Expect the unexpected
Mexican restaurants coming to Lehigh Valley with dishes that may surprise diners
When you think “Mexican food,” you probably think of tacos, enchiladas, burritos and the like.
But two upcoming Mexican restaurants are challenging popular conceptions of Mexican food with menus that pull from opposite coasts of Mexico.
One is Sazon Veracruzano, which will hold its grand opening at 11:30 a.m. March 30 at 456 S. Main St. in Bangor. As Celeste Gonzalez, daughter of owners Avigail Landa and Carlos Gonzalez, says, Sazon Veracruzano was a way to solve a family problem.
“We used to live in [New] Jersey and would come to Bangor to visit family and friends,” she said. “But any time we wanted to eat or order takeout, we’d have to get pizza and burgers.”
With Sazon Veracruzano, Celeste says the family hopes to bring a taste of their family’s heritage — rooted in the Mexican state of Veracruz, which lies on the Atlantic coast of Mexico — to Bangor.
The menu is hearty, with classic Mexican dishes given a Veracruzano flair. Pollo frito (marinated and seasoned fried chicken) and pernil horneado (slow-roasted pork shoulder) will cater to big appetites, and fresh homemade frijoles (beans) can be scooped up with equally fresh homemade tortillas. Celeste said the restaurant would also offer seafood specials, a callback to the region’s rich history in cooking fish. And family favorites, like chuleta encebollada (pork chops with onions and peppers) and bisteces a la Mexicana (a steak stew braised with onions, tomatoes and jalapenos) will be on the menu.
The restaurant is a labor of love and a family affair: Celeste plans to waitress after school (she’s a student at Bangor Area High School), while her parents cook and run their third business and offer a taste of their home to the public.
“Everything is fresh and authentic,” Celeste said. “It’s supposed to taste like Veracruz.”
Another Mexican restaurant is offering coastal Mexican cuisine that challenges stereotypes. La Maya Mexican Comfort will be opening in May at 650 Main St. in Hellertown.
The restaurant, co-owned by Rogelio Romero and CJ Moyer, wants to upend any notion you might have of Mexican food.
“We’re making upscale, comfort food,” Moyer, a Bethlehem native, said. “It’s going to be comfort food that has a lot of essential and core Mexican ingredients from the Pacific coast.”
Moyer offered a sneak peek of the menu to illustrate how the restaurant plans to twist classics. Guacamole Maya will take the guac you know as a base for green apple, Birchrun Hills Farm blue cheese, smoked almonds, pickled red onions and mint. Chamorro carnitas will feature 4-hour braised pork shank with pickled jalapenos and salsa verde. And the restaurant will even have a playful take on chicken and waffles that will take poblano waffles and a crispy boneless chicken thigh, then top it all off with a habanero ranch sauce, watercress and pico de gallo.
With its Pacific roots, the menu also includes a variety of seafood, such as ostras honrneadas (a half dozen oysters with smoked pork belly, tortilla crumbs, salmon and Fresno pepper jam), callos tostada (sea scallops, crispy shallots, yuzu avocado mayonnaise and salsa macha) and pescado a la talla (a butterflied, grilled branzino with verde cruda salsa topped with red cabbage slaw, red salsa and Fresno peppers).
The restaurant will start with dinner only when it opens, but Moyer said he hopes to expand hours as the restaurant grows.
Not open for dinner service effective April 1 will be the Downtown Allentown Market. This week, the dining hall sent shockwaves into the Allentown foodie community when it announced that it will reduce its hours to 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.
It’s a drastic departure from the market’s original purpose to draw nightlife and the dinnertime crowd with drinks and sit-down food.
Megan Colon, business development manager at City Center Investment Corp., which operates the market, said the pandemic and its aftermath made that goal difficult to reach.
Instead, Colon said, “We’re focused on finding operators whose menu is appropriate and have quick-serve options.” The new hours are a tacit acknowledgement that the market’s core demographic is downtown office workers looking to grab lunch. Two vendors with liquor on their menus — Casa Criolla (a Latin eatery that just opened in August) and Bar 1838 — will shut down at the end of this month.
Vendors I spoke to confirmed that lunch was indeed the moneymaker time slot for their business. But some were worried that the new, shorter hours would make it more difficult to sustain their businesses, such as Italian eatery Pasta & Pies, which plans to introduce breakfast pizzas and strombolis to usher in more cash flow. “I get the decision was made to benefit both customers and vendors, but it’s something I wasn’t ready for,” owner Alex Vasquez said. “All I can do is roll with the flow.”
Others, such as Chez’s Delicatessen, which serves sandwiches, say the new hours work in their favor. “We love the new hours as we are a lunch spot and dinner hours were not too kind to us,” owner Isaac Csezmadia said. He’s already put breakfast sandwiches like a classic bacon, egg and cheese into rotation, and he plans to add coffee and hash browns.
Will the more daytime friendly market work? I know I’m not the only one curious to see.
Briefly
Popular West End of Allentown sports bar Stooges is closing to make way for the Irish-Scottish themed Bagpiper’s Pub coming to the space at 2101 Liberty St. The new owners are looking to open in mid-August — just in time for the Allentown Fair.
If my inbox is any indication, Lehigh Valley residents are fans of Jersey Mike’s. On Wednesday, the area gained its eighth location at 1862 Leithsville Road in Lower Saucon Township. A ninth location will open this fall at Westgate Mall.
And for art enthusiasts, Bethlehem House Gallery at 459 Main St. in Bethlehem announced it will move locations come June, relocating to a yet-unnamed “industrial” space. The gallery, a fixture on the streets of downtown Bethlehem, will continue to host shows until its move.