[My ongoing series for 2016 continues ... with the TENTH of FIFTY tastes of FLORIDA (coming to you on sequential Thursdays. All. Year. Long.)!]
Establishment: Jalisco Restaurant
Location: Ft Lauderdale
Meal: Late Dinner (we actually closed the place at 10pm)
Drink: Coca-Cola
Appetizer: Chicken Soup
Delightful delicious homemade soup loaded with chunks of tender chicken floating in a savory, simmering broth with rice. Some say it is magical!
Main: Sizzling Fajitas (Steak and Chicken combo)
Marinated chunk skirt or chicken breast are grilled with fresh bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, green peppers and spices, then presented sizzling at your table with sour cream, Mexican relish, cheese, and hot tortillas to be combined and eaten like a taco
Side(s): Guac to go with the warm chips and salsa (one each of hot and not) and the above fajita accessories
Dessert: n/a
Server: Linda
Website: not applicable
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jalisco-Retaurante/100860013292824
There's a lot to be said about an unassuming place that simply puts out good food ... and that's exactly how it felt when my sister and her eldest son joined me for a late dinner after his swim meet this past weekend at this restaurant. Full disclosure -- I'm not the biggest fan of Mexican food ... mostly because I get in my own head about the textures and don't like how everything blends together on one plate. However, that didn't matter here because of the great variety of choices ... which allowed me to get a dish that didn't have a pool of beans (not that there's anything wrong with them). I almost got a dish called the "crazy Mexican", but didn't feel comfortable saying that out loud ... just like I almost got an authentic pineapple soda, but chose coca cola in the end. And, in a worst case scenario, I *could* have ordered the Hamburgeusa, which was in the "gringo" section of the menu! But I didn't ... and my evaluation is below:
AMBIANCE: 8/10 (it's much bigger than it looks from the outside, with a cute cantina bar and walls filled with the stereotypical things one would expect like sombreros and panchos and the like ... plus the staff all reinforce the concept in that they likely may not know a lot of English ... a point is being deducted though because there were workers in the foyer while we were eating [you can see them in the photo below] taking advantage of close-to-closing time to work on some kind of project and another one lost because the TVs weren't working at the time)
FOOD: 8/10 (there was plenty of it -- one of those plates where halfway through the meal you felt like you hadn't yet made a dent in what you had eaten and every bit of it was tasty ... that said, a point is lost for the excess cilantro in the chicken noodle soup [that was otherwise "delightful and delicious" just as the menu description promised] and another point lost because no one gave a warning about how spicy the "Mexican relish" was that was in the mix as a taco-add)
SERVICE: 10/10 (hot food [sizzling hot