It seems that in the last month we went to more restaurants than we have been in the last 3 years. As mentioned yesterday we went to eat some goat with the in-laws at a restaurant about 20 minutes from home, when there is not traffic. The place is called ‘La Ribera’ and it is located in the Colonia Doctores, on Avenida Cuauhtemoc. It has a reputation of being the best place in town for goat, and I have a feeling that the reputation is somewhat overrated, but since I have not had any other goat in town I have no real way to corroborate this.

The place is a nice large dining room and has the typical atmosphere of these kinds of places in Mexico, which means it is full of activity and noisy. Only part of the family showed up as Normita’s older brother could not make it as he was out of town. Both her parents were there and Normita’s younger sister, Marce, with her new husband and her two young kids. There is a varied menu of typical Mexican dishes, but the baby goat (cabrito) is the house’s specialty. Since this was the reason to be there, everybody had the cabrito, and most people opted for the leg (pierna), which would be the lower leg, but the lower leg bone was bare and the meaty part was actually the thigh, so I’m not sure why they called it like that.

The place was somewhat busy and there was a huge number of waiting staff, but despite that the service was slow and uneven. We waited a lot for the different course, and yet again at the end of the meal for the bill. The main course of goat comes with a bowl of shrimp broth as starters. The broth was flavorful, with a strong shrimp taste as it was made with dried shrimps. The consensus of the table was that it was too spicy, and I agree with that. I am not crazy about dried shrimps, as they can be overpowering, and they are so much a pain to eat that I preferred to leave them in the bowl and just eat the broth. It was a bit overpowering as the only thing that we had to drink at the time was tequila, as they took about half an hour to bring us the mineral water we had ordered.

The cabrito was accompanied with a small dish of grilled onions and jalapeños, and a small dish of guacamole per two people, and was simply a plate with the small leg, a chunk of shoulder, and half a baby goat’s head for the brain and tongue. There was no side dish to be had, but at least for me the leg was very juicy and tender. The guacamole was simply crushed unseasoned avocado, thus really not guacamole, and some of the batches we had were probably leftovers from the day before as it tasted stale. There was some ‘salsa roja’ that was served with the bread, but it was very liquid and flavorless. The plates were accompanied by small corn and flour tortillas to make tacos, but without any decent condiment to put in them they were really bland. My plate was luckily very nice and moist, but the meat was disapointingly devoid of any taste and seasoning. Normita’s was dry and not as tender, but she mentioned that there was a hint of garlic taste to the meat, which would have been welcome to mine.

While we were in the middle of the meal a decent Mariachi band started playing, but in a crowded busy room the noise level was deafening. Luckily they were good, but I ended up with a bad headache soon after they started. Even the kids thought it was too loud, so you can appreciate the noise level. After the Mariachis finished their show, as we were leaving, there was a magic show for the kids that was starting at a little stage by the entrance.

Overall the place is typically Mexican in both atmosphere and food, but we found the food overpriced, and the drinks definitely so. The service was uneven and very slow. The goat, that was supposed to be their specialty, was disappointing and boringly served with no side dish, and I would only recommend this restaurant for people visiting town who want to have an idea of what a typical local restaurant can be, but that in itself is not a recommendation. On Sunday afternoons the place is booming with local families on their weekly restaurant meal, and during the week I hear that there are a lot of regulars going there to play dominos. For people who want to eat goat I will try to find a better place, and also to try to find a better restaurant of that type to recommend, as I cannot give it a recommendation.

Lucito

A few months back I had a bet going with Normita about something that I have totally forgotten about, and the loser was supposed to buy a nice restaurant meal for the other. I thought that I had fulfilled my duties last week, but it seems that the meal’s absolute fiasco did not comply with the nice meal part of the deal. This morning we went to see a movie at the World Trade Center (WTC) here in Mexico City, which happens to be about 5 minutes walk from home. The movie was a long one, and before someone asks it was Da Vinci’s Code, which was exactly like the book, very long, slow paced and boring. At least Normita somewhat enjoyed it despite the excessive length, but I think that they could have cut about an hour from it and made a better, tighter movie. I also had problems with the casting of the film as I always feel like Tom Hanks plays only one character, himself, in every movie he stars in. I did enjoy Ian McKellen’s portrayal of Sir Leigh Teabing, and thought that they underused Jean Reno one of my favorite actors, but this is not a movie review, so let’s move to other things…

On the way out, since the movie was so long, we both were starting to feel hungry and since the chicken that was defrosting in the refrigerator was sure not to be ready to cook for some more hours, we decided to look around for a place to eat. Since I still owed Normita that meal, we decided to try a new Italian restaurant that is located in the Crowne Plaza hotel next door to the WTC. A few clients she had sent there had reported that the restaurant was both good and inexpensive, so it was worth a try.

The hotel has only recently opened so the restaurant is a new operation. The decor is open and airy and the ambiance relaxed. At what would have been a busy lunchtime for locals (2pm), the place was mainly empty as the hotel caters to foreigner here on business. The service was attentive, but somewhat disorganized. I think that the newness of the restaurant was showing, and the waiter mentioned that he was very new in a very new restaurant so we will have to try again in a few months to see if the place has improved.

