Surprenant & Beneski, P.C. has been happily supporting local food spots since 2020 by spotlighting a new one each month. As a family business itself, the estate planning and elder law firm loves spotlighting other family businesses, like New Bedford's Casa Lempira whose mother-daughter team are serving delicious food and drink with authentic flavors from their native Honduras.
The food at Casa Lempira is delicious, and we’ll get to it, but first, we gotta talk juices.
Owner Mary Pineda can serve you up juice flight that’ll make you feel like you’ve gotten your passport stamped. Originally from Honduras, Mary takes the fruits of her country – many that aren’t familiar to people outside Central America – and she creates delicious housemade juices from them. We tried almost all of them and they are unbelievably delicious. Eleven different flavors, one is better than the next. Sweet, sour, tangy, each one is filled with personality.
Order a flight of juices to taste five different flavors so that you can decide which one you like most for the next time you visit. Mary can introduce you to hogberry juice (their most popular, made from a yellow cherry-like berry) to the horchata (with rice, cacoa, cinnamon, it tastes a little like the holidays) to cashew nut juice (using the flower, not the nut, it doesn’t taste like cashews at all) to tamarind (a little sour, a little tea-like). Better than that, she’ll pull up photos of the fruits so you can get a sense of them. She’ll even tell you where they come from in Honduras: the chilly mountainous area or the tropical coastline (where her family is from).
That’s perhaps the most fun part of Casa Lempira: learning about another country. Because of the differing climate – from snowy mountains to tropical beaches, the food is different throughout the country. Casa Lempira makes it all. Mary told us of one customer, himself from Honduras, who came in to try something new each time. “Surprise me!” he’d say. After coming regularly, he told Mary, “I never knew my country made so much!”
The food is a revelation. In the kitchen, Eda Manzarates is in charge. “My mom loves to cook,” says Mary. We first tried the Tajadas Con Carne Molida on a New Bedford Food Tours visit. It was yummy. A delicious mixture of ground beef with pico, pickled onions, cheese, tomato sauce and cabbage, it’s served over green banana chips. It’s so so good.
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When we visited last week, it was morning and they churning out breakfast quesadillas that looked delicious. A line of men sat at the bar, happily sipping their juices.
We’re going back soon to join them!
Casa Lempira, 1264 Acushnet Ave., New Bedford.
Photos by Liam Connor Photography.
Last post in the series: The Brewhouse District in Fall River has everything you want, whenever you want it! "You want an omelet at 8:30 pm?" asks owner Nick Ozug. "You got it. You want a tuna sandwich at 9 am? We’ll make it for you!” From coffee in the morning to cocktails in the evening, they're ready for whatever you're hankering for right here.
