Las Tablas

We went to dinner at Las Tablas, a Columbian restaurant in Chicago.  It has been featured on both Check Please and Chicago's Best.

Empanadas

Empanada combination - 2 of each type of empanada, cheese, beef and chicken.  The beef empanada had potato in it as well.  The dough was crispy and warm and the fillings were tender with a splash of chimichurri sauce.  The empanadas were very pleasing to the palate.



Appetizer with plaintains, guava paste and cheese; really different combination but was fun.  With the firm plaintain and the sweet guava it almost could be a desert; add in a lot of melted cheese and how can you go wrong?

Plantain, guava and cheese

Entrana - skirt steak, with potato, plaintain and yucca.  The steak was nice and tender which is rare for a skirt steak.  The nice thing about skirt steak is that is it is thin and soaks up the flavor really well.  It was super tasty.

Entrana Skirt Steak

Final thoughts on Las Tablas:
Food - really good food; we don't often go to "Columbian" restaurants but the flavors were similar to those of other Latine cuisines.
Service - pretty good and quick service.  But we were there very early for dinner so there were only 3 tables of customers in the restaurant. So who knows what it would be like at a busier time.
Atmosphere -  the restaurant (we went to the Irving Park location) was a lot bigger than we thought.  We went right before Christmas and they had a large Nativity display set up against a wall as well as other decorations.