Cheap Eats - Mi Amor
Mi Pilon serves jam-up Criollo specialties
According to Details, there’s an epidemic of calling in sick to work here in America. We’re putting on our best sniffly voices for down-low free time in record numbers. If anyone needs another reason to duck professional responsibility, I’ve got one: Mi Pilón. If you work any farther south than the northernmost part of Buckhead, your chances of maneuvering through traffic to reach this outstanding restaurant for dinner before its 8 p.m. closing time are next to nil. But once you’ve made the journey to Norcross and had a nip at Mi Pilón’s pork-glorifying, carb-loaded Dominican dishes, you might just start practicing the fake cough for the $4.99 lunch specials.
Oh, lardy: With walls painted a Pepto pink you rarely see in interiors outside of the Caribbean and Gulf Coast, Mi Pilón is cheery and comfortable. The menu of Criollo specialties — most of which hail from the Dominican Republic, with a few Cuban or Puerto Rican plates — is impossible to resist. Empanadas ($1.25) are unashamedly lardy pastries that hold a deep pocket of shredded braised pork saucy with tomatoes and onions. Fried pork chops ($8.95) pan-fried a walnut brown sport a light flour coat that hides a juicy interior of rare succulence. Served with your choice of rice (plain white or with red beans), this heaping dinner plate is large as Sunday dinner.
Mofongo can’t be wrongo: I would revisit Mi Pilón just to sample all the versions of mofongo (green plantains that are flavored, fried and mashed). A heavy hand of garlic in the mofongo tastes floral and fruity without any bite. The pairing with fried pork ($8.95) is exquisite poetry to a lover of all things porcine. With a texture thicker and far starchier than the densest mashed potatoes you’ve ever had, the nutty, sweet mofongo seems made to be savored with the chewy, crusty chunks of pork that are deep-fried nearly as dark as a cup of coffee. On the second visit, a mountain of shredded pork ($8.95) is my reward for skipping out of work early. So soft you could practically wean a baby on it, the threads of pork are thick with braising juices. The red bean-studded rice served alongside is the ideal vehicle for the pork’s savory essence.
Aaaaaahjillo: Bobbing in a cup of melted butter, the camarones ajillo (shrimp in garlic butter, $11.95) kick with a powerful garlic flavor. Rosy and delicately curled, the shrimp are also presented in this decadently rich manner with the mofongo ($11.95). The combination of fried plantains and garlicky shrimp may be too much for the less stout. White rice, however, tempers the dish for culinary wedded bliss. Some restaurant reviewers categorize eateries as worth the drive. Mi Pilón deserves a classification of its own: worth the trek and worth as many sick days as you can pull off.