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Review content:
My girlfriend (who is from Mexico) and I read about this new restaurant and decided to give it a try. When we got there, we were very excited about what we saw. Very cozy atmosphere, great setup, and a very nice (although small) patio outside. It feels like a great place to meet friend for conversation and drinks. In fact, the drinks are amazing! Try the tamarindo margarita, it is awesome! However, the fun stops right there. People, this is NOT authentic Mexican food. In fact, this is more like an attempt for contemporary (or nuevo) Mexican cuisine, which means they mess up with the original recipes to create new flavors, that falls well short of expectations. Killing centuries-old recipes like that should be a crime. We ordered a shrimp ceviche which actually tasted sweet rather than tangy (from the lime juice that needs to be used on the recipe). For Mexicans, this tasted and looked more like a cold caldo rather than ceviche. You could barely see the shrimp in the dish as well. We also ordered a black bean soup, which was actually pretty decent (chipotle based). For our main course, we ordered empanadas de platano (plantain empanadas, actually an appetizer) and tamales. The tamales tasted very bland since they used cornmeal rather than corn flour. Also, we were told that the meat was very spicy, almost a 9 on a scale of 10. Not even close. It was more like a 4 out of 10. The meat didn't have any flavor either. The empanadas were very small and there were only three (for a plate that costs $10.50). They were drenched in a tomato based sauce that made it taste more Italian than Mexican, and the empanadas were also very thin and you could barely taste the plantain. Overall, I would give the restaurant 5 stars for drinks, atmosphere, and service, but ultimately a restaurant is graded by its food (I can get drinks and atmosphere at any Pearl District bar). The place has a lot of potential, but they still need some more practice at the kitchen. Salud!
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