Sorry to be so late in making this report – we ate SO MUCH last night, that we were in no place to talk about food for quite some time. (But it was worth it!)
Our restaurant choice for Saturday was the new Made In Mexico restaurant, which we'd already heard great things about. Actually, that had been our first choice on Friday night, but we were late in making the reservation, and our several calls to the restaurant that evening didn't get answered, so we figured it must be too busy to sneak in. So we called first thing Saturday morning, but again, couldn't get an answer – but the cheery voice on the answering machine said to leave the day, time and number of people you wanted to make a reservation for, and they'd call back to confirm. So we left that message a little after 11:30, their opening time (at least, one of the versions of their opening time – the phone message, website and Facebook page all give different versions of when they're open, as did the waitress we asked as we were leaving, so it would probably be helpful to all if they got a consistent message out there).
Later that afternoon, we realized nobody had phoned back, so attempted a few more phone calls, all of which got routed to the answering machine – ah well, we figured, they must be busy, and surely someone would have called if they were already too full to accommodate more? So we made the trek down the hill and over to the restaurant for what we thought was our 9:00 reservation. Of course, the young women at the front desk had no record of our call. Hmmm... not off to a great start, customer-service-wise. But they did have a table for two available, fortunately, so we got seated anyhow.
The atmosphere at Made In Mexico is far more casual than where we were the night before (which suits us fine), with funky art and facts about Mexican celebrities, cultural icons and traditional foods covering the walls. So even if your date is totally boring, you'll find something to entertain you here. :) It was again a bit loud for us, and we were probably the oldest people in the room, but such is usually the case when we eat downtown on a weekend – we have reminded ourselves to save downtown restaurants for weeknights, as we learned shortly after moving here.
Our waiter was Sarah, who came right to our table – despite how busy everyone seemed to be with their full house – and answered all our questions about the differences between the various dishes. Don asked her what the darkest Mexican beer was, and she suggested the Negro Modelo – we both ordered one, and it was quite good. We realized after the fact that there was a delicious-looking Margarita menu (seriously, Lyss & Don, check out the hooch menu before ordering cocktails next time!), which we probably would have started with had we not become so fixated on the beer menu...
Of all the Barrielicious menus we've seen so far (many are posted online), this restaurant probably had the most choices available, and stated quite clearly that vegetarian options were available, so it's definitely less restrictive than some of the festival's menus – yay Made In Mexico, and thank you for your inclusivity! Their every-day menu looks incredible too, so we're looking forward to returning sometime soon. Most of their food is cooked reasonably mildly, but if you like to make your ears burn when you eat, you can ask them for one of their homemade hot sauces. They also have gluten-free options if you need them. As we said, very inclusive and lots of choice.
For appetizers, Don wanted to have the Chorizo Empanadas (because... Chorizo!), but they were unfortunately sold out of those, so he opted for the cheese nachos instead. No crappy store-bought tortilla chips here, everything is "homemade" from the owner's family recipes. And the man who doesn't usually like sour cream ate the whole thing – even the sour cream. So you know he must have liked it. :) Alyssa opted for the guacamole and chips, since we usually share an appetizer and Don doesn't like guacamole (although maybe he would, here!). It was the way she loves it best, not pureéd, with nice chunks of avocado, topped with bits of red onion and tomato. She also ate the whole darned thing, which was probably a big mistake... although it didn't seem too large at the time.
Sarah had warned us that they were quite busy with the festival, and there might be a bit of a wait for our food, but everything came to us quite quickly – probably because there were only two of us, it wasn't that big a deal. We almost turned away our appetizers, since they had come so quickly and we assumed they were actually for another table! All the wait staff and bar staff seemed very friendly, and helped each other out when needed – some of them were even still dancing to the music (stereo, not live) by the end of the night!
We each grabbed another Negro Modelo to have with our main course – we've seen it in the LCBO, if you're interested in trying it, it was quite a refreshing dark beer. And our main also came in good time. Our eyes pretty much popped as our meals came to the table – they certainly don't skimp on the portion sizes here! Don had the Grilled Chicken Burrito – which looked like it must have been made with a 3-foot-radius tortilla, it was so huge – with Mexican Rice and House Salad as his sides. The burrito was so delicious, he wanted to eat the whole thing, but wisely stopped half way and got a take-away container for the rest (it is a rare occasion when Don doesn't finish everything on his plate). The rice was a bit dry for his taste, but still tasty. Alyssa went for the "pink vegetables" and had the Seafood Enchiladas Gratinadas (crab, shrimp, and lots of cheese), with Lime Rice and Refried Beans as her sides. There were four enchiladas, and she ate two of them, but should probably have only eaten one – nevertheless, the painful walk home was totally worth it, and she can't wait to eat her leftovers. The lime rice was also very nice, although if you're a person with a cilantro aversion, you should be aware that there's a lot of cilantro in this dish. The refried beans were also delicious, and will probably be delicious again when re-refried as leftovers. :)
Thank goodness we hadn't ordered the deep-fried ice cream or cheesecake for dessert, because we were already feeling like Monty Python's Mr. Creosote by this point. We'd both ordered the Churros instead – basically three sugar-sprinkled deep-fried strings of batter with a sweet dipping sauce. Don said he'd only have one, but ate all three; Alyssa pooped out after one and a half.
