wall painted to look like the doorways of three houses on a street in San Juan - one orange, one green and one painted in the Puerto Rican flag
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Review: Casa De Empanadas

brick facade with full glass windows and banner flag reading "empanadas"

Some restaurants are very traditional with their offerings. They stick to their grandparents’ recipes. They make familiar food the familiar way. 

But then there are those that dare to take chances – to take the traditional and turn it on its head.

Casa de Empanadas opened in early 2024 along East Main Street in Kutztown. Before branching out on their own, their empanadas could be found at another Kutztown spot, Hazel’s Cafe. 

wall painted to look like the doorways of three houses on a street in San Juan - one orange, one green and one painted in the Puerto Rican flag

Walking through the doors, your eye is drawn to the back wall which has been painted to look like a row of brightly colored houses reminiscent of San Juan. 

But the empanadas on the menu are likely not going to be found in Puerto Rico. Traditional empanadas are usually filled with beef and cheese or chicken and cheese. And while there is a beef and cheese on the menu, there’s nothing traditional about empanadas fillings like chicken bacon ranch, pizza, or shrimp and crab. 

There’s also nothing traditional about an empanada place serving boba tea, but I wasn’t mad at it. The taro boba was deliciously sweet, and the purple color seemed at home among the decor. 

purple boba tea on a table at Casa de Empanadas

My boba came first, and about 10 minutes later I got my empanadas – one spinach and one meatball parm – served on a bed of rice and peas. 

The spinach empanada was an absolute home run. Filled with a mixture of garlic sauce, cream cheese, ricotta, mozzarella, spinach, and cream, it was indulgently creamy. But it was never too much, thanks in part to the deliciously crispy pastry shell. 

styrofoam container with two empanadas on a bed of fried rice

While still good, the meatball parm came up a little short of the spinach. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the marinara sauce. A little change and I probably would have loved it like my other empanada. 

I got the two empanadas as part of a meal so they came served over a bed of rice and peas. This was the most traditional item on the menu, and it was very good. The rice was well seasoned and nicely done. I didn’t really need it on top of the empanadas though. Next time, I would probably just get the empanadas and not do the meal deal. 

brick wall with a banner reading "empanadas" behind a table and charis

I look forward to my next visit when I promise to get one of their dessert empanadas – caramel apple or chocolate chip brownie. Both sound amazing. 

And the price is right, too. The two-empanada meal was $13 (empanadas are $5 each otherwise). The boba was a splurge that added $7 to the meal. Still, I felt like it was a very reasonable price to pay for everything. 

Overall, it was a very good first impression. The food was good – and unique – and I look forward to more empanadas in the near future. 

BCE Rating
Food: Good
Service: Good
Ambiance: Good
Price: $

Casa de Empanadas
9 E. Main Street
Kutztown PA 19530

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Road Trip: Empanada Mama

Empanada Mama in Doylestown

Berks County Eats crosses the county line to bring you some of the best dining both near and far. This edition takes us 90 minutes east of Reading to Doylestown, PA.

Sometimes simple is better.

The old saying is especially true when it comes to restaurants. Some places try to be everything to everyone. Their menus become too large and too diverse to deliver consistent meals.

I think that’s one of the reasons why restaurants with a single-focus have remained so popular. Places like Taste of Crepes and Steak Shack have limited menus that all revolve around one item. The Crystal Palace was one of Reading’s most beloved restaurants, and its business was built entirely around hot dogs.

These kinds of restaurants are certainly not exclusive to Berks County. A few weeks ago, Julie and I had a weekend getaway planned that started with an afternoon Doylestown. I reached out to my friends at Visit Bucks County for suggestions, hoping for something new and different.

They told me if we are going to Doylestown, I had to check out Empanada Mama.

Two empanadas on a wooden plate with a cup of dipping sauce

As the name suggests, Empanada Mama specializes in the stuffed Spanish pastries. With the exception for some pre-made salads, that’s all they do.

In a town that is known for its restaurants, Empanada Mama is more of an in-and-out lunch counter. The daily menu consists of 13 flavors that guests can mix and match in quantities of a full dozen, half-dozen or lunch box (three).

The choices were overwhelming: pulled pork, buffalo chicken, peperoni and mozzarella, and sweet onion were among the ones I had to pass over.

I settled on two Korean beef and one chicken salsa verde. Julie opted for one bacon and date, one summer squash and sweet corn, and one Caprese.

three empanadas on a wooden plate

We were lucky that no one had yet claimed one of just four seats (not a problem on a nice day as Doylestown has plenty of park benches to go around) so we were able to sit down and enjoy them.

First up was the Korean beef. Filled with a mixture of ground beef, hoisin sauce, sesame, ginger, garlic and scallions, it packed quite a punch. It was perfectly seasoned with just a little bit of burn. Mixed with the thick Asian dipping sauce, it was perfect.

The chicken salsa verde was just as delicious in its own right. It had the longest ingredient list of all of the day’s offerings: shredded chicken, tomatillos, cilantro, garlic, onions, jalapeno, lime juice and mozzarella.

