The other day, my friend and I tried out a local restaurant here in Powell, The Cactus. The Cactus, which serves Latin cuisine, has very good ratings on Google and Yelp. I also heard about it on my TikTok For You page, so I was interested in seeing how the food would be.

For drinks, I tried something called a Frescolita. To me, it tasted like how the color pink feels—very bubble gum. It surprised me when I first took a sip, but I quickly began to like it. I don’t know if this is blasphemy to the people of Venezuela (where Frescolita comes from), but it tasted very good with some lime. My friend got water, so there weren’t any thoughts there.

For appetizers, we got the Cactus Sampler, which came with mini arepas, fried cheese,  tequeños (which are Venezuelan cheese sticks), and chicharrones alongside a cilantro sauce and sour cream. Everything was fresh and tasty, and it was nice to have a variety of foods to try out. 

For entrées, we got the gratinated patacon and cachapas. The patacon was a dish made of fried plantain and beef with lots of melty cheese. The cachapas were a sweet pancake made of some type of corn, which were also topped with lots of melty cheese.

Altogether, everything was very tasty. However, the items we bought might not have been your vibe if you’d prefer something less decadent. The Cactus was also slightly pricey; after tipping and tax, the order came out to just over $80. I’d give The Cactus a 4.5/5.