La Carreta: French Fries In Peru

It's a good thing I married someone from Idaho. Someone who can appreciate Heaven's gift to culinary love, that being the onion.
NO.
Really, the potato.
I've been known to try a plate of French fries at just about any joint I walk into--that includes the Italian joints. Usually I don't like my French fries smothered in marinara and mozzarella, thus I've learned to leave the "French fry" up to other cultures. (The Greeks, next door, aren't so bad!)
And I know that this is a restaurant review blog but may I just interject here to say I've been to the birth place of the French fry--Belgium--and I've paid my tributes to their contribution to the world. It was a sacred experience.
Now, did you know that Peru does a mean fry plate? Well, they do at La Carreta the teeny, tiny restaurant at the top of Orem's glorious state street. Plates start with a layer of fries (are they French fries if they are in Peru? Such questions keep me up at night!) The fries are followed by a nice light white rice, topped by, this is the good part, whatever you choose. I love their sauteed vegetables, the spouse likes the chicken, I've seen some go for shell fish. Last of all, this concoction is drizzled on by some sort of sauce which I can only guess is part soy sauce, part garlic, part Amazon River Ancient Peruvian Secret.
Before you get to all that though, there is some chips and salsa to indulge. It's salsa that starts off like a nice boy scout and ends up kickin' like a high school drop-out. Or, in other words, a spicy surprise.
La Carreta will also tempt you with some sweet desserts like the fried cheesecake and the tres leches. Tres good. All of them.
Most importantly though, I've been to La Carreta with my one brother who lived in Peru for a time. It's good to know if things are authentic, you know? Because if it were me, I'd be assuming that they would be dishing up monkey toenails and long slimy slugs rolled in flour, broiled in fish sauce and sauteed to perfection. It's true, I've never been to South America before. But I have heard that they will eat just about anything there! Like chicken's hearts and pig tendons...
The brother was amazed. He just sat there shaking his head and remembering his days along the Amazon sweeping the dirt floor in his one-room hut.
I'm not sure if those were good times for him, but good times await La Carreta costumers--to be sure.

***Don't forget to try the Inca Cola, an import, from the hills of some ruins, somewhere.
***Plates start around $8

Posted by Cjane

The Garden House

I really didn't eat out that often when I started this, And I actually have less money than I used to, to spend on such things. Still in the last little while I have found myself at many very enjoyable restaurants. This Blog is about one such Restaurant known as the Garden House.

One of my friends took me their for lunch the other day.
I thought it was my first experience with the Garden house, but on further reflection, I realized that I have had at least some of their food on many occasions.

First, the Chef has catered for functions that I have been to or somehow received food from.
Second, The Garden House is very popular, thus locals like to use them quite a bit. In fact I have been to multiple Institute (church) functions where they had soup. What I didn't know at the time was that it came from Garden House, but the soup is famous, at least around here.
Finally, I had an Institute class, from a man who always buys Garden House Soup for everyone on the last day of the class.
(and that was when I realized that the same person was making the soups)

This review will be slightly limit in it's scope, because I haven't really had the whole experience, but I welcome your comments, and amendments. ( oh yes and this will be the first review to officially get a ranking. Ratings will be both cumulative, and individual and they will be in spoons (the first post of this blog will be updated with all rating information))

What I've heard: The Garden House is good, The Soups, and Desserts are why you go, but everything else is good.

What I've had: Mostly soup.

• Chicken Noodle (nothing like campbells)
  
• Cheese (with Potatoes or Broccoli, I don't remember)
  
• Vegetable Turkey
  
• Potato and or Cheese
• Something Corn (spicy)
• Bread
• Cream of Asparagus
  
• French Onion
• A Turkey Sandwich on Dark Wheat

Like I said, The first time I actually ate there, was with a friend. I imagine he goes there often. The waiters remembered him, and vice-versa. There were very nice, and found us a table in a front room. The Garden House is what it says, a house. Or at least it probably was at one time. Since then it has changed hands a couple times and usually has one of the more upscale restaurants in town on that location. The Garden House is no exception. Because I had heard about the soup, I decided to get the soup and salad combo, but I had plenty of other options.

