Whatever doubts the Casual Restaurant Critic had as to the impression received from his first visit, these were dispelled by a recent second attempt. Again, the service was lackluster, the food – salmon sashimi, some rolls – was good but not excellent and the overall experience was, in a word, eeeh.
Or is it ehh. You know the sound you make, lifting up a corner of your mouth and shrugging your shoulder as if to say ‘whatever’.
That’s it!
Whatever.
There is a new place to eat in the Gran Plaza (actually, there are several new ones, but the Critic has a limited budget and who wants to spend it all on mall food, even if it is for research) called Cuban Grill, specializing in, you guessed it, Cuban food.
Tired of Win Fa (reviewed earlier on this site) the Critic and his Mini Critic visited the Cuban Grill for lunch the other day. What was found was a rather un-Cuban employee who stared back at the Critic with boredom, then offered some samples. Un-Cuban because you imagine a Cuban to be a little more lively. It was rather disconcerting to receive, from the naked hand of this sallow-faced employee, samples of their dishes placed precariously on toasted banana chips. Who knows where those hands have been…
They have Congrí, the traditional black beans and rice (or rice with black beans, depending on your point of view), which in this case is rather tasteless. The Critic had this, along with the garbanzo beans fried with chicken or pork, the Critic was unable to tell, and the afore-mentioned banana chips. The employee took great care to accommodate it all on an optimistically over sized Styrofoam platter, spreading the garbanzo dish carefully like peanut butter to make sure it covered the area it was supposed to and looked like more than it actually was.
All in all, it was a lackluster choice; the garbanzo dish was quite simple, which means it didn’t really taste like much and the rice n beans was no better. That, and the lackluster attention received from the fellow behind the counter, made for a truly unspectacular lunch. The price? Under $40.00 for one person, which includes a can of soda.
From 1 – 5, this new place receives a solid 1. A waste of time, calories and money.
There is a new taqueria in town, El Fogoncito, and it is yet another chain from Mexico City. They have a few locations around town and their newest one, the most ambitious in terms of actual real estate occupied is located at the entrance to the brand-smacking new Altabrisa Mall, located in, um, Altabrisa.
For those of you not from the area, Altabrisa is the newest area to be developed commercially in Merida, and it’s all new. There’s some higher end residential areas, the Altabrisa Mall built by the Gran Plaza people, the Star Medica hospital, the huge IMSS hospital and more. Car dealerships have all built spectacular outlets along the Altabrisa route, which is the street that winds its way from Plaza Fiesta (remember that mall!!?!?!) to the periférico and eventually Cholul.
A lunch at the Fogoncito on opening day left much to be desired. While the tacos are good, they are tacos and you can get a great taco anywhere, really. The ‘chiste‘ or what makes or breaks a taco place, is the service, the salsas and the location. Here the Fogoncito, on their first day open, fell flat on their face. Service was spotty, with one section of the table (there were 10 people) getting their food order taken and actually getting their food before the other half even got the waiter’s attention. The food came out in spurts (sounds disgusting, sorry) and everyone got something different from what they ordered which turned out to be a simple case of the wrong dish for the wrong person. Once that was cleared up, everyone got what they ordered. Wait staff (lots of different people) came and went, reaching across people to pick up dirty dishes and used paper napkins, setting down drinks beside the coaster that was waiting for the glass to be set on it. Much confusion all around in spite of the fact that there were about 30 to 40 wait staff people in the whole restaurant; it seemed that only 3 or 4 actually had any training before the doors opened.
The salsas? Completely unremarkable, most tasted like something you might get by opening a bottle or a tin. The food was alright, nothing to really write home about. The Critic had a selection of tacos on a platter, all of which were fine, but again, nothing special. The grilled cheese (a crispy flat roll – it’s supposed to be that way) served as an appetizer was indeed crispy but besides salty, devoid of flavor. The guacamole was good but some of the tortilla chips were soft, and mixed in with others that were crisp, which makes one suspect all kinds of unpleasant things involving leftover tortillas chips and… Soft tortilla chips is a deal breaker in a taco place. I mean, really.
One thing that the Critic found really delicious was the horchata. Served with ice and with cinnammon sprinkled on top, it was, ITCHO (in the Critic’s Humble Opinion) the perfect consistency and flavor.
On a scale of 1-5, the Fogoncito, this one at least, gets a 2. Don’t bother wasting your time, calories or pesos here just yet. Let’s wait a few months and see if things improve.
