Mi Bandera

They put crack in the sauce, like a real boss. And I’m not talking about Picante sauce, I’m talking about sh*t that you would only see in Land of the Lost.
Taste the fajitas, n’ you’ll lick the plate. Or the roasted chicken where you’ll be at heaven’s gate.
The red beans are to die for, along with the rice. Not too hot, just the right amount of spice.
I’m not overselling and telling you lies… when I say that one of the best things I like, is their better than average fries.
Don’t forget to tip your waitress, and ask for free bread. This is another fantastic review from Wesley, now I’m buzzed, and need to go to bed.

I went here wth a friend today. The food was absolutely delicious and we got gigantic portions!!! We both ended up with take home food.
My friend had the churrasco and I had the grilled pork with mushroom sauce. They come with two sides and my friend got soup and mofungo and I ordered salad and beans/​rice. It was all really, really good. We shared our food. Very quick service and a very fair price. Everyone was also very friendly. I will be back for sure!

Ordered the bandeja paisa, and it was amazing. It’s big enough for two people. I will be back for more!

So I stopped here after being completely disgusted at the lack of ripe plantains at El Mofongazo. I did a quick Unilocal search because I was in the mood for Latin food.
Now, I know better than to confuse Puerto Rican food with Columbian food. But El Mofongazo was sold by its original owner and I’m not sure you can call it Puerto Rican anymore. I mean, they don’t have ripe plantains. What is that?
So, I was hungry. Columbian will have to do. Now, I’m a big fan of La Pequeña Columbia, so this restaurant already had a tall order to fill. But I was very hungry. That helps. Hunger impedes my brain function and makes most food taste awesome.
It wasn’t very packed for a Saturday night. I ordered a couple of Columbian empanadas to kick off the festivities. They took their sweet time to get them to me. Maybe I was so hungry I was also very impatient.
The food that came out was fine. It wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t bad. The arepa in the bandeja I ordered was inedible. Too hard. But the rest was fine. The taste was also good. Not great, but good.
It’s tough for a Columbian restaurant to be successful when there is La Pequeña Columbia to compare against. This comes in at a solid second place.

I love the empanadas! The service is pretty average. Great spot to grab a quick bite and take it to go.

What a wonderful, delicious lunch my husband and I had. We are from Rhode Island and we would make weekly trips to Providence to find Latin food. So glad someone told us about this place. We left full and happy! Yum!!!

Not bad. I give this joint a solid 3 on the «Bandeja Paisa» scale.
I’ve never actually sat here and had a meal, but I’ve had take-​out 3 times. The flavors are solid, and they include everything that should be in a bandeja paisa. Rice, steak, beans, choriza, pork belly and an egg. Where they fall short though is with the steak and chorizo flavor. Also, their arepas are just too thick for my liking. It’s not bad, by any means though, but it falls short when compared to some of the other spots over on the Colombian corridor. However, it’s not far from home, and in fact, it’s probably the best T&C has to offer.

Went here to grab takeout on our way to visit friends. We ordered a chicken dish and some type of flat steak. Both dishes were very cooked to order, and were healthy portions. There was so much that we had an entire chicken breast left over. One dish came with rice and beans, and the other came with french fries and beans.
The prices are very reasonable. I have no comment on the «dine in» service as we only went in to pick up our order however, when we ordered via phone the staff was pleasant, the order was ready when they said it would be, and the order was 100% accurate.
Great place, great food, reasonable prices, what else can one ask for? We’ll definitely give this place a try when we’re in the neighborhood agin.

Soup was COLD and salad was dry! Friendly staff otherwise. Price not bad for lunch. Place was packed.

This place has become my go to restaurant when I am craving some great Colombian food. I have been coming here for over a year and I plan to keep coming back. Carne encebollado is the best.

I love this place.
Very family friendly. I would go for the soups which are awesome! The grilled chicken is amazing and if you like blood sausage the morcilla definitely does not suck. I really do like the skirt steak as well! Either way go there and fill your face you will not be disappointed!

