El Picacho Catracho

What a great find! A Honduran restaurant so close to home. I had decided to sample that strip of latino restaurants south of Oacaca in Huntington Village and north of Los Compadres near the Walt Whitman Mall, an area totally ignored by Zagat, and barely frequented by Unilocalers.
To start with, my brother had a Nance-​based drink, a tropical fruit not found in your local Waldbaums, and I had a couple Port Royal beers, not found anywhere else that I know of. Good idea, as everything seems to be cooked to order, and it was a pleasant way to kill the time, along with the warm chips and bean dip.
His main course was three very tasty chicken enchiladas, the special for the night, as the normal order includes only two. A heaping plateful of chicken, cabbage, cheese, and salsa on hard shell tortillas. Only $ 6.00.
I had an equally huge serving of ground beef and cabbage on a base of sliced plantains. $ 9.50 and well worth it.
Many other typical Honduran dishes are on the menu, with beef, chicken, pork and shrimp. We’ll be back to try some of the others, but meanwhile we’re working our way south on Rt. 110 and Depot road. I’d welcome suggestions from Unilocalers on other places to hit along the way.

El Picacho Catracho is owned by two, young Huntington millworkers, one of whom hails from Honduras. It was a desire to taste this regional cuisine that El Picacho Catracho was born. As there are no authentic Honduran restaurants on Long Island, the two went into another business together, serving some of the tastiest, freshly prepared Latin food.
If it’s bought in, it’s from Honduras, otherwise everything served in this place is freshly prepared. The chips and salsa are neither bagged nor jarred and are totally addictive. We quickly finished our little snack before we jumped head first into Honduran specialties. Freshly prepared seafood soup was more than enough for two people and was full of shrimp, crab, lobster and locally sourced clams. Easily the best seafood soup we’ve had, and this is one of those dishes that we get everywhere we travel, totally trumping Café Jose in Montréal. Baleadas Picacho, handmade white flour tortillas filled with chorizo, avocado, beef, eggs, cheese and beans were tasty and filling as were the tacos with fresh relish and salsa.
We enjoyed our meal with freshly prepared horchata, or semilla de jicaro as it is known in Honduras. So much better than the rice horchatas served elsewhere, this milky beverage is made with ground jicaro seeds.
All in all, El Picacho Catracho is one of the best authentic, Latin cuisine experiences that we’ve had and we’re glad they’re so close.