A newer option for a quick lunch at the mall is Las Gordas de Doña Gorda, which recently opened in the space formerly occupied by Crazy Pizza. That place served pizza that was so crazy that they didn’t sell enough to warrant paying such a high overhead.
Anyway, if you are not familiar with the concept of gordas or gorditas, a word usually used to affectionately describe the wife (it means chubby, fatty and really is a term of endearment here), these are fat corn tortillas, cut in half, heated on a grill and then split so that they are hollow and can be stuffed. Fillings include things like cheese and roasted poblano chile strips, chorizo and potato, pork etc. The success or not of your gordita eating experience depends on who cooked those fillings and their degree of proficiency in making them extremely tasty.
The gordas in the mall are good, without reaching mouthgasm inducing levels of lip-smacking goodness. What makes them attractive is that they are very cheap. At about 10 pesos a pop, you can eat 3 or 4 of these and be very satisfied. Beware that the chile salsas that accompany the gordas are hot and that, in combination with the fact that the fillings are pre-cooked and kept at room temperature while they wait to be stuffed into the corn tortilla, can make your stomach have a violent reaction between 12 and 24 hours later.
Open during regular mall hours, from 10 am to 9 pm, next to Burger King in the food court on the second level of the Gran Plaza.
Sushi has, in the past few years, become very popular among Yucatecans and Mérida now boasts several restaurants catering to fans of Japanese food. The one caveat you should be aware of is that the predominant feature of Yucatecan sushi is not so much fish as it is cream cheese. The newly opened Sushi Itto, a chain restaurant based in central Mexico, is no exception.
Located on the Prolongacion de Montejo, in a space formerly occupied by a tanning salon that for some strange reason didn’t take, Sushi Itto is a modern-looking minimalist room with high ceilings and lots of red and black.
The sushi here is a hybrid and has been extremely successful throughout Mexico, mixing traditional japanese preparation methods and ingredients with food items more readily identifiable as Mexican, like chiles, arracheras and the like.
The Casual Restaurant Critic went for lunch on a warm day, shortly after their opening, and found the restaurant full, even with no air conditioning (it was apparently experiencing some malfunction). The Critic and Co. tried some of their signature dishes whose names escape him at the moment, but one of them was a roll with beef arrachera which unfortunately featured a large piece of unchewable gristle.
Portions were medium sized, not particularly large or small. The soya sauce is the kind mixed with lemon juice so you will have to ask for ‘normal’ soya if you don’t like the sour kind. The food was tasty, but the Critic didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Nothing special.
The service was, as usual for Mérida, average at best. Managers strolled about imperiously; interacting with the clients was obviously not part of their mandate.
Would the Critic return? Not any time soon, nothing stands out that would make a return trip likely or desireable.
On a scale of 1 – 5, this Itto gets a 3. Take it or leave it.
Don’t bother with the restaurant at the Club Med’s hotel at the Uxmal ruins! This is the advice of the Casual Restaurant Critic after a visit a few days ago to the great Mayan ruins.
With a small group of people, the Critic figured – based on a positive past experience and the fact that a French-run restaurant catering to a demanding European clientèle must have decent food – that the best lunch would be at the Club Med’s “Villas Arqueologicas”. Well, the Critic was wrong.
The small group of four ordered plain spaghetti, (without the Bolognese sauce as described on the menu), avocado with shrimp, guacamole, a Spanish omelette without chorizo for the group vegetarian and a Caesar salad. The shrimp served in an avocado was apparently very good (the Critic didn’t partake since it wasn’t a large dish for sharing), the guacamole fresh and tasty, but the Caesar salad was an absolute mess. Little bits of white Iceberg lettuce instead of green Romaine, flattened in the center of a small plate, and garnished with toasted bread triangles and boiled egg quarters around the edge. The Critic didn’t recognize anything even remotely Caesar about this salad. The omelette was alright and the plain spaghetti was garnished with chopped parsely and had to be sent back to have the offending vegetable removed, since what was wanted was plain spaghetti, no more, no less. Not a difficult request, really. The most offensive platter was the Critic’s own, the Poc Chuc. A piece of marinated pork slathered in red achiote sauce, served with the typical scoop of overcooked white rice, a dollop of black beans with some rubbery (not crunchy but rather, flexible) corn tostadas, soggy boiled vegetables and some salsa. This Poc Chuc was unlike any the Critic had ever eaten. Only the meat was really edible.
