A Tale of Two 161 Food Trucks: Standout Cemitas & Hit-or-Miss Guatemalan Fare
Plus, a look inside Goodfellas Pizzeria, which opens Friday in the Short North.
Here’s What to Order at a Pair of New-to-Us Food Trucks on 161
By Andy Dehus
Taco trucks come and go at a pace no mere mortal could possibly keep up with (and we’ve tried!), but every now and again we find a few that beg for further exploration. The span of OH-161 from I-71 to Cleveland Avenue is a fertile stretch for such discoveries, and that’s where we’ve recently found two very different trucks offering unique and desirable dishes we haven’t seen anywhere else in the city.
Taqueria Santa Anita
1571 East Dublin-Granville Road
Puebla-style Mexican food has been notable for its absence locally, leaving us without the chance to try a credible version of the legendary Poblano sandwich known as the cemita. Several Columbus places have attempted these sandwiches in the past, but I’ve found each to be a pale imitation of the original.
Not so at Taqueria Santa Anita. Theirs has the big, hearty, brioche-like bun filled with milanesa, quesillo, glistening chipotle peppers, onion, tomato, avocado and an herb known as papalo. The cemita here makes an impression every bit as daunting as any torta I’ve encountered. It captures its torta cousin’s spirit while distinguishing itself by balancing the obvious richness of the genre with the freshness of the avocado and papalo. Plus you get the tangy kick of the cherry red chipotles en adobo (adobo-stewed chipotle peppers). It’s worth trying, and worth bringing a friend; half was a solid and satisfying lunch for me.
Santa Anita is also the only place we’ve found with another Pueblan specialty called tacos arabés (marinated pork tacos), though the food truck’s version bore little resemblance to the original. Curiously, the expected spit-shaved pork with Middle Eastern spicing was instead a mildly spiced diced beef, and the thicker pan árabe tortilla—a riff on a Lebanese pita—was just a run-of-the-mill flour tortilla. Though Santa Anita’s approach could conceivably be a recognized variation on the theme, it offered few pleasures distinct from a more typical carne asada taco.
La Mamalona/Platillos Chapines (aka The Truck With Two Names)
1263 E. Dublin-Granville Road
I’ve come to find two largely consistent truths associated with my experiences eating at Central American kitchens around Columbus. The first is that they generally hedge their bets by including a lot of Mexican options on their menus, and the second is that they’re likely to steer the uninitiated towards the Mexican menu.
The truck I recently visited illustrates this vividly, just check out the photo below.
I cannot tell you the official name of that truck. It could be La Mamalona, or it could be Platillos Chapines (which translates to “Guatemalan dishes”). Could be both—or neither. It didn’t seem as though the guys running the truck could tell you, either. I can tell you that they initially insisted that I focus on the Mexican menu on the left, when everything I was curious about was on the right.
Curious because the Platillos Chapines side of the menu was the first Guatemalan food we’ve come across in Central Ohio outside of a handful of bakeries. It was especially curious because the truck lists pepián de pollo (Guatemalan pepián stew with chicken), a dish that’s known to be hard to make, hard to come by and all the more desirable for it.
Sometimes compared to a Mexican molé, pepián sauce is composed of pan-roasted and finely ground pepitas (squash seeds) and sesame seeds combined with tomato, onion, chiles and spices, and then blended to a velvety consistency. This concoction is intended to serve as a thick, earthy and powerfully flavorful base for stewing meats, often chicken (as in this case). Served with (thicker-than-Mexican but thinner-than-Salvadoran) Guatemalan tortillas, pepián de pollo is often heralded as the culinary essence of the country.
I’d love to tell you that the Truck With Two Names nailed it, but it wasn’t to be. The sauce’s bitterness was too much to bear, and the curiously scrawny bone-in chicken pieces seemed more “placed” in the sauce than “stewed” in it. Since it was my first encounter with the dish, I can’t claim any sort of authority to judge its fidelity to origins, but I can say I wouldn’t recommend it.
Thankfully that wasn’t all we ordered, as the garnachas Guatemaltecas ended up justifying the visit. A study in simplicity, these garnachas feature handmade fried tortillas that are smaller and thicker than a typical tostada, topped with carne asada, refried beans and crumbled queso seco. A well-composed bite (including optional jalapeños and curtido, a shredded cabbage slaw) shows off everything that’s great about straightforward Mesoamerican cooking.
The Guatemalan menu also included intriguing, beet-topped enchiladas Guatemaltecas, tamal de pollo y puerco, and curiously chubby tamal cousins called chuchitos—all asked for, but none available. And that’s food truck life in a nutshell: some wins, some losses, and maybe a good story or two every now and then.
Preview: Goodfellas Pizzeria Makes Its Short North Debut on June 6
By Erin Edwards
If you go down the Internet rabbit hole in regards to Goodfellas Pizzeria, you end up—for better or worse—at Dave Portnoy’s 2018 “One Bite Pizza Review” of Goodfellas’ original location in Lexington, KY.
Whew, boy.
The viral review—ending in a 0.0 rating thanks to cold pizza, rude customer service and, well, Portnoy being dramatic—sent Goodfellas spiraling. After a barrage of negative reviews on Yelp from Barstool Sports fans, the pizzeria briefly shut down to retrain its staff. (Portnoy returned in 2020, giving the pizzeria a 7.7.)
In other words, Goodfellas Pizzeria has seen some s—.
Fast forward and the Bluegrass State pizza chain has grown to 11 locations, including two in Cincinnati. Its first Columbus storefront opens at 4 p.m. this Friday, June 6, in the Short North. The new pizzeria and bourbon bar fills a long-vacant, prominent spot on High Street just north of The Cap.
Stepping inside, Goodfellas’ Short North store feels like two venues in one. Near the front door, pizzaiolos toss dough alongside large pizza deck ovens, and NY-style pies tempt customers to buy slices from the display case. Beyond the register is a casual dining room with tables, bench seating and several TVs.
The pizzeria keeps the food menu simple. You can order by the slice (our soft-opening slices were not cold, for what it’s worth) or choose from several hand-tossed specialty pies (12-, 16- or 22-inch) such as the Goodfella (for meat lovers), The Vinny (an olive oil-garlic base with ricotta and mozzarella) and Tommy “Two Times” (double the pepp).
Other menu items include monster-sized breadsticks, salads, a meatball sub, a calzone and desserts like cannoli and black-and-white cookies. Keep an eye out for the daily lunch special (11 a.m.-3 p.m.), which includes a slice, a side and a drink for $10.
Walk towards the back, past a few Prohibition-era photos, and you enter the much more dapper Wiseguy Lounge with old-school ceiling tiles, tufted bar stools and burgundy banquettes. (They call it a speakeasy, but I won’t because there’s nothing secret—it’s just a bar, but a handsome one at that.)
Given Goodfellas’ bourbon state roots, Wiseguy Lounge places a lot of emphasis on its extensive bourbon list that includes some hard-to-find (read: pricey) bottles. (There’s a bourbon club you can sign up for, too.) Craft cocktail fans will find a list of the classics (Manhattans, Vieux Carres, etc.) as well as house specialties like the tiki-esque Honolulu Daydreamin’.
Find It:
Goodfellas Pizzeria
608 N. High St., Short North