Cactus

There's a monthly restaurant guide that's distributed for our area. So far we've received two. I have a love/hate relationship with them. They'd be great for ordering in, but for the amount of cooking I do, when I do have someone else cook it's nice to go out. The other thing is that all the menus have the same feel as the guide itself - sort of plain and sterile - that there's really no way to tell whether a place is good or the menu just looks it. This is why we made the mistake of going to the Cactus.

Shannon has wanted a celebratory margarita since she got her new job, and who am I to object to margaritas? She picked out this Mexican restaurant because it had a few dishes that she thought I'd like (notably a chocolate mole chili and a roasted five chili sauce chicken), so we agreed to go there. Shannon made me a bet that we wouldn't even be able to find the place. Well, we found it situated below a salsa club that had not quite opened its doors yet, so she owes me a coffee this weekend. Ha! The place was charming enough, though the lighting was hard on the eyes.

The margaritas were good, but breaking the bank at each. We'd half finished them before our appetizer arrived. As soon as we received our complimentary tacos and salsa (or Picante, I guess) I was leery of the place. It tasted like canned spaghetti sauce with cilantro and jalapenos added to it. I ordered some sort of cactus appetizer. I'd never had cactus before, so that was kind of neat. The dish itself wasn't so good; more tomato sauce and cheese with a puddle of oil, but cactus tastes okay. It sort of had a mushroomy texture, or like a really cooked bell pepper. Meaty. Some people had ordered something that came out in a mortar looking dish, which made me want that instead. I've since learned that it was ceviche and that their ceviche is gross, so I'm glad I stuck by my prickly primer.

I went with the mole pablano for my entree, and Shannon had nachos. Personally, I think they were the most pathetic looking nachos I've ever seen. They had a little drizzle of sour cream over top of some greasy chips that were burnt outside with melted cheese. No traces of jalapenos or salsa or anything. I received 3 very small, very moist (like sitting under a steamer for an hour style) tortillas to eat my half a breast of over-cooked chicken, sauce and rice. It was bland, like the same spaghetti picante from earlier mixed with cocoa powder.

Our entire experience came to , or a week's worth of groceries. We thought about it for a minute, and we don't think we've ever been to a good Mexican restaurant. I know there's good food in Mexico, why can't it be recreated here? Maybe we just have exceptionally bad luck finding it. In the future, I'm just going to buy myself a blender, make my own margaritas and whip up a batch of Enchiladas. Speaking of which, as we were leaving the table next to us were just being served their enchilada entrees. For .95 a piece, I'd be pretty choked if I received a single enchilada with a bit of rice. Ouch.