As for service, it seemed like the waiters were on Valium or something; they moved, talked and reacted as if sedated. Not particularly friendly, they seemed almost unable or unwilling to understand the Critic who was doing the ordering for the group. The Critic has lived in the Yucatan for 20 years and has quite passable Spanish, but from time to time, in out of the way places far from the city of Merida, this tends to happen a lot. It’s almost like some of the locals don’t coordinate what they are seeing (a blond Canadian) with what they are hearing (Yucatecan accented Spanish). At least this it the theory the Critic’s Better Half proffered on one such occasion. The tortillas never arrived. The question “son hechas a mano” (are they made by hand) had to be repeated three times, each time slower than before, in order to be understood.
As for the restaurant itself, it’s OK. There was no option for air conditioning, and so the group sat near the tiny pool under a fan, which was alright.
The restaurant gets a score of 2 out of 5. Don’t bother; try some of the other offerings.
A week or two ago, the Casual Restaurant Critic had the opportunity to visit, along with his better half and another happy couple, Villa Italia after a long hiatus. The first visit to Villa Italia many moons ago resulted in a poor rating for the Villa, when the staff was beyond indifferent and the food was, as the kids here say these days, “equis” which means it was just whatever.
On this occasion, there was an actual hostess and the group had the pleasure of having a friendly, proficient waiter. The restaurant itself has undergone several renovations, featuring a semi-enclosed area near the street and large additional rooms in the back. Villa Italia has had staying power over the many years it has been on the Merida restaurant scene, and all this renovation proves the point.
The waiter suggested to the Critic that he try one of the daily specials, which was rabbit. Since one can’t eat rabbit in Merida every day, the Critic decided against the pasta winking at him from the menu opted for the bunny. Seasoned, grilled and served with real vegetables and some grilled potatoes, it was a little on the dry side but very flavorful and something different for a change. Others in the party had salads and pastas, all of which looked and (according to them) tasted very good. Presentation was good; perhaps the table was a little small for 4 people.
While there was really nothing to write off as positively negative (!) and the Critic and Party enjoyed the experience, Villa Italia remains in a strange kind of gastronomic limbo in that it is not so unbelievably good that it’s worth raving about, nor is it so absolutely awful that it is worth trashing. Perhaps another visit is in order to try the pastas.
Take it or leave it. From one to five, the Villa gets, from this Critic, a 3.
If there is one thing the Critic likes, it is his Yucatecan food. And so, along with his better half, he visited once again the Yucatecan La Tradicion, where chef David Cetina whips up authentic and non-pretentious cuisine from Yucatecan family recipes.
As in the last visit, the food this time around was absolutely wonderful; scrumptious queso relleno, hearty lomitos de valladolid, classic papadzules and crispy/chewy well seasoned longaniza. The Critic cannot find a flaw with the food.
The excellent service, such a rarity in Merida, was friendly, efficient and fast.
In fact, the only miniscule detail in detriment to the restaurant’s rating, were the saucers (think cups and saucers) placed on the table as side dishes, but this is so common that the Critic has almost given up on this niggling detail.
The Casual Restaurant Critic maintains La Tradicion at a solid 4.5 out of 5.
Last week, Critic and some guests had a late (3:30pm) lunch at the Flamingos seafood restaurant, located on the malecón in Progreso.
The restaurant, a large room with an open kitchen and a view to the Gulf of Mexico was packed with locals, a lot of them sporting nametags which seemed to indicate that they were with some sort of convention or at least on company business. The Critic mentions this only to give the reader a better picture of what was happening, since the service was rushed and slow at the same time, if you get the idea. Rushed in that the waiter almost bounced while taking the order and slow in that it took him forever to get there in the first place.
The Critic’s group heartily approved the frozen margaritas and piña coladas and ordered several to make sure that it wasn’t a fluke. Apparently it wasn’t. Along with the drinks came the requisite mini-servings of botana (snacks) which accompany every round of drinks in every restaurant on the Yucatan coast. At Flamingos, these were the hard corn chips, refried beans, ceviche, sikil-pak (pumpkin seed, roast tomato, cilantro paste for dipping) and fresh cut jicama strips with lemon squeezed on top and a dash of chile powder.
As for food, the Critic had a small ‘back to life’ mixed seafood cocktail, which was good but by no means an OMG moment; the rest of the group had San Francisco shrimp, featuring melted cheese on top – which by the looks of the clean plates were delicious – and Shrimp in Normanda’ sauce, which was a white sauce, again with melted cheese as well as onions, bacon and other goodies in addition to the shrimp. Both plates were served with white rice and some steamed vegetables of the local variety. `
Only one person in the party had room for the desserts and ordered bananas flambé; one banana, split down the middle and served in its skin, flamed in liquors but not at the table which was a little bit dissappointing since some sort of show was expected but then it was just brought out. Maybe at night, when the setting is a little more laid back, they actually flame them tableside? The Critic doubts it since this requires a little more training in the waiter department and some sort of little cart and other utensils that were nowhere in sight.