All of the flavors blended beautifully. The mozzarella helped balance out the heat from jalapenos. And the lime juice was the perfect finishing touch.

three empanadas on a wooden plate

Julie couldn’t wait to dig into her bacon and date empanada. It was filled with maple-smoked bacon, organic dates and goat cheese for the perfect blend of sweet and spicy. The rich sweetness from the goat cheese mixed with the dates made it feel almost like dessert.

Her other two empanadas at least felt a little lighter. The summer squash and sweet corn had a little lemon zest mixed in that added to the bright tones of the vegetables and ricotta. The Caprese was like a salad in a puff pastry. The ingredients in both tasted fresh and refreshing.

Not only were all of the empanadas delicious, they were massive. We could have probably shared a $10 lunch box and been just fine. With each of us eating our own, we were stuffed.

Empanada Mama is doing empanadas different than anyone else and better than anyone else. But saying that Empanada Mama only does one thing is a disservice to them.

In reality, Empanada Mama is making an incredible variety of delicious meals. It just so happens that they stuff them into a pastry and fry them.

And they are so much better that way.

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Review: Mi Casa Su Casa Cafe

sign hangs outside a yellowish-orange building that reads "Mi Casa Su Casa Cafe"

Downtown Reading is probably one of the most underrated food hubs in Berks County.

Penn Street alone offers a wonderful variety of options. Yet for those of us who don’t live or work downtown, making the trip into the city for a meal seems like a lot of work.

Sometimes all it takes is a little push to get us suburbanites to head into town. For me, that push came in the form of a half-price gift certificate for Mi Casa Su Casa Cafe.

While the Peanut Bar may be Penn Street’s most famous eatery, it is far from the only option. Just two doors down from the Reading landmark is a restaurant that has been building a legacy of its own for the better part of the last decade.

A display case just inside the front door of Mi Casa Su Casa shows off the accolades that the restaurant has earned in its first eight years of business. The restaurant’s success has led to a second location, as Mi Casa Su Casa also operates a cafe inside the Goggleworks.

Because of its location, Mi Casa Su Casa is perfect for breakfast and lunch for those working downtown. When we walked in, it was clear that Saturdays were a much slower time. But for a couple people sitting at the counter, we had the dining room to ourselves.

Mi Casa Su Casa’s menu isn’t very big, but it is varied, reflecting both American tastes and the Caribbean heritage of the owners.

Did you ever have one of those days when you just couldn’t make up your mind? That was us on this day. There were just too many delicious-sounding options that we decided to create our own mini-buffet by ordering four sides to split between the two of us.

Our waitress delivered our meal, one plate at a time until our table was no longer visible under a sea of white plates.

plate with yucca fries and two dipping sauces one mayo ketchup, the other garlic butter

The first item set down in front of us was the yuca fries. Yuca is a distant relative of the potato, a starchy root vegetable native to South America and a staple food for millions of people. The thick-cut yuca were deep fried to a light yellow and served with two options for dipping: mayo ketchup and garlic butter.

Yuca is much starchier than a potato so the fries maintained a lot more substance through the frying process. But after a nice soak in the garlic butter (which I claimed for myself while Julie happily took the house-made mayo ketchup), the fries went down smooth. Though I have to say they were much more filling than I had expected.

rice topped with beans from Mi Casa Su Casa Cafe

Our rice and beans were next to arrive. When it was presented, the rice was neatly piled on the plate with the beans in a small bowl. The use of red beans (I wrongly assumed black when I read ‘rice and beans’) made it look like a bowl of baked beans, but the flavor was altogether different. There was no brown sugar or bacon. Instead it used mild spices that let the natural flavor of the beans come through.

empanada and fried plantains on a plate from Mi Casa Su Casa Cafe

A pair of beef empanadas served as a stand-in for our main course. The trip through the fryer made the outer pastry crispy and delicious. I was expecting cheese to come oozing out after my first bite, but was pleasantly surprised that the filling was mostly beef, with just enough cheese to hold it together. It was about as perfect as I could have hoped for.

plantain chips from Mi Casa Su Casa Cafe

Completing our make-shift four-course meal was an order of tostones, fried plantains. Plantains contain more starch than a banana, making them perfect candidates to join the rest of our meal in the deep fryer (only now do I realize how much of our meal was actually fried). They were delicious, and despite having had more than my fair share of food already, I could not stop popping them in my mouth.

After adding on a couple bottles of soda to our final bill, our lunch was still just $17, a bargain for what appeared to be an endless amount of food. The best bargain Mi Casa Su Casa offers, however, may be the free parking in the lot behind the restaurant, which will save you a little money and a lot of hassle.

Our meal at Mi Casa Su Casa Cafe was well-worth the drive downtown. It was a great meal at a great price. You can’t ask for much more than that.

It took a little motivation to get there, but the food is more than enough motivation to go back.

BCE Rating
Food: Very Good
Service: Excellent
Ambiance: Good
Price: Very Reasonable

Mi Casa Su Casa Cafe
320 Penn St
Reading, PA 19602

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