Though I will be an east coast snob until the day I die, I do look back fondly on the eight years I spent in Utah. On my top five list of things I miss about the Beehive State is Cafe Rio‘s pork barbacoa. I know it’s a major cliche, but I still salivate at the thought of a pork salad. And that creamy tomatillo dressing — I could drink that stuff for every meal and never get tired of it. So you can imagine my delight when I learned that Cafe Rio recently opened a couple of restaurants in Virginia! The Manassas location is only 30 minutes from my parents’ house, so Tim and I lunched there while we were in town earlier this week.
My salad was even better than I remembered, and Tim’s pork burrito (enchilada style for $0.95 — how’s that for a dollar deal?) was as good as ever. Now I’ll just wait patiently until Cafe Rio makes its way up to Boston.
Tagged: Cafe Rio, enchilada-style burrito, Mexican, pork barbacoa, salad, Utah
Oh wow. I can never say no to Mexican food but somehow I have never been to Cafe Rio, even after living in Idaho and Utah for several years. Must remedy. And while it makes its way up to Boston I will be on the lookout for a copycat recipe for this salad, it looks so good!
Sarah has the recipe for the pork and made the pork salads for guests last week. Maybe we can get her to make it while we are all in boston
I also have a whole arsenal of Cafe Rio-style recipes. But no matter how many copycats I’ve made or tasted from other people, nothing can quite rival the real deal!