Margarita!
Well, here comes the Friday of Thanksgiving week again. This is Rick & Linnea's tradition to go to Frontera Grill for lunch, and I totally agree that it is an amazing idea!
I usually don't drink anything other than water, milk, and coffee drinks(I consider milkshake a meal so I am leaving that one out). I don't drink tea, soda, or lemonade. But the limeade here is pretty refreshing.
So here is how Frontera Grill looks like inside.
The bar and also the waiting place when the restaurant's full.
The cute decorations I like
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So, let's start with the appetizers!
All time favorite Guacamole
Sopes Rancheros
The new thing we tried this year: Queso Fundido
Last time the Jack Cheese in the turnover quesadillas was very good, so we tried something new with the same cheese. Garlicky roasted peppers, chorizo sausage and cheese. How can it go bad? I loved it.
Great Appetizers!Too bad the "enlightened" vegetarians couldn't fully enjoy the feast of the "ignorant"! (inside joke)
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Then let's go to the delightful lunch main.
Kim ordered the classic Taco al Carbon with skirt steak. I had this my sophomore year, I think. I really liked it; the other taco al carbon I tried was one with red chile-marinated pork, and I did not particularly like it because it was rather lacking in flavor-not the meat but the marinade. But with steak it was very good.
Three people ordered Quesadillas: Owen with duck, Mirelle and Lizz with chicken. I was thinking shrimp with spicy peppers will go well with it too and was tempted to try it, but got something else eventually.
So this is what I got, Milanesa de Puerco. This was the very first dish I tried at Frontera Grill four years ago as a freshman in high school. Not knowing what to choose from the unfamiliar menu, I picked this and liked it. I like the roasted tomato sauce but maybe there should be a little more. The crunchy coated pork was a lot more than it seemed. I guess Frontera started to care about how the dish looks more over the past few years, because from what I remember, this same dish was served quite roughly without any decoration.
So here is what Bev and Linnea ordered: the day's special fish, salmon with Green Pipian sauce. This sesame based sauce is one of Linnea's favorite, and from having a bite of hers as always, the the salmon was good. I think the sauce goes better with salmon than mahi mahi, though I admit the potentia bias.
Rick, I believe, got the daily special pork tamales. Their tamales are good too. I think the only time I did not like something served here was the scallops, which was not very impressive and rather too fishy. That was the only disappointment ever and I think ten years later I will still be talking about it, just because it was such a sharp contrast to my other experiences here.
Jim's dish which he claimed to be photogenic. Looks good, but I have to admire vegetarians!
Angela ordered Tamal Azteca. Tortillas layered with butternuts, huitlacoche(ooh, the scary inky thing), beets, chiles, tomatoes and cheese. As it said in the menu, almost like lasagne in its form.
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Here is what made this year's visit special: the desserts.
This icecream is made of peach sour cream, apples and apple brandy. The texture is homemade icecream but the flavor was almost sorbet-like with its fruit flavor. I really liked it because it is just inbetween the creamy richness of icecream and the refreshing sharpness of sorbet. When something is too leaned to one of the two you get tired of it easily, but this icecream was interesting. Angela's was served with cajeta, goat milk caramel, which was also quite different.
I got the same ice cream with the other option, fudge made with Oaxacan chocolate. The bittersweet chocolate with peach-apple flavored icecream was really, "interesting." I enjoyed it.
Then Angela's pick for Jim was Budin de Persimo, a persimmon pudding with walnuts and cinnamon cream. This was a bigger hit for Kim and Linnea rather than Jim himself, it seemed. Just like the ice cream, it was quite "different" from regular desserts.
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So thanks to Rick and Linnea, nine of us had a wonderful lunch. It was also amusing to take photos of so many people's food. From the appetizers, main dish, and the dessert, I fully enjoyed the meal and it was the best time in Frontera Grill ever. And Juan, our same waiter, is Lizz's favorite part of our visits too, I guess!
Previous Visits:
05/26/07
So we had Linna, my roommate for the past two years and suitemate for this year, over at my host family's! The menu was one of my new favorites, chicken and sausage with lemon and sage. This time, unlike the last time when we only had legs, we had a whole chicken- chickens.
Yum, dark meat. I still think about the truth-based-joke: an Asian thought that dark meat means overcooked and always ordered white meat, and wondered, "Gee, why do they never give me chicken thighs? They must be racist!"
The potatos were a little hard unlike last time but with sausage it is bearable. Linna loved chicken with light lemony flavor-Lizz did not even remember if there was lemon in it. She is a tiny person and usually does not eat much with the exception of good dessert, but she finished that big piece of chicken breast.
And here is the chocolate lava cake with caramel. A little overdone? Still good!
