Steph H.
Yelp
STEPH JUDGEMENT: Excellent elevated Mexican food and drinks with good service--for a price.
My friends Dan H and Maggie G wanted to check out this fancy sit-down restaurant within the Mercado Gonzalez and I was game to join them! We made reservations for 6:30 pm on a Friday night (they ask for a credit card and will charge you $20 for cancellation) and arrived a bit early and got promptly seated. The dining room is cozy, with a long bar on one side and the glassed-in kitchen visible on the other, with smallish round tables between. The ambiance is modern but warm, with rich brown tones throughout. The dining room never got filled to capacity while we were there, which made for a lively but not crazy-loud experience. I have a feeling it gets more crowded as the night goes on (after the old folks have gone, lol).
We were ready to wet our whistles and I ordered their Clean Martini (indeed very clean-tasting, with cute little cubes of pickled nopales as garnish), and the others ordered the Mexican Firing Squad cocktail and a glass of red wine from Baja with "bastardo" in the name--we all enjoyed our drinks.
For food, we shared:
- PESCADILLA (Fried corn empanada smoked tuna sofrito, sour cream, lime sauce) delicately crunchy and plump--definitely dab on the accompanying lime jalapeno sauce and crema for full effect.
- AGUACHILE NEGRO (Blue shrimp, recaudo negro, lime, onion, cucumber, avocado) 6 plump shrimps in an amazing negro sauce--spicy!
- PULPO ENCACAHUATADO (Octopus, peanut red mole, Mexican squash) Amazingly tender octopus and delectable sauce served with warm corn tortillas--excellent.
- PANUCHOS (Fried tortilla, cochinita pibil, refried beans, pickled onions with habanero chili) I opted not to partake in this dish, as it has pork, but my friends liked it
- TRES LECHES DE CARAJILLO (Moist milk cake, Licor 43, coffee) The server poured the coffee liqueur over the cake after bringing it to the table. We were all blown away by how good this was, and asked for spoons so we could scoop up the sauce not absorbed by the cake.
The service was solicitous throughout, with a main server attending to most of our needs, but some other servers coming over for some other things and causing a bit of confusion at times. They seemed like they were still working things out on this end, but overall we thought it was fine. The chef came out to ask us how things were, and seemed genuinely touched when we expressed how much we were enjoying ourselves. It's a little spendy, but we felt it was a good value for the quality and portions, which were decent for a higher-end restaurant. My friends and I agreed that we'd be down to return for another special treat night out.