| If you saw a white station wagon making a four-lane change on southbound Macleod Trail just before Heritage Drive about three weeks ago, cutting everyone else off with impunity, it was probably me. Checking out new Mexican restaurants is, as far as I’m concerned, an excuse for any traffic violation, and Los Mariachis, located in a former Subway store at 7400 Macleod Trail S.E. (phone 253-5692), was worth the risk.
The family that owns Los Mariachis is from Mexico City, and the restaurant has been hand-built from the ground up by the father. Accordingly, it seems less like a formal restaurant and more like a cantina in Manzanillo or some other Mexican port city, where the food is simple, the beer is cold and the service is casual – as opposed to a fake Mexican chain with an evil talking Chihuahua. This lack of pretension might be off-putting for the linen napkin and polished silverware crowd, but Mexican food is all about accessibility – inexpensive and fresh ingredients prepared with a minimum of fuss.
We began with tortilla chips with an assortment of dips, including a pico de gallo-type salsa, which had lots of fresh tomato taste and a scent of fresh cilantro; chunky homemade guacamole, which disappeared in a trice; and pickled peppers, including a pickled jalapeno. I was surprised that none of these dips (apart from the jalapeno) had a strong undercurrent of heat. You would hope that Calgarians could handle food that’s a little more caliente.
The chicken enchiladas were intense, and had a lovely undercurrent of cumin – this was the star of the meal. It showed a type of Mexican food that we really haven’t seen in this town. The gringas, a sirloin steak cooked in the Mexican style with some hot peppers, was succulent. Both entrees came with beans and rice. The beans were rich and weren’t gloppy, but again their flavour might have been a bit more intense.
Nevertheless, Los Mariachis is somewhere we’ll go again. It feels like Mexico. If you include a couple of beers, GST and a tip, it costs about $50 per couple.
A FEW RANDOM NOTES
I had lunch at Burger Inn on Fourth Street S.W. last week and the burger is pretty good; it’s hand-formed and grilled, and you can get it with sauerkraut. I think its main competition is Rocky’s Burger Bus in east Calgary (which might be better by a nose), but it’s miles better than any of the hamburger chains. The atmosphere of Burger Inn is slightly depressing, though – the management could spruce the place up a bit.
Speaking of burgers, there’s no other eating establishment in Calgary that provokes such strong opinions as Peters’ Drive-In (219 16th Ave. N.E.). A lot of people either love it – in which case they’ll eat three Peters’ Burgers at one sitting, along with fries and a shake – or they think the burgers are terrible. Me, I think the burgers are nothing special, but the onion rings and the shakes are worth the trip. You can get malt in your chocolate shake at Peter’s – that’s good enough for me.
And, while we’re in the northeast, what is going on at Centre Street and Edmonton Trail, south of 16th Avenue? Those two thoroughfares now boast Citizen Payne, the Urban Baker, Piato, a new Thai place, numerous new Chinese restaurants, a Korean place…. They are rapidly becoming the new Restaurant Rows. |
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