New restaurant offers the taste of Colombian and Ecuadorian food

RIRIE — An authentic Colombian and Ecuadorian restaurant in Ririe has plates of South American food and delicious desserts that will have you wanting to visit and try the food out for yourself.

Encantos De Mi Tierra is owned by Daniel Escobar and Diana Polo. The two are husband and wife. Escobar is originally from Ecuador, while Polo is from Colombia. The restaurant opened on Jan. 10.

“We decided to come up with the idea of opening up a restaurant because we both like to cook. Why don’t we open a restaurant with your food (Diana) and my food and combine the flavors? And this is the product,” Escobar said.

The restaurant’s name came from Polo and their five-year-old daughter, Mia. Mia loves to watch movies like Encanto, which is based on Colombian history.

“So when it was time to come up with a name for the restaurant, Mia said, ‘Why don’t we just name it ‘Encantos’ like the movie?’ So we added Encantos De Mi Tierra, which is enchantment of my land,” he said.

One dish that Escobar let EastIdahoNews.com try was the carne guisada, which is a beef stew that comes with rice and patacones. The rice comes in a heart shape because Escobar says it means they cook their food with a lot of love.

He explained what patacones are.

“It’s a plantain base. Basically, we open the plantain, we fry it one time, and then we smash it and fry it one more time and that’s the product of it,” he said.

Escobar said he gets the plantains from Ecuador and Colombia.

Another popular dish is the patacón relleno.

“It’s a whole deep-fried plantain on the bottom and then a layer of lettuce and then pico de gallo and your choice of beef or chicken and then melted cheese on top with avocado,” he said.

It came with a green sauce on the side called wasakaka, which is a very traditional sauce in South America.

Then there are four small empanadas on a plate.

“So that is very, very Colombian. We have different flavors. Shredded chicken, shredded beef, ground beef, and cheese,” he said about the empanadas.

A popular drink called maracuya makes anyone want to come back for more. It’s sweet and delicious to the taste.

“In English, it’s called passion fruit. We get the pulp all the way from South America. This is really good. It’s very popular. People who have tried it, can’t stop drinking it. They ask for more and more every time they come here,” he said.

As for the desserts, there are two EastIdahoNews.com tried. One is called the cocada and comes chilled.

“We shredded the coconut and we deep fried it with honey and brown sugar and then we put that to cool. It is very tasty and amazing,” Escobar said.

Then, there’s the arroz con leche.

“It’s like a rice pudding but a South American version. It has raisins (and) it has cinnamon powder. We cook the rice with cinnamon and other spices and so it tastes really good. On top, it has condensed milk so it gives it a rich flavor so all those flavors combined after a good meal, with a dessert, (is) amazing,” he said.

Encantos De Mi Tierra is located at 235 Main Street in Ririe. Click here to “like” the Facebook page.