We ordered our meal, with the starters being for Normita carpaccio of salmon and for me carpaccio de vitello, veal in Italian, but strangely translated in the menu to Spanish and English as beef, for the main course linguini al pesto for Normita and spaghetti carbonara for me. We wanted some wine with the meal, and they failed to bring a wine list, and when the first course arrived I inquired again about the wine list and they told us that they had Italian wines by the bottle, but no wine list, and also had unnamed Italian house wines by the glass at a fairly high price of ~$7, which I would have like to know exactly what I was buying at that price. We wanted to know what wines they had by the bottle, and they could not tell us for a good 10 minutes while our first course was waiting for us, because nobody had the key to the nice cellar at one end of the room.

This reminded me of another restaurant incident, again with the Padrino, in New York City at Windows on the Worlds at the other WTC, where they could not find the key to the storage room to bring us some cheese at the end of the meal and where the waiter also brought us a bottle of 1975 Gruaud Larose shaken not stirred, but that story will have to wait for another day…

Luckily during the time we were waiting we enjoyed some of their delicious bread, baked on the premises, with a nice salsa of olive oil, tomatoes, onions, and basil. Of course, when they finally managed to find the person with the key to the cellar, the whites were at room temperature, so since our first course had already been served for 15 minutes, we did not want to wait for the wine to cool down. We decided to look at the reds. The waiter brought 3 random bottles to the table and asked for a choice without telling us the prices. A few more minutes were wasted while he found a price list, and when the offering were in the $40-55 range, and I really had nothing to compare in price with a known value to assess if the price was fair, we decided to forego the wines entirely.

We started on our carpaccio and noticed that they did not bring us the usual thin toasts to eat it with. The waiter told us that they might have to get their storeroom open as they only had their regular bread. The problem was fixed quickly though, when he brought us some toast, that unluckily was somewhat limp instead of crisp, as it had been serve in a towel on the bread plate, where it steamed itself.

The quality of both the veal/beef and salmon was excellent, but strangely enough the delicate thin slices were not dressed at all. Even a few drops of olive oil would have given an extra dimension to the plate. Mine had a small dab of what seemed like a mixture of mayonnaise and mustard on one side and a nice pile of chopped mushrooms in the middle, and Normita had some chopped onions, chopped parsley, chopped capers, and chopped egg yolks, a nice combination, but a tad dry without any dressing. We remedied the problem by drizzling some of the nice olive oil from the salsa and using some of their nice thin house bread instead of the limp toasts.

While we were starting the first course, the waiter brought each of us a courtesy glass of white wine, because of out problems with the inexistent wine list. The wine was crisp and somewhat vegetal in taste, reminding me a bit of a Pinot Grigio, but I might be wrong there. There was a faint hint of oxidation on the finish, but we were not about to complain… I hope that the poor waiter did not get into trouble because of this, as he was swept away to a meeting with what I think was a supervisor near the end of our meal.

The main course was solid fare with nice al dente homemade pasta, and a delectable sauce though not exceptionally so. Luckily the portions were not overwhelming like they tend to be in some Italian restaurant and we finished our meal well fed, but not stuffed. I definitely was not in the mood for a dessert, but Normita was and asked for some Baileys ice cream and I settled for an espresso. The espresso was concentrated and bitter the way I like it, and while I was finishing it, they told Normita that they did not have the Baileys ice cream, so she decided to go without her dessert.

Overall the restaurant definitely shows some promise, but is in a definite need of organization. The quality of the food is high, but a bit of refining of the recipes is in order, and definitely they have a serious need of creating a decent wine list, as their haphazard method of presenting their wines will lead to lost clients. Another peeve was that I though it was a bit excessive to charge $2.50 for a can of mineral water. I think that we will give them a few more months to get their act in order and try again before making out final judgment. The food is good now and could easily become great, especially since the basic constituents are of good quality, but I will withhold my recommendation until they have straightened their organizational problems. It was good enough though to count as the nice restaurant meal I owed Normita. Maybe we just caught them on a bad day…

Lucito

PS. While I was writing this, Normita had another bet with me about another Tom Hanks movie, as she thought he was working for DHL in Castaway, and I was sure he was working for FedEx. I am glad that I did indeed win my bet, and now she is the one who owes me a nice restaurant meal.

I have just returned home with Normita and I am on my way out the door to a business meeting as I start to write this, but I need to put some of my thoughts down right away when the experience is still fresh. I was returning from Colonia Polanco, where Normita works, back home and we were looking for a place to have a nice lunch, our main meal of the day. My parents left back to Canada this morning and we did not have much to eat at home, and I was too tired to cook as I had a very long and tiring week.

We were on our way to fill-up the car, as we were running on empty, and we passed in front of a very popular fish and seafood restaurant in our neighborhood. The place is called Fisher’s and it is part of a chain of restaurants. There is always a crowd there, so we assumed that it might be decent. Trouble started when we left the car at the valet parking, and they promptly took the car somewhere else to park it. Normita is very protective of her new car, so she was upset, but I managed to calm her down as they were doing the same with all smaller cars as their main parking lot was full.

