It’s amazing how being away from your kid and pet for a night makes you sleep a few hours later than normal, but that’s what happened this past Saturday. Mrs. Mike and I slept off our Friday night food coma, grabbed some a small breakfast at the bagel shop downstairs in the hotel we were staying at, and then walked around town for a couple hours before arriving at Frontera Grill for our 1pm lunch reservation. If you’re not familiar, Frontera Grill is owned and operated by celebrity chef Rick Bayless, who is a Top Chef Master. And his MO is fresh and creative Mexican food. Even before I tell you what we had, my mouth is watering, the food was that freaking good and quite honestly, the highlight of our trip.
First, after discussing that maybe we should forgo the alcohol and try to enjoy the food more, Mrs. Mike read in an article posted in the Frontera window that the cocktails are as good as the food. Well, duh. We’ll take two blue agave margaritas, please. You want to talk about fresh tasting, smooth and butt-kicking all at the same time? Man, were those tasty. And by tasty I mean tasty and butt-kicking.
Then we shared an apps platter that had the following–cheese quesadillas, which were more like little empanadas; chicken and black bean taquitos; fresh guacamole and chips; tuna ceviche on tortilla chips; and a salad of jicama, pineapple and cucumber dusted with chili powder. Holy freaking crap. The quesadillas were fried pillows of deliciousness. The taquitos were also delicious, but had a semi-interesting flavor we couldn’t pinpoint. The guacamole was fresh and tasty. Even the chips were phenomenal. The ceviche was fresh and not in the least bit fishy, and I must say that even as I must say I don’t really eat or like seafood. But I would eat that again. And the jicama salad was something I’d order even as a meal–the chili powder, I’m sure, was homemade like everything else, and really brought the crisp jicama to life.
For the main course, Mrs. Mike had the sopitos–corn cakes with chorizo, chicken and scrambled eggs with black beans and cheese sauce. The one bite I had was delicious, but I want to tell you that my main course–the huevos vechios (I could not find this item on the menu online and will correct it when I confirm what it was called), was one of the ten best meals I’ve ever had. It was masa corn cakes with poached eggs, chorizo and a poblano cream sauce. It was spicy, and creamy and the eggs were done to perfection; plus, the chorizo was tangy and delicious and a few days later my mouth is still watering.
Finally, we closed our meal with a dessert of zucchini donuts with chocolate sauce, cinnamon ice cream, candied zucchini and glazed walnuts. Damn. If that was borderline orgasmic reading it, imagine what it was like eating it. Yeah, it was that good.
Oh, two other things–we saw Bayless when he poked his head out of the kitchen to see what was going on in the restaurant. That was cool. And the homemade hot sauces (made fresh daily) were just unbelievable–especially the habanero one, that was equally tasty and explosive.
You know, when we go back to Chicago and intend to try more restaurants, I think I will insist that we return to Frontera Grill–maybe even for dinner this time if we can get in (I think you have to make reservations for dinner like 2-3 months in advance). And if you go there, you must eat at Frontera or Bayless’ other gem in the same location, Topolobampo. I know we’ll be back and maybe we’ll see you there.