But we were still kicking ourselves for not having Margaritas earlier, and had seen some delicious ones passing by all night, so... what the heck, it was Saturday, right? We both ordered frozen Margaritas – Don chose Mango (delicious, but filling), and Alyssa the Lime (also delicious, less filling). Funnily enough, we old farts closed the place! We were feeling guilty for being the only guests left, so drank a bit fast and gave ourselves ice-cream-headaches, but again... the pain was worth it! :) Next time, we'll sip more slowly though...
So our overall impressions of Made In Mexico are that the food is incredible, and the staff are great. Bit of a complaint with the reservation process and lack of phone-answering, but we'll chalk that one up to a crazy-busy festival for a newly-opened restaurant, and hope the process works better next time. Bathroom stalls were not in the greatest shape (only 2 of the 3 stalls in the women's washroom had functioning locks, and you had to wrestle the doors to get the existing locks to function), which is strange for a merely-one-month-old establishment, but they were clean. And did we mention how delicious the food was? Because the food is definitely delicious.
Unfortunately, the food was SOOOO delicious that our walk home – especially the hill at the end – was rather painful, and we had to spend a couple of hours moaning on the couch before we thought it was safe to go to bed. At the very most, we tend to be 1-1/2 course meal kind of people (and even then, Alyssa usually still has some to take home), so two nights in a row of 3-course meals seems to have been a bit much for us (thank Dog we've got the Bowflex!). Which means we've decided to take tonight off, and just eat some leftovers (from last night, plus a little bit of Thursday's home-cooked Black Beans & Spinach with Cheese Grits) at home today. Double treadmill today, triple workout tomorrow, and we'll be good as new for Monday's Barrilicious dinner.
It's a delicious job, but somebody's gotta do it.
Our restaurant choice for Saturday was the new Made In Mexico restaurant, which we'd already heard great things about. Actually, that had been our first choice on Friday night, but we were late in making the reservation, and our several calls to the restaurant that evening didn't get answered, so we figured it must be too busy to sneak in. So we called first thing Saturday morning, but again, couldn't get an answer – but the cheery voice on the answering machine said to leave the day, time and number of people you wanted to make a reservation for, and they'd call back to confirm. So we left that message a little after 11:30, their opening time (at least, one of the versions of their opening time – the phone message, website and Facebook page all give different versions of when they're open, as did the waitress we asked as we were leaving, so it would probably be helpful to all if they got a consistent message out there).
Later that afternoon, we realized nobody had phoned back, so attempted a few more phone calls, all of which got routed to the answering machine – ah well, we figured, they must be busy, and surely someone would have called if they were already too full to accommodate more? So we made the trek down the hill and over to the restaurant for what we thought was our 9:00 reservation. Of course, the young women at the front desk had no record of our call. Hmmm... not off to a great start, customer-service-wise. But they did have a table for two available, fortunately, so we got seated anyhow.
The atmosphere at Made In Mexico is far more casual than where we were the night before (which suits us fine), with funky art and facts about Mexican celebrities, cultural icons and traditional foods covering the walls. So even if your date is totally boring, you'll find something to entertain you here. :) It was again a bit loud for us, and we were probably the oldest people in the room, but such is usually the case when we eat downtown on a weekend – we have reminded ourselves to save downtown restaurants for weeknights, as we learned shortly after moving here.
Our waiter was Sarah, who came right to our table – despite how busy everyone seemed to be with their full house – and answered all our questions about the differences between the various dishes. Don asked her what the darkest Mexican beer was, and she suggested the Negro Modelo – we both ordered one, and it was quite good. We realized after the fact that there was a delicious-looking Margarita menu (seriously, Lyss & Don, check out the hooch menu before ordering cocktails next time!), which we probably would have started with had we not become so fixated on the beer menu...