Whenever I go to Tampa I have to try something different. See, being from SoCal you get your fill of Mexican food from various regions but food from other Latin countries is lacking. So when my coworker suggested Colombian food I was all for it. He didn’t have to ask me twice at all!
We walked in and it looked exactly how I expected it to look. Just tables and chairs with some pictures on the walls. It definitely wasn’t fancy. Our server came over to take our orders and she was more comfortable speaking in Spanish. I tried to speak the Spanish I remembered from jr. high and high school, but alas, I had to do the point to the menu routine. I ordered the chicken chicharron and it was amazing and delicious. I mean it basically is chicken fat and thighs deep fried to kinda resemble nuggets. It’s definitely something you shouldn’t eat regularly. I just felt my arteries clog as I ate but it was worth it. The rice it came with was perfectly cooked and seasoned and the plantains were amazing. On the downside, my coworker ordered an avocado on the side and it was soooo sad looking. Just brown all over the place. You could tell the server was a little embarrassed to bring it out but he asked for it so he got it.
I’d go back here again. The menu is huge and there’s so much for me to try!

A very good, quaint, delicious Colombian restaurant in the area. While be it a Colombian restaurant, the Mofongo is amazing! Today we had both the shrimp and the pork Mofongo. The steak there are just as good. The Jugo, fantastic!
I highly recommend this place. The staff is always really friendly too. The portions are huge, if that fits your fancy!

Customer service is lacking, owner’s daughter is rude and disrespectful to her customers, last time we come to this place.

So, I was telling the guys at work about this lil argentine restaurant in Ybor called El Puerto, and how good it is. One of the guys lives really close to me and asked if I’d been to Mi Bandera. He’s Puerto Rican, and raved about it so I gave it a shot.
Now I’m pissed off that I have lived here for 5 years, and only JUST NOW found it.
I have driven by this place a thousand times and never really gave it a second thought. It’s way bigger on the inside than you would think. All the waitresses mistaked me as Latin (happens all the time… I’m half Chinese…) but switched to fluent English for me. The menu is in Spanish and English so you don’t have to ask for a special menu. They were VERY friendly and helped me make my selection. I got the Bandera paisa. DELICIOUS! And the portions are HUGE!
It comes with a grilled steak, pork skin, chorizo sausage, ripe plantains, white rice and beans, a corn cake, and a fried egg on top of the rice.
I can’t say enough about the place. Try it and you won’t be disappointed. They have oxtail soup on Sundays, so I know where I’ll be next Sunday. I love oxtail soup.
They also have a seafood paella for $ 17 that’s definitely on the list too.
the only reason it’s not getting 5 stars is because it’s not a fancy restaurant. The food and service are 5 star in my opinion.

I love this place! Some of the best Latin cuisine in the area, and some of the best Columbian food I’ve ever had.
There has never been a time that I haven’t taken food home. You get so much food for the money. The staff is friendly and there’s plenty of room to meet with a larger group.
Everything I’ve eaten, from the chicken dishes to the steak dishes to yellow rice and beans has been delicious. Not to mention, they have amazing empanadas.

Me gusto mucho. Mi Bandera has become a regular venue for my Sundays. I mainly come here for Sunday’s Soup which is Oxtail soup. It has a wonderful flavor with meet that falls off the bones. The soup also has plantain and Potatoes which I’ve gotten used to. The ½ chicken which I order to go on most days can be a tad dry but pretty good.
I was a little confused the first time I came here because no one tells you where to sit. Then about a minute later one of the waitress will tell you to sit anywhere. Sorrt… my mistake as an amateur. The ambiance at the restaurant is open and free. The restaurant is laid out in a wide open space with bustling waitresses who speak with wonderful exotic accents. And, they are very attentive to you needs, you just have to call them sometime «oye por favor».
Hope the oxtail soup Sundays never change.

