WWNO skyline header graphic
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Local Newscast
Hear the latest from the WWNO/WRKF Newsroom.

Support local, independent journalism on WWNO with your Member Fest gift now! Click the donate button or Call 844-790-1094.

Where Y’Eat: A Honduran food hub is growing in Mid-City

Honduran tacos from Las Delicias de Honduras in New Orleans.
Ian McNulty
Honduran tacos from Las Delicias de Honduras in New Orleans.

You have to dig a bit for the fried chicken in one specialty dish at Tia Maria’s Kitchen, a restaurant on Tulane Avenue. But there’s no doubt the chicken is the crispy-crusted, juicy center of this dish, called pollos con tajadas, exuberantly finished with curling, crunchy fried plantain, finely shredded cabbage and creamy sauce.

A few doors up Tulane Avenue from Tia Maria’s, there’s the restaurant Los Catrachos, where mixed grill platters are generously heaped with meats and interspersed with brilliantly red pickled onions.

Then, four blocks away at Las Delicias de Honduras, the menu is anchored by seafood, like shrimp and conch that pulse with oily garlic.

Each of these three restaurants, all clustered in Mid-City, serve Honduran cuisine, and together they give a fresh view on its growing influence on the New Orleans food scene.

Kenner has long been the nexus of local Latin American life, and it is thick with Honduran restaurants in particular. More recently, Mid-City is registering some of the same energy.

I’ve been visiting the Honduran restaurants a lot, first for the staples, then for deeper dives into their individual specialties.

All serve baleadas, the folded flour tortillas stuffed with beans and cheese that might just replace breakfast tacos in your pantheon of cravings. At Tia Maria’s I discovered a stuffed plantain that was layered like a nacho plate with steak and gauc and cheese. At Las Delicias de Honduras there was a whole fried red snapper that should be a centerpiece for a feast but made a quick weekday lunch.

And then, at Los Catrachos, I ordered with a reckless excess of confidence in my Spanish skills, my far-distant second language. Thus I learned that “parrilladas para uno” might actually translate to "meat coma for one," with enough steak, chorizo, pork and chicken to feed a family.

Instead, this bargain dish simply fed my desire to learn more about Honduran food in New Orleans. So I’m glad there’s a trifecta of spots in Mid-City to keep digging in.

Ian covers food culture and dining in New Orleans through his weekly commentary series Where Y’Eat.