Of all the Barrielicious menus we've seen so far (many are posted online), this restaurant probably had the most choices available, and stated quite clearly that vegetarian options were available, so it's definitely less restrictive than some of the festival's menus – yay Made In Mexico, and thank you for your inclusivity! Their every-day menu looks incredible too, so we're looking forward to returning sometime soon. Most of their food is cooked reasonably mildly, but if you like to make your ears burn when you eat, you can ask them for one of their homemade hot sauces. They also have gluten-free options if you need them. As we said, very inclusive and lots of choice.
For appetizers, Don wanted to have the Chorizo Empanadas (because... Chorizo!), but they were unfortunately sold out of those, so he opted for the cheese nachos instead. No crappy store-bought tortilla chips here, everything is "homemade" from the owner's family recipes. And the man who doesn't usually like sour cream ate the whole thing – even the sour cream. So you know he must have liked it. :) Alyssa opted for the guacamole and chips, since we usually share an appetizer and Don doesn't like guacamole (although maybe he would, here!). It was the way she loves it best, not pureéd, with nice chunks of avocado, topped with bits of red onion and tomato. She also ate the whole darned thing, which was probably a big mistake... although it didn't seem too large at the time.
Sarah had warned us that they were quite busy with the festival, and there might be a bit of a wait for our food, but everything came to us quite quickly – probably because there were only two of us, it wasn't that big a deal. We almost turned away our appetizers, since they had come so quickly and we assumed they were actually for another table! All the wait staff and bar staff seemed very friendly, and helped each other out when needed – some of them were even still dancing to the music (stereo, not live) by the end of the night!
We each grabbed another Negro Modelo to have with our main course – we've seen it in the LCBO, if you're interested in trying it, it was quite a refreshing dark beer. And our main also came in good time. Our eyes pretty much popped as our meals came to the table – they certainly don't skimp on the portion sizes here! Don had the Grilled Chicken Burrito – which looked like it must have been made with a 3-foot-radius tortilla, it was so huge – with Mexican Rice and House Salad as his sides. The burrito was so delicious, he wanted to eat the whole thing, but wisely stopped half way and got a take-away container for the rest (it is a rare occasion when Don doesn't finish everything on his plate). The rice was a bit dry for his taste, but still tasty. Alyssa went for the "pink vegetables" and had the Seafood Enchiladas Gratinadas (crab, shrimp, and lots of cheese), with Lime Rice and Refried Beans as her sides. There were four enchiladas, and she ate two of them, but should probably have only eaten one – nevertheless, the painful walk home was totally worth it, and she can't wait to eat her leftovers. The lime rice was also very nice, although if you're a person with a cilantro aversion, you should be aware that there's a lot of cilantro in this dish. The refried beans were also delicious, and will probably be delicious again when re-refried as leftovers. :)
Thank goodness we hadn't ordered the deep-fried ice cream or cheesecake for dessert, because we were already feeling like Monty Python's Mr. Creosote by this point. We'd both ordered the Churros instead – basically three sugar-sprinkled deep-fried strings of batter with a sweet dipping sauce. Don said he'd only have one, but ate all three; Alyssa pooped out after one and a half.
But we were still kicking ourselves for not having Margaritas earlier, and had seen some delicious ones passing by all night, so... what the heck, it was Saturday, right? We both ordered frozen Margaritas – Don chose Mango (delicious, but filling), and Alyssa the Lime (also delicious, less filling). Funnily enough, we old farts closed the place! We were feeling guilty for being the only guests left, so drank a bit fast and gave ourselves ice-cream-headaches, but again... the pain was worth it! :) Next time, we'll sip more slowly though...
So our overall impressions of Made In Mexico are that the food is incredible, and the staff are great. Bit of a complaint with the reservation process and lack of phone-answering, but we'll chalk that one up to a crazy-busy festival for a newly-opened restaurant, and hope the process works better next time. Bathroom stalls were not in the greatest shape (only 2 of the 3 stalls in the women's washroom had functioning locks, and you had to wrestle the doors to get the existing locks to function), which is strange for a merely-one-month-old establishment, but they were clean. And did we mention how delicious the food was? Because the food is definitely delicious.
Unfortunately, the food was SOOOO delicious that our walk home – especially the hill at the end – was rather painful, and we had to spend a couple of hours moaning on the couch before we thought it was safe to go to bed. At the very most, we tend to be 1-1/2 course meal kind of people (and even then, Alyssa usually still has some to take home), so two nights in a row of 3-course meals seems to have been a bit much for us (thank Dog we've got the Bowflex!). Which means we've decided to take tonight off, and just eat some leftovers (from last night, plus a little bit of Thursday's home-cooked Black Beans & Spinach with Cheese Grits) at home today. Double treadmill today, triple workout tomorrow, and we'll be good as new for Monday's Barrilicious dinner.
It's a delicious job, but somebody's gotta do it.