Overall impression? Ehh. Nothing particularly wonderful. On a scale of 1-5, this is a middle of the road 3.
The other day, the Critic was invited to Valladolid to have lunch with friends. The restaurant chosen is the oldest restaurant in Valladolid, and it’s a mouthful in itself: San Bernadino de Sierna de Don Juanito.
Apparently Don Juanito is now in his 70’s and the Critic didn’t have a chance to meet him, but did get a glimpse of his shotgun hanging on the wall, as well as a photograph of him carving up a roast pig on one occasion when the restaurant, still twice the size it is now, was filled with 2,000 people. The waiter informed the Critic’s party of this fact; no historical sources were researched to authenticate this nugget of information. 2,000 people does seem like a lot… Also, the Critic’s party members were intrigued by the stuffed ‘pavo de monte’, a pheasant like bird common to the Yucatan at some point, in an unlit glass case in one dark corner. The Critic suggested perhaps it was some offering to coincide with the Day of the Dead celebrations coming up, but the waiter informed everyone that the owner had shot this bird many many years ago and then had it stuffed.
The menu is ample and there is probably something for everyone. The Critic’s party however, came for the Yucatecan food and for this hungry party of 5, the waiter suggested bringing out plates of all the Yucatecan dishes on the menu (there weren’t that many after all, and the Critic’s favorite, queso relleno, was reserved for Sundays only) and this was agreed on.
So, after getting plates, cutlery wrapped in a paper napkin and some watery agua de lima (lime water) with ice, the dishes arrived. The papadzules, soft corn tortillas stuffed with egg and covered with pumpkin seed sauce and tomato sauce, were delicious as was the brazo de reina, a corn masa loaf made with chaya (spinach-like vegetable very common in Yucatecan back yards) and also served with the previously mentioned sauces. The lomitos de Valladolid (small pork chunks cooked in a tomato-y sauce and seasoned to perfection were very good, while the poc chuc – a marinated and very flat strip of pork – was extremely tasty but unfortunately also cooked to the point of shoe leather. Cochinita pibil and it’s feathered cousin, pollo pibil, which is essentially the meat seasoned with annato seed paste among other things and baked in banana leaves in underground pits, were also quite good, with the chicken getting mixed reviews from the others in the party. The Critic’s personal favorite was the longaniza, the chorizo like sausage Valladolid is known for. Fried, it was crispy crunchy on the outside and smoky and flavorful on the inside. Wonderful in a hot tortilla all by itself with a dash of habanero chile salsa on top for an extra kick
A big disappointment were the tortillas, which arrived luke-warm and had to be sent back to be nuked in a microwave. Also, they were not hand made, but rather the assembly line stamped by a machine variety which are so common these days.
After dinner Xtabentun, a local liquor, was not available, since they had “just run out.”
The service was excellent, the waiter most attentive and informative without being overly familiar as is occasionally the case when Mexican waiters are dealing with tourists.
Bathrooms are in pretty bad shape, considering that this is supposed to be a tourist town. They are not clean and there is no place for garbage as in paper towels when you have dried your hands. The toilets are of the hover variety, which means they haven’t bought toilet seats so you have a choice of hovering or placing the delicate white skin of your buttocks directly on the unwashed porcelain. There is no flushing of toilets with paper permitted; the standard battered plastic bucket with used toilet tissue from previous visitors stands at the ready, presumably waiting for you to finish hovering. The soap dispenser, on the other hand, is electrically motivated, completely at odds with the rest of the ‘ambience’ and will make you jump when you place your hand under the dispenser and a light comes on, a motor whirrs and liquid soap squirts into your hand.
This restaurant is not bad, but has deteriorated since the Critic last visited it. What is needed is a thorough cleaning and revamping of the building itself with a special emphasis on the bathrooms since this will gross most people out. The menu is not bad but tries to cover too much ground and should be whittled down to emphasize the Yucatecan dishes; in addition, the Critic would capitalize on the fact that if it is indeed the oldest in Valladolid, the restaurant is practically a historical site and should be promoted along with the story of the owner.
And they might want to think about buying another bottle of Xtabentun.
SAN BERNARDO DE SIERNA DE DON JUANITO
CALLE 49 #227 X 48 Y 50 BARRIO DE SISAL
(985) 856 46 53
Rating? On a scale of 1-5, this restaurant currently gets a 2.