In full disclosure this was my first Colombian dining experience and what a delightful experience it was. I have driven my this establishment many times and never given it a second thought, till I read a Unilocal review by someone, who’s palate I respect, so here I am. It is a large dining room, once you enter the restaurant and many tables were full with patrons enjoying their meals.
I tentatively approach the counter with the big chalkboard above it and have no idea what is coming next. I was greeted by a very friendly waitress speaking Colombian, I knew I was doomed. I responded 1 word «English». At that point another woman joined the first and both spoke great English. They explained different items to me and as the menu was also in Colombian they assisted me in picking out what I wanted to order.
Wow, the hard part was over or so I thought. The ordering had gone great and I was just waiting for my food. The 2 women, one of which I think is an owner kept an eye on me and reassured me my food would be ready very soon. I had ordered Bandeja Paisa platter with: grilled beef, pork rinds, Spanish sausage, eggs, plantains, rice, beans and corn cake for $ 9.99!
When the server brought my platter of food, yes I said platter, she watched for my reaction. Well it was a first, it was a lot of food and it looked delicious, she asked if it was okay, honestly I wouldn’t have know the difference, but couldn’t wait to dig in.
The egg was on top off my rice and that seemed odd from an American perspective, so I moved it on top of my corn cake. I tasted the corn cake and it really had no flavor, so I thought I would use it kind of like toast under the egg. The platter was full and there was no place to put the egg by itself.
The grilled beef was a very large piece of beef, pounded thin and then grilled with perfect seasoning, it can only be cooked well done, due to being pounded thin and it was very tender. The pork rind literally blew my mind and also made me chuckle to myself. It is about a foot long and is the rind end of a slab of bacon. There is about a ¼ inch of fat next to the rind, then it comes up into little fingers of bacon and it is golden brown and deep fried. This is absolutely nothing like the pork rinds, we Americans buy in a bag! This is artery stoppage gluttony, at its best. I gingerly cut into the smallest finger and separated it from the rind and paced it in my mouth, with no idea what to expect. It had the fat taste of bacon, but not a greasy cooked taste. Many restaurants fry our bacon in deep fryers to insure it is crispy, we are just not privy to this information. Okay I like and could possibly love fried pork, remember this is a first for me, so please allow me to get my feet wet with this great Colombian food.
When I know from the start I can’t finish the enormous amount of food placed in front of me, my mind automatically goes to what will reheat best as leftovers, so I kept this thought in the back of my mind as I discovered and enjoyed my dinner.
The egg was cooked perfect sunny side up and I ate it on the corn cake, have to admit the corn cake did nothing for me personally. Oh the Spanish sausage, so yummy! The flavor was spicy, but not overpowering and it was not greasy or oily tasting, no this was not going to make it home, this had to be finished. The plantains were cooked perfectly and were sweet and delish. The rice was a huge portion, not sticky, perfectly cooked white rice and the larger red beans were in a separate bowl, they were seasoned and cooked perfectly. I made a well in the center of my rice and poured the beans into my rice. I was given 2, I believe homemade hot sauces 1 green and 1 red, I tentatively tasted each. In Mexican food, you usually have to watch the green sauces for their heat, it was the opposite at Mi Bandera. I added 2 of the little cups of red hot sauce to my rice and bean mixture and did not have to worry about any sinus problems, LOL.
What can I say about this meal? It was prepared with passion and cooked and seasoned perfectly. I got much more food than I deserved for my dollar and more than enough for another meal, in the people bag I took home.
This restaurant is sparkling clean, friendly, a foodie paradise and a bargain, how can you go wrong? Yes, that was a YES I will be back.
What’s a girl to do? This year I am testing and expanding my palate and this was a great addition.

