Ladies’ nights, flavored coffee and special ramen: Weekly Dish

Sofrito Latin Kitchen hosted a girls’ night March 12, providing a spread of treats inspired by a variety of Latino and Spanish-speaking countries.

Owner Hector Batista presented each dish with a brief explanation. Dishes included:

• Paella con mariscos (paella with seafood)
• Fried empanadas
• Bistec encebollado (fried steak with onion)
• Pastelon
• Trifongo con mariscos and (green plantain, sweet potato and sweet plantain mash with seafood)
• Steak parrillada board or mixed grill

It’s nearly impossible to pick a favorite, but if one had to be picked, it would easily be steak parrillada or pastelon. Steak parrillada comes with chicharron, chorizo, beef shoulder and creamed corn. The chicharron is fried crispy and seasoned with garlic for a savory flavor and juicy bite.

Pastelon has been called “Puerto Rican lasagna” for its layered preparation of sweet plantain, ground beef and cheese. It’s a simple, homestyle recipe that’s mouthwatering and umami.

“Very traditional. Very healthy, low calorie,” he said with a laugh.

Sofrito Restaurant hosts ladies’ nights on Wednesdays, offering half off select cocktails starting at 4 p.m. It is located at 1757 Woodruff Road.

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With warm weather comes sunshine-inspired drinks and bites. This week, we saw the rollout of some exciting coffee drinks from award-winning micro roaster Bridge City Coffee.

Bridge City dropped five new drinks March 10. One in particular piqued our interest: the banana bread latte made with house-made banana simple syrup and vanilla whipped cream, and topped with crushed vanilla wafers.

Bridge City Coffee has five locations: its flagship on Wade Hampton Boulevard, Main Street in Travelers Rest, downtown Greenville on West Washington Street and most recently in Spartanburg at 2430 Reidville Road.

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Fun fact: The ramen noodles from Society Sandwich Bar and Social Club are pretty special. They’re never waterlogged and have just the right texture for the unconventional but well-informed ramen recipes designed by co-owner Chris Rosensteel.

Did you know there was a painstaking process involved in finding just the right noodle for its unique ramen?

During a late January interview about the soon-to-come overhaul to City Tavern — on which Rosensteel, Society co-owner Jeremy Krauze and City Tavern owner Scott Woods are partnering — the conversation segued to the topic of ramen and importance of using just the right noodle.

He said given Society’s volume of ramen sold and size of its kitchen, making noodles in house isn’t feasible. With that in mind, it was important that the noodles were exceptional.

“We shopped 15 noodles,” Rosensteel said. “And it’s a company called Sun Noodle. It’s out of Hawaii. It’s consistently amazing. It’s a beautiful product. You can tell it’s a family-owned company. So we get all of our noodles shipped in.”

Sun Noodle is based out of Honolulu, Hawaii.