said, “The salad is so fresh. The vegetables taste like they were just picked!” Turns out, that’s the case. The Castros have a 10-acre farm on which they grow all the vegetables they serve. Herman loves to tend the farm and handpicks the vegetables every day.
The Sopa Gazpacho is a tomato-based, chilled soup, topped with chopped cucumbers and green peppers. The flavor was magnificent. But it doesn’t go with a Margarita. Try a Cosmo instead. Just sayin’.
Sandy started the entree portion of the night with The Peruvian chicken, which she said was “amazing.” It was so delicious that when Nancy offered a taste from her own plate of pork tenderloin, Sandy declined, saying “Have you ever had a meal that is so good that you don’t want to spoil the flavor by trying another’s meal? That’s how good this is.”
El Meson dishes up a generous amount of chicken with mouth-watering onions in a light sauce. A thin layer of steak fries offers surprising flavors.
Nancy was lovin’ her pork tenderloin, which was served with sauted onions. “I was kinda scared of the onions at first, but they’re really sweet and compliment the pork.”
Connie said little about the fish stew because she was busy eating it, but when Sandy and Nancy asked her if she liked it, Connie nodded her head.
Then there was the mango cheesecake: “It’s Nirvana!” Nancy said. Sandy agreed: “Heaven has come down and landed on my palate.” “It’s the definition of yumminess,” Connie added.
During our laugh-filled evening in the beautiful covered patio, owner Bill Castro told us about an exciting new adventure his father, Herman, is working on to celebrate El Meson’s 35th anniversary this fall. They’ve created the El Meson X-Press, a newly-remodeled food truck that will debut this Friday at the Food Truck Rally from 5 to 9 p.m. on the corner of 5th and Jefferson streets in downtown Dayton. We got a special, behind-the-scenes look just hours after the Castros received the go-ahead from the food inspectors.
The brightly-painted former transit bus honors the family’s Colombian heritage. And the on-board menu will bring much of the amazing flavors of El Meson to the masses.
As for the physical restaurant, El Meson survived the seemingly never-ending construction that finally made access to West Carrollton a breeze. If you haven’t been there for a while, try it. The food, atmosphere and staff are wonderful.
Restaurant Week is a great time to discover new dining experiences at affordable prices. Participating restaurants set their three-course meals for $20.13, $25.13 or $30.13 per person. About Restaurant Week, Bill Castro said: “You want to wow them enough to come back.” Bill, we were wowed! Gracias!
The info: El Meson, 903 E. Dixie Drive, West Carrollton; (937) 859-8229; www.elmeson.net.
Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m.- 2 p.m. Dinner, Monday through Thursday, 4:30-9 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 4:30-10 p.m. Closed Sundays. Reservations suggested.
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