Mike S.
Yelp
My husband said he wanted to take me someplace, a surprise. He said to dress casual, and that it was 75 minutes away. He was born in the Dominican Republic, so he was hoping to find the taste of home here. Did he find it? Sadly, not so much.
We started with Presidente Beer (from the Dominican Republic), which had a light, easy taste, going down smoothly. It's certainly a good choice for beer over dinner.
Back to that casual dining, there were three others here on a Thursday at 9pm. A gentleman in Jeans and T, a guy in sweats, and his girlfriend. So pretty darn casual it is.
The restaurant lacks any signage, it's in the building which says "La Leena Restaurante" on the right side under that sign. There are bars on all of the windows and doors, but I suspect those are from the 60's. Then again, I made my spouse bring his cell phone inside the restaurant LOL. BTW, parking is on the street, there isn't a parking lot that we could find.
As an appetizer, we each had a beef Enpanada. I loved the crunch and thought the flavor was good. My husband said it was "OK".
My main course was Pica Pollo, Dominican style fried chicken with tostones, twice fried plantain. The crunch on the chicken was amazing, the chicken itself was moist. Although after eating the chicken my mouth tasted salty, too much salt for me. The tostones were good, they reminded me of my mother-in-laws tostones. I have to add, my husband said that the fried chicken wasn't quite the same as he had as a kid in the DR.
My husband had the Carne Asada, skirt steak and an enormous pile of Dominican-style rice with beans. He said the beef had no taste, he likes things heavily seasoned. I tasted it, and it does have a mild flavor which seemed good to me. His DR style rice and beans was gone super fast, he loved it.
As a side we had Maduros, which I thought were perfect. They reminded my of his mom's cooking, but he said they weren't ripe enough, not sweet enough.
The waitress was attentive and helpful while placing our order. Oh, we both wanted to order Goat, but they were out, so don't get your heart set on any one thing.
In short, Morena's Kitchen might be like your mom's cooking, but it wasn't up to scratch for my husband's mom's cooking. The location with the parking, and bars on the window, and general run-down appearance of the place would have made me leave if it weren't for my husbands dream of finding some home cooking. I'll still give the food three stars, maybe 3.5.