Dominican restaurant offers popular Latin American food, owner shares American dream
By Camila Fernandez
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INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Nulvin Jimenez is a business owner and an immigrant. She moved from Venezuela to the United States years ago to live her American dream.
Her restaurant, Tu Casa Latin Food, opened more than four years ago and offers some of the tastiest and most popular dishes in Latin American cuisine.
Jimenez moved from New York to Indiana more than 20 years ago in search of better living conditions. She started selling food out of her own kitchen and now, with her family’s help, she opened this restaurant.
“I just love that we’re able to bring this to our community, and I just love how diverse we are,” said Jimenez’s son, Jose Castillo-Jimenez.
Castillo-Jimenez says sometimes he’s in the kitchen or he’s serving food, but it’s the time he gets to spend with his mom that he cherishes the most.
“It’s a special bond that we can share together because life gets busy. We grow up and … we do our own lives, but this kind of just brings us back together,” he said.
The restaurant offers food from places like Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Colombia, but it’s a plate of food called El Pabellon, from Venezuela, that’s his favorite.
“You can put the sauce of the shredded beef. The shred of beef has this great stewed tomato sauce on it with peppers, and the shredded beef is cooked for a couple of hours and it’s like steamed and then they cook it,” said
“It’s the beef, meat with mofongo. The platanos — they’re so delicious. Me being a Mexican, I really recommend the Dominican food,” Felipe Flores, an Indianapolis resident, said.
“If you have a dream out there — if you’re Latino, if you’re Hispanic, however you identify — just go for it. Nothing is impossible,” Castillo-Jimenez said.
Jimenez says she hopes to expand her business in the future.
Tu Casa Latin Food is located at 2989 W. 71st St. in Indianapolis.
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