Don Panza Argentinian restaurant is quaint and that’s about it
This past weekend the BF and I headed over to Don Panza on the recommendation of a friend of his. A high recommendation might I add. So, we busted out the GoogleMaps, found it located on Clarendon in Oak Cliff between Westmoreland and Hampton and made our way out in my trusty Ford Escape.
Now, when BF first mentioned Argentinian, I was a bit excited but also trepidatious over the thought of the impact on my wallet. Hell, holidays ain’t cheap! But my experience with Argie food was relatively nil so I was up for it. BF mentioned pizzas and empanadas. I crinkled my nose at the combination but then I’m always excited about pizza so I figured how bad could it be? I’m highly tolerant to pizza. Even those $.99 cheapie frozen ones can be good with some tweaking. But as we drove closer, I began to get a tad nervous.
We were mostly in a neighborhood area and there it was with a big patio, the name on the marquee and one car. On a Friday night. Hmmm. On top of that, it just looked, umm, well, not very interesting. We walked into a SMALL dining room with flourescent lights and not a lot of ambience save for an overly loud television. The lady/owner seemed a bit thrown off by sudden business but was very nice and walked us over a couple of steps to our table.
The menu was much more interesting despite its plain design. Breaded steaks, a multitude of pizzas (with fried eggs!), several empanada options and this and that. We both decided on the latter sampling different flavors and fillings. I ordered a blue cheese and ham, sweet corn paste and regular ole beef empies while BF ordered the same first two, a shrimp and a spinach panada. I was slightly excited by the corn paste because I imagined a maza type filling but yellower and sweeter. Sweet corn meal basically. When I asked the owner about it she described it as corn whipped with cream. “Oh, like elotes?” I asked. Glazed eyes appeared and then she said, “Well we whip the corn with the cream into the empanada.” OK, so it was what I thought it was going to be. It wasn’t. It was elotes in an empanada. Sigh.
The beef didn’t make much of an impression either. Non seasoned or salted, the beef just seemed cooked and then filled into the empy. However, the blue cheese and ham was a sublime bite. The cheese was perfectly gooey and it’s tartness was ideal against the slight sweetness of the ham and the pastry. The empies themselves were perfectly done and practically pristine in appearance. BF’s spinach empy was also a nice bite and well cooked. I don’t like cooked spinach but this had just the right amount to not overpower everything else.
However, not being too impressed by these bites, we decided against pizza. And to me, some of the toppings weren’t all that enticing plus, BF made the point that there were way too many options and for a place like that, I couldn’t feel that I would trust what would come out. Something about their small kitchen area didn’t invite confidence from me that culinary masterpieces were being made back there. We did opt for dessert. He a bread pudding and me horchata.
The pudding was harder than I like and nowhere NEAR the perfection that Angelo’s has made it to be. It had a nice flavor but meh. My rice milk wasn’t overly sweet either. I’m used to Cuquita’s divinely sweetened drink that doesn’t feel too rich but enough to have as a dessert. Here, I had to sweeten it about four times with sugar. After that, it wasn’t so bad.
I can admit I wasn’t as adventurous with their menu but empies and pizza were on my mind. The rest of the menu looked like it could be delicious and I’ve only heard good things about their pizza. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t feeling it from what I had eaten. And ambience is so important to me. Flourescent lights do not make for a great date night destination.
Don Panza wants to move into better digs in the area meaning Bishop Arts. Probably a good idea as it would probably give them busier Friday nights. Other than the rowdy group of yuppies that came in toward our finish, not much else was going on. Bishop Arts would be a better look for them. But they might need to work on some better tastes.
