Ashlyn A.
Yelp
Tried this place for the first time last night! I'm a lover of good ole classic Mexican food. Driving up, the building reminds me of the staple places I'd find at home in the Florida panhandle. We were greeted promptly and chose a table outside on the covered patio. Every employee we encountered was so friendly! One thing we were missing was some nice Mexican tunes playing - a speaker on the patio would've been awesome.
We started with a strawberry margarita and a michelada. The restaurant only serves beer & wine, but I'm never too good for a wine-based marg. The salsa was delicious!! It was a little chunkier than I prefer, but nothing a little chopping with a tortilla chip can't fix. The flavor was perfect! Not too spicy but still a good kick of heat.
Without looking closely at the menu, we ordered queso, and it seems all they had was a queso fundido instead of a more sauce-like, runnier queso dip. The queso fundido was delicious, but just so filling because it's a lot thicker.
For entrees, we tried El Zarape with chicken and Bistec Tejano. The portions were huge! The chicken was grilled to perfection. I've been trying to try more foods and have come to love slow cooked bell peppers in ropa vieja, but I'm still not a huge fan of less cooked bell peppers - the ones in the dish were just a little too crunchy for me, but my boyfriend will surely devour them in the plenty of leftovers we brought home. Like the queso fundido, I wish I the melted cheese on top of the dish was more liquidy-queso-like. Still really good though!
The Bistec Tejano good was a little tough - we thought it would be a thinner, skirt-like cut, but it was more of New York strip. Totally our fault for not reading closer, but we should've ordered it to be cooked at a lower temp. The rice and beans with both entrees were nice and classic.
Overall, we really enjoyed trying a new spot without the frills you find as you get closer to Miami proper. We will certainly return to try more of their offerings!