I would like to apologize in advance for the mooing sounds that you are hearing in the background as you read this review. That would be me… and I am currently laying on my sofa, doing my best impersonation of a beached whale after eating dinner at Mi Bandera Colombian restaurant on Hillsborough Avenue in Town & Country.
Mi Bandera is tucked into a little ethnic strip mall along Hillsborough in between Hanley and Webb Roads, not far from the Korean favorite, Rice Market and Restaurant. This is one of the better homestyle Colombian restaurants in town, and it is very popular with the local Latin community.
Since it was a cold and rainy night in Tampa, I was in the mood for a nice warm bowl of soup. I remembered that a friend had raved about the homemade soups at Mi Bandera, and so it was time to set off for another culinary adventure.
The restaurant is spacious and very clean with both counter seating and 4-​top tables around the room. They did a brisk carryout business while I was in there this evening, and the waitresses were happily chattering away with their regular clients.
My waitress brought me their menu which is filled with every imaginable form of Colombian cuisine from arepas and other appetizers, to the homemade soups, to sandwiches, and the chicken dishes, and the beef dishes, and the pork dishes (these are all about $ 10 or less), and the mixed grilled platters (between $ 15 and $ 20). All sorts of side dishes and desserts as well. It’s a very extensive menu with English translations and lots of pictures. She also pointed out the whiteboard with all of their daily specials, and she gave me lots of great suggestions when my Spanish got a bit shaky.
I ordered a bowl of their homemade chicken soup which was spectacular with lots of rough-​chopped chicken meat swimming in a hearty broth along with homemade egg noodles. Very warm and delicious, and it sure took the edge off of a chilly evening. I decided to order an entrée to take home for tomorrow night, but mistakenly forget to mention the words «To Go» and so the Bandeja Paisa (mixed grill platter) showed up on my table a short while later.
This monstrosity of a plate included a big ol’ honkin’ Churrasco seasoned skirt steak, a scoop of white rice with an over-​easy fried egg on top, chicharrón (fried pork rinds), chorizo sausage, fried plantain, a corn arepa, a dish of red beans cooked with pork, and some serious kick-​ya-​butt homemade hot sauce. Well gee, I guess I should be polite and take a few bites, right? I made it through the egg & rice, and part of the beans before I called her over and begged for a to-​go container. Honestly there is enough food here for two more meals!
She packaged everything up, and even included another scoop of rice as well as a side container of beans, and a bunch of the hot sauce since she saw me using it on my food. The grand total for the soup and the Bandeja Paisa was just under $ 20, and I have a ton of food to last me another day or two.
If you like Colombian food but don’t feel like driving clear to Armenia Avenue, then this NW Hillsborough restaurant would be perfect for you. Delicious ethnic comfort food with great prices!
And now please pardon me as I go in search of some «plop plop. fizz fizz» action!

Get ready to strap on the feed bag, because Mi Banera dishes up a serious Colombian MEAT PARTY of ridiculous proportions. Cow and pig meats in various forms of hammered then, chopped’n’screwed, and encrusted, and incased in flaky-​starchy pouches. Heavy white ceramic platters of meat, covered in runny fried eggs, and served up with two different kinds of eye-​roll-​inducing house sauces— spicy red pepper sauce and green cilantro sauce.
The Mofongo here is also quite serious… seriously loaded with shards of pig pieces, packed with garlicky goodness. Waaaaay better than the other places around that even have Mofongo as their specialty dish.
The operation appears to run on a daily menu style cycle, with different specials noted on certain days. A hand-​scribbled board is also up front for other items. Take note that many of the regulars order the Empanada of the day along with either a fried platter (French fries, deep fried pork chunks, and fried hot dogs) or large bowl of soup.
I prefer to take the meat-​sweat approach and order the meat sampler platters, which there are many to choose from at various prices. The accompanying addictive rice is chewy, buttery, and salty perfection; while the meat stewed red bean soup is equally praise-​worthy.
They do not serve pandebonos, instead serving corn-​based breads like arepas. Arepa con Queso being my favorite.
Please don’t show up here like an a$$hole and ask for a wine list, it is embarrassing and I will take it personally. If you have to drink wine with every meal, then you have some issues and don’t need to burden others with your problems.
While the setting is very cafeteria-​like, there are no hot troughs of food served up in a line. This is a very casual neighborhood place, which is large enough even for a banquet or to have live music.
The parking lot is almost as ridiculous as the meat is delicious. There is more parking around back, but there will be curb parking and overflow into the adjacent neighborhood. Hell, maybe you are even better off parking at the Bravo across the street and walking over.
Here is an ROTD for you… you are welcome.