Life hasn’t been particularly fair to Pink FlaminGo To Go, the brick and mortar space that grew out of the popular Corktown food truck of a similar name. Chef-owner Meiko Krishok in late 2019 opened the restaurant in a former Bread Basket Deli across from Detroit’s Palmer Park, but an attempted break-in a few months later damaged the building so badly that she was forced to temporarily close.
Just as Krishok got the insurance dealt with and contractors set up, the pandemic hit, and that, of course, gave way to the ongoing industry labor shortage. But Krishok adjusted, delivering meals and food goods during the pandemic, leaning on the business’s catering component, and generally persisting pretty well through the succession of horrors. If you’re like me and you’ve driven by the restaurant from time to time and seen the lights on but no carryout menu — that’s the story.
But three and a half years after opening, it seems Pink FlaminGo To Go is finally in full bloom, with carryout hours Wednesday through Sunday, and the farm-to-table “food as medicine” fare that Krishok is known for. The menu changes with local ingredients’ availability, and the simplicity and excellent sourcing is what makes her dishes.
That perhaps was best on display in the quesadillas, a high-floor, low-ceiling plate that Pink Flamingo manages to take above the usual ceiling. We got ours with locally grown oyster mushrooms that were roasted with salt then cooked with onions and bell peppers. Despite the minimal prep, the mushrooms imparted a big flavor and substantial texture, and those were folded with the peppers and onions into crispy El Milagro corn tortillas with a generous-but-mellow-blend of melted havarti, sharp white cheddar, and muenster cheeses.
The spicy beef I added to a quinoa bowl wasn’t spicy as in hot, but instead a bit fragrant and earthy, which could be from the chipotle peppers Krishok slow cooked them with. The super tender beef is usually made from Marrow’s chuck, but on our visit it was a brisket and chuck mix that Pink FlaminGo seared then cooked low for 12 hours with chicken stock, peppers, tomato, onion, and garlic. It banged.
We loaded up on sides since there were only two entrees and didn’t find a dud in the mix, but among the best were the empanadas. Empanada shells are usually fried and a bit of an afterthought to the filling, but imagine if your favorite local baker was making the shells with a flaky butter and buttermilk dough. The vegetarian and chicken fillings were piquant and fought for attention with the shells, and the packages are served with an awesome Haitian pickled slaw.
The braised greens were made with bok choy, peppers, onions, and garlic, and were bright and slightly crunchy. The pinto beans cooked with dried chile, garlic, onions, and peppers were crispy on the exterior, super garlicky, and doused in a gochujang chili oil. A mayocoba bean salad, meanwhile, was lively and bright with a sauce of pureed garlic scapes, garlic chives, roasted hatch chiles, and lemon juice.
I ordered the rice balls with little enthusiasm (arancini is an overrated dish, IMO), but this mix is driven by garam and chaat masalas, and it uses sweet potato to bind the jasmine rice, caramelized onions, scallions, cilantro, and chives, and is perfectly crisp around the exterior. My position on rice balls has shifted.
The dishes can reasonably work as a vessel for any of Pink FlaminGo’s sauces. A banana ketchup with ginger, allspice, tamari, and apple cider vinegar is solid. Every batch of the house green sauce is different, though the basic formula includes herbs, shallot, onion, garlic, and some kind of citrus. The miso chipotle is made with cashews, chiles, lemon juice, and maple syrup, while the hot honey is honey mixed with fermented chiles.
Of the three desserts we tried, the sweet potato cheesecake is incredible, while the others — a passion fruit lemon bar and a vegan rhubarb bar — were gluten-free and didn’t quite pop like their gluten-y counterparts. Pink FlaminGo makes several beverages in house, like the lemonade with a hibiscus tea composed of dried hibiscus flowers, cinnamon bark, and ginger that’s mixed with raw cane sugar and lemon.
Pink FlaminGo also offers something of a store with basic foodstuffs and some frozen soups and meals that can be grabbed from a freezer.
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