The place was very busy and most of all extremely noisy due to the poor acoustics of the various rooms. The center of the restaurant is some form of geodesic dome with prep area and bar in the center, and various rooms around the periphery. The decor is in white and blue maritime tones and the ambiance frenetic and noisy. Not a good start if you are tired and want to relax for a meal. The noise level was so high that there was no way to talk at the table unless you shouted.

We were passed from one staff person to another until we were seating in a corner table that was probably one of the quietest places in the whole restaurant, but this was not saying much as it was still very noisy. They have system for the waiters that seems to have been designed to look like it is efficient to the patrons, but overall it leads to some of the worse service we have ever had in any restaurant, including a certain fish place in Vancouver years ago when we were there with the Padrino and we were inflicted with the most stupid waitress in the Universe. That was a totally different experience as it was mainly the stupidity of a single person, not an entire restaurant system designed to be totally inefficient.

Their serving system rotates around the writing pad where they take the orders, and they leave it on the corner of your table. Various waiters and waitresses come and go and grab it and look into it and make notes in it and generally make a nuisance of themselves throughout the meal. At the end of the meal I looked at the pad to see what secrets it held, and there was simply a checklist of table preparation and opening, as well as service, and an individual sheet for each single item ordered. They seem to be making everything in triplicate and bringing a copy to the kitchen to place the order. The system must have been designed by a bureaucrat…

As we were waiting to be served we noticed the service at the neighboring tables, and in most tables the service was very strange. For example at the table on our left there were 3 people waiting for their main course. The woman at the table got hers first, then the gentleman on her left got his about 10 minutes later, and the one on her right resorted to nibbling at her plate until he got served about 20 minutes later. A very nice way to share a meal…

During that time about 5 different waiters passed in our areas with plates and they were looking at the order pads at each table, including ours, to find out which table the plate they were carrying belonged to. At times it belonged to a table totally across the room. I have never seen such confused service in my life. I can see one new person being lost, but not the entire staff. Also the fact that about 5 different waiters and waitresses attended us added a lot to the total confusion in the place. Luckily we were served at the same time so one of us did not have to wait for the other while his or her plate cooled down.

Another trait of the place, where they want to make it look like they are attending to you closely, is that they come and look at your table every few minutes and remove every little bit of stuff you put aside. I do not mind that if it is done smoothly, but the various waiters just nose over the table to check and intrude in your privacy and normally reach across the table in front of you to grab things at the other end. That is not very polite. Add to that that at least 5-6 times during the meal some janitorial person came and swept some crumbs from under the tables with a broom between your feet, making it impossible to relax from the constant distraction. I like the idea that they keep the place spotless, but they could at least let you finish your meal before cleaning the breadcrumbs from under the table.

As you have noticed I have rambling on and on and I have yet to talk of the food. If the food had been exceptional I would have been more lenient on the entire experience. As it stood we had some seafood and it was very fresh but totally uninspired. Normita had some ‘camarones al mojo de ajo’, some large shrimps with butter and garlic, and the shrimps were decent, but the portion was small for the price, and the side dish of white rice, seemed like microwaved precooked rice and was not very nice. Not a great meal for the price as the portion was pretty small. I had some stone crab cakes, and the cakes themselves were more of an appetizer portion at a main course price. There were three small crab cakes less than half an inch thick, that were presented on 3 slices of tomatoes and some slices of tomatillos, with a bit of shredded lettuce in between. There was a bit of something that looked like soy sauce on the tomatoes, but I did not even taste it as the tomatoes looked horrible and the plate looked like a mess and very unappetizing. The lettuce was undressed and totally bland so I did not touch it either. The three small crab cakes were actually quite good, though they had some pieces of shell and cartilage in them. As you might have guessed both Normita and I were still hungry after that, but we did not want to spend more money there.

We asked for the check and they brought it about 20 minutes later. I gave them my debit card to pay, and then the girl had to go get their wireless terminal and swiped it and show me that they inputted the right amount and she returned my card. This is nice in itself, but then she left with the terminal and returned about 10 minutes later with the card receipt to sign. I have no idea why they invested in the wireless technology if it actually makes the transaction much slower than the usual method. I assume that it is to show you that they care and do not screw you with the card, but…

Of course when we went out it took over 20 minutes to get our car from the valet parking, even though everybody else got their’s in a few minutes. I guess that the gods were not in my favor today.

I just returned from my business meeting as I am writing those last lines and it seems that the bad luck in the restaurant was nullified by a good meeting and some potential contracts and on top of that another contract signed by a distributor today, and even better paid next Monday. I’ll gladly take the bad meal in stride, except that the hunger I had when we left the restaurant is now converted into starvation.

To resume things, Fisher’s is a seafood restaurant that is mainly flash and show, where they do a lot of needless things to make it look like they are serving you well, but where the substance of that leads to horrible service. The food seems of good quality for the fish and seafood, but uninspired and pricy for what you actually get. It seems to be very popular as there is always huge lines, but I think the people going there are more interested in the show and to be seen there, than actually wanting a good dining experience. Like those perennial movie reviewers would say I gave them two thumbs down.

Lucito