LEO's Eats with Robin Garr
Hay!! Chi Wa Waa! Where in the heck is Chapinlandia?
Hay!! Chi Wa Waa!? Chapinlandia? What the heck is going on here? Did someone just yell, "Alex, I'll take 'Restaurants with Unusual Names' for $500"?
Nah. It's simpler than that. With a month of World Cup soccer coming up in June, I'm scouting venues to catch key matches in the company of crowds whose cheers really mean something.
Just as there's nothing quite like being part of the home crowd for U of L football at the Pizza Bowl or UK hoops at Rupp, you can't beat the excitement of a Mexican-American crowd cheering Mexico at a taqueria or a bunch of enthusiastic Argentine-Americans yelling it up for Argentina at Palermo Viejo. GOOOOOOOOLLLL!
So, what's up with those names? Well, Chihuahua is not just a tiny dog but also the state in northern Mexico that made the diminutive dog famous. Hay!! Chi Wa Waa features "Tex-Mex" cuisine, though, so I'm thinking this name might just be their message to Taco Bell's yappy little dog: "Hey, Chihuahua! I've got your taco right here!"
Okay, fine, but what's a Chapinlandia, then? It turns out that chapín is a nickname for a guy from Guatemala. The original chapín was an offbeat sandal - something like a homemade leather Converse high-top - that Guatemalans wore in colonial days. Originally adopted as an insult by Mexicans who thought their neighbors' shoes looked stupid, chapín was eventually taken back by Guatemalans as a point of pride.
Chapinlandia, located within a small Latino tienda (grocery) just off Preston Highway, is, in a word, lovable; it is as sincere and as authentic as the Spanish rendition of Salmo 23 ... er, the 23rd Psalm ... on the menu cover.
It's a bright and colorful menu, too, with photos of all the dishes. While there's usually someone around who speaks English well, if you ever find yourself the only Anglophone in the room, offering a smile and pointing to a picture will get the job done.
You won't find the cuisine of Guatemala and Mexico's other southern neighbors all that different from Mexican, but just as Canada boasts subtle but significant differences from the United States, eh, so does Guatemala boast its own identity; and this shows on Chapinlandia's menu, which offers about three dozen goodies, virtually all $10 or less.
Read the full review on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/hay-c ... apinlandia
and in LEO Weekly:
http://leoweekly.com/dining/hay-chi-wa- ... apinlandia
Tienda La Chapinlandia
1209 McCawley Road
384-7075
Robin Garr's rating: 86 points
Hay!! Chi Wa Waa
808 Lyndon Lane
883-1924
http://haychiwawaa.com
Robin Garr's rating: 84 points
