Food: * * *
Decor: * * *
Price: $$$
Moving to Atlanta from Dallas six years ago was painful as our options for good tex-mex food dwindled to only a couple restaurants. Moving to Beijing made us crave the worst of Atlanta’s tex-mex as there just isn’t anything close to it here. My disappointment was reinforced today when the French chef at the school served “Mexican Fish Stick Enchiladas” complete with reheated, breaded, fishsticks wrapped in something akin to flour tortillas. As I complained to a coworker about this, he informed me that the rumored “new mexican restaurant” quietly opened this week. Come on family…let’s go.
So, we just returned from having dinner at “The Mexican Cafe” in Pinnacle Plaza (our neighborhood shopping area) in Shunyi…about 1km from our house. The Mexican Cafe was opened by Victor ???, the Indian restauranteur who also owns Little Italy, American Cafe, and Victors (Indian food with a dusting of crack…yes, it that’s good).
So far, every restaurant he has opened has been fantastic and his latest foray is no exception. Victor has an amazing business model…he recruits chefs from the US to operate his restaurants for a year or so while they train the local staff who eventually take over control while the chefs return to the states or to another one of Victor’s restaurants. Enough about his business model…let’s get back to the food.
The Mexican Cafe has been open less than a week and are still working out the menu and tweaking for a different audience. The chef and his wife who manages it came from NY which is probably why the flavor is less tex-mex and more of a contemporary Mexican-Southwest mix. It’s not the tex-mex I love but it certainly fixes the cravings and is very good. But just like every restaurant in China, they are crippled by the unavailability of ingredients that match the freshness and quality of the ingredients we get in the states. You can tell that their dishes would have a chic, gourmet flair in the US but here, it’s simply a good, flavorful mexican dish.
We started with 3 deep fried taquitos and sour cream which were decent but not outstanding..but the salsa was. Lisa sipped on a fresh sangria while having the combination fajitas. I had a trio of chicken chimichanga, enchilada, and taco with refried beans and rice. The chimi was excellent though it lacked a sour cream sauce. The enchiladas had a semi-spicy, fresh tomato-based sauce which was flavorful. The taco had a homemade hard shell and was stuffed with fresh greens and grilled chicken. Lisa’s fajitas came out sizzling but needed more onion and less green and red peppers. The meat was basically tender (by Chinese standards) and had a good flavor. I think the sour cream was a New Zealand brand which just isn’t the same as US sour cream. This probably won’t be solvable because sour cream is prohibitively expensive, and even the Chinese brands are quite expensive.
It needs to be noted that Madeline had the best hamburger in Beijing. That’s what happens when an American, fresh off the boat prepares it. It’s when you hand the keys over to the Chinese chefs that it will turn into a nasty seasoned, bread-stuffed meatloaf. Our favorite restaurant just went through this phenomena and ruined what used to be the best burger in Beijing.
As we finished our dinner with mexican ice cream sandwiched between deep-fried, cinnamon-crusted, deep-fried dough, the restaurant filled to capacity. So despite their lack of signage, the word is out. Even I SMSed 3 friends on the way home. Life is good.