Don’t Miss the Stewed Goat at Mangu

Mangu Ever since Mangu (45th btw 3rd+Lex) opened last month, every few days coworkers would come up to me and asked if I had tried this place yet. I told them that I have not and they seem to be quite disappointed. Finally I decided to give Mangu a try after taking a look at their menu for Monday (they have different items for each day of the week) and saw they had stewed goat ($9.95). I don’t eat enough goat so stewed goat for lunch it was.


Walking into Mangu that day I realized their two flatscreen tvs were turned off. They display their menus on those tvs so if you weren’t familiar with their menu, you had to ask the server.

With each entree, it came with two sides. Since they named their place Mangu, I had to get some mangu. If you’re not familiar what mangu is, it’s basically like mashed potatoes but plantains instead. The server generously gave me three scoops of mangu and topped it off with pickled onions. I also got a side of plain old green salad which the server squirted some generic ranch flavor dressing.

Mangu

The salad was a plain salad, nothing to go crazy about. The three scoops of mangu I thought was a little too much or maybe I just wasn’t a fan of it. It didn’t really taste like anything (though the pickled onions really helped).

Mangu

The stewed goat was totally a different story. Super flavorful and just barely falling off the bone (so you’ll have to work a little extra for those juicy tender chunks of meat) which you’ll probably want to suck on the bones a little (yeah it was that good). The sauce from the stewed goat made eating the mangu much more enjoyable but for next time I’ll just stick with rice and beans.

For the amount of food I got and how much I paid for it, it was definitely a bit pricey. They could’ve given me couple more pieces of goat and I would’ve been fine (I guess if I want cheap abundant goat I’ll have to go check out Jamaican Dutchy). Also the goat dish was not the best lunch to eat in the office unless you’re fine with your coworkers staring at you while you’re sucking on the bones.

The + (What somebody who likes this would say)

  • Goat is my favorite.
  • Glad to find goat for lunch in this area of Midtown.
  • Three scoops of mangu were plentiful.

The – (What somebody who doesn’t like this place would say)

  • I hate to work for my food, give me something boneless.
  • The mangu was bland.
  • They could do better than ranch flavor dressing for their salad.

Mangu Dominican, 158 E. 45th St. (btw. Lex+3rd), 212-905-0490

8 Comments

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    Is this Mangu in any relation to the Mangu in College Point, Queens? Seems they give you more starch than meat. What does the mangu taste like? Is it kind of like frou-frou?

  • What other sides were there? I’m hesitant about the green alien poop is all.

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    Going to check it out today… Been craving west indian goat roti type stuff for years, ever since I had some at a Trinidadian wedding.

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    The mangu reminds me of getting mofongo in Puerto Rico…fried green mashed plantains. Those were obviously much better.

  • Last time i had goat was in Jamaica and it wasn’t as gamey as i thought it would be, so I liked it… will have to try this… a bit skeptical, will report back

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    Dropped by today, they had no goat, just pork and beef (and bbq chicken)

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    Donny, if you’ve been looking for goat, you didn’t have far to go. Curry Joy, just one block over, does a VERY tasty goat curry and a goat biryani. And the topper is that if you order the biryani, they’ll scoop some of the curry sauce over it if you ask them to.

    They only do it once or twice a week, I think on Thursdays if I’m not mistaken. It was one of my favorite lunches when I worked in that area.

  • I didn’t try the stewed goat, but I got a plate of pernil with the green mush. The pernil was edible. It wasn’t the worst I’ve had, but it wasn’t great. Tina’s/Sophies is much better for similar food. The green mush was OK. It was mostly flavorless until I added the onions.

    This seems like an OK choice, but it’s not worth going out of the way for. Especially if there’s a Sophies or Tina’s closer.

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