While waiting for our food they brought us a warm fresh loaf of sourdough bread. I really like a good bread, and this was practically perfect (except that it was sourdough, don't get me wrong, I still really liked it, I'm just not a huge sourdough man). Like I said the bread came out warm, and there's nothing like a good warm loaf of bread. The crust was nice and firm, you can hear it crunch, but it won't break your jaw. The center of the bread is amazing: it's thick and dense and moist, but not doughy. Just thinking about it is a very pleasant experience. Top it off with real butter, and you can't go wrong (which by-the-way, is how it's served).

If you want to try the soup just ask, they will bring you a small but sufficient taste. I tried the Cream of Asparagus, and If you like Asparagus, you would probably love it. It's creamy, and rich, and has a big asparagus flavor. I also tried the French Onion. Since my feelings about Asparagus are similar to my feelings about sourdough, I decided to get that with the Turkey Sandwich on Dark Wheat.

The Sample of the French Onion Soup can't really give you the full experience. In case you don't know, French Onion Soup is often served with a slice of bread with cheese on it, floating in the soup. Still the Sample was enough to let me know that I liked the flavor. The soup was very good, but they make other soups that I like even more! I have heard that there are thirty different soups that they make. Usually two or three are being served, so you always have a choice.

The Sandwich was good, but nothing to write home about. The tomato was out of season, so that might have effected my impression. Still the sandwich was good, and I would probably order it again. The bread was really interesting. It was dark, and beautiful, but the flavor, wasn't overpowering. The ingredients were good, and flavors went well together. The waiter was good about filling our water, though toward the end, the service did go down just enough to notice it. The restaurant experience on the whole was very good.

Now for the Soups

Chicken Noodle
I had this one at an institute function. I wasn't blown away by it, but it's a good hearty soup. It's
cooked with thick homemade noodles, and the flavor is good. I think I ate a few bowls of it, but still this is not my favorite soup from the Garden House.

Cheese ( I don't remember what kind of soup this was)
I do remember that it was served the same night as the chicken noodle, and I like the Cheese better. Like I said, I don't remember if this particular soup had potatoes or broccoli, but I do remember liking it. Actually I liked it a lot. I really love a good creamy soup, and The Garden house makes excellent cream soups.

The Vegetable Turkey Soup reminded me of the Chicken noodle soup, but the flavor was a little richer. It was packed with chunks of vegetables, noodles, and of course, turkey. This soup also seemed to have a lot of herbs in it. It's not overly spicy, but there is definately a lot of good flavor. Many people debated about whether or not it was actually turkey. The meat was dark, like beef, but tender like turkey. The flavor was somewhere inbetween. The meat was good, and as a whole I would definately recommend this soup.

Roasted Corn (something, southwest)
I tried to find the real name on their website, but I couldn't find their website.
This is by far my favorite soup from The Garden House, so far. This one is a little spicy. It is served with shredded blue corn chips, and even though it was at a serve-yourself function, the presentation was quite impressive. As I mentioned this is a southwest soup, like you would imagine from the likes of Bobby Flay. It had a great flavor, with diced chilis, corn, and other complimentary ingredients. I would definately eat any of their soups again, but this one was a clear winner in my book.

As a general rule soups are served on consistent days. I don't know if The Garden House follows this cannon, or not. If so, Friday is usually the day when you would get Clam Chowder.
I had the Roasted Corn on a Tuesday, but with Thirty soups, they may be on a two week rotation (or they might follow a different method altogether).

The Garden House soups lived up to their reputation.
I give the Garden House 7 Bronze spoons, out of 8.

The garden house is open daily for lunch, and dinner.


Garden House

164 S 100 W

Cedar City

(435) 586-6110