MONROE - A Taste of Veracruz, a newly-opened restaurant on 11th Street in downtown Monroe, has all the trimmings of a traditional Mexican family restaurant and one well-received oddity: Asian cuisine.
Asian dishes fill three pages of the menu, which features Mexican and American fare.
"No more splitting the family up on preferences," said owner Santos Tinoco.
Asian dishes are doing well, making up about 40 percent of the orders, since the restaurant opened Dec. 17, Tinoco said.
With two of his three chefs trained in Asian cooking, Tinoco decided to take advantage of their talents and added the Asian menu.
But Tinoco still strives to serve "authentic Mexican, 'old-school' cooking," which means "no preservatives, no canned foods, all fresh vegetables," he said. Even the tortillas served here are made fresh and shaped by hand.
"It's always been on my mind since I got here, to put in a restaurant," he said.
Overseeing three chefs and four waitresses (and three growing sons), Tinoco also cuts the meat for the restaurant in the grocery store, or market, next door, which he and his wife, Maribel, also run.
Since he moved his family to Monroe 10 years ago, Tinoco has been planning and saving to open a restaurant, but now he doesn't know how he feels about that accomplishment.
"I don't have time to think about it," he laughed.
A Taste of Veracruz is housed in the same space across the street from the Monroe Post Office that has been home to several restaurants through the years . Maribel put her talents to work decorating the new restaurant in fuchsia and green. The walls, with a touch of Swiss woodwork, are graced with sombreros, serapes and other objects of art.
Tinoco is working to obtain a mariachi band for some regular entertainment, but in between those events, Mexican music videos play on large screens mounted overhead.
A Taste of Veracruz Restaurant, 1713 11th St., is open daily 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Asian cuisine is served daily except Mondays. Veracruz Market is open daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Asian dishes fill three pages of the menu, which features Mexican and American fare.
"No more splitting the family up on preferences," said owner Santos Tinoco.
Asian dishes are doing well, making up about 40 percent of the orders, since the restaurant opened Dec. 17, Tinoco said.
With two of his three chefs trained in Asian cooking, Tinoco decided to take advantage of their talents and added the Asian menu.
But Tinoco still strives to serve "authentic Mexican, 'old-school' cooking," which means "no preservatives, no canned foods, all fresh vegetables," he said. Even the tortillas served here are made fresh and shaped by hand.
"It's always been on my mind since I got here, to put in a restaurant," he said.
Overseeing three chefs and four waitresses (and three growing sons), Tinoco also cuts the meat for the restaurant in the grocery store, or market, next door, which he and his wife, Maribel, also run.
Since he moved his family to Monroe 10 years ago, Tinoco has been planning and saving to open a restaurant, but now he doesn't know how he feels about that accomplishment.
"I don't have time to think about it," he laughed.
A Taste of Veracruz is housed in the same space across the street from the Monroe Post Office that has been home to several restaurants through the years . Maribel put her talents to work decorating the new restaurant in fuchsia and green. The walls, with a touch of Swiss woodwork, are graced with sombreros, serapes and other objects of art.
Tinoco is working to obtain a mariachi band for some regular entertainment, but in between those events, Mexican music videos play on large screens mounted overhead.
A Taste of Veracruz Restaurant, 1713 11th St., is open daily 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Asian cuisine is served daily except Mondays. Veracruz Market is open daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.