Have you ever tried Mofongo? It is a Puerto Rican dish that we had been dying to try since we saw Guy Fieri eating some on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives ( my other half is a big fan of the show) and since Florida has no shortage of food from Puerto Rico we were able to find several restaurants that serve it near us. We went to the restaurant Creole21 near Summerfield, Florida (close to The Villages) to try it out because we drive past it all the time and had been wanting to try it out anyway so it was a win/win situation.

Mofongo is made with fried mashed plantains and flavored with garlic and other flavors and then usually some sort of meat. Creole21 has the option to choose the meat that goes into yours as well the sauce flavor, which I do not know if that is a standard practice or not because we haven’t had it since.

I tried it with a tomato based sauce which I actually liked paired with this better than with the garlic sauce. The garlic was good, but I felt like the tomato based creole sauce really was better. James ordered it with the garlic and he agreed that the tomato was better.

Did we love it? No, not really. Would we try it again some place else to taste their take on it? Absolutely. It wasn’t bad at all, it just did not wow us so I don’t want to give the impression that there was something wrong with it. It just was fairly bland. It was really filling though, and their portion size was huge.

The unexpected star of the meal was the stuffed shrimps cassava. Honestly it is worth going there just to try these. They had a coconut milk glaze that I thought I would hate but I still dream about them, proving the point that one should step outside of their comfort eating zone every now and again. I consider myself a fairly adventurous eater but sometimes I do get pre conceived opinions about things which really doesn’t give the food a fair chance. Trust me when I tell you that these shrimp won’t disappoint.

As far as Creole21 goes, it really has a nice fun atmosphere and our waitress was really friendly and helpful. I did not think that their food was necessarily “Creole”, but their menu is definitly not run of the mill. I highly encourage you to try it out if you are ever in the area. I also would suggest if there are just two of you to split the mofongo because we were unable to even come close to finishing ours.

Do you know a place that has amazing mofongo? I would love to know! Just comment your favorite place and we will do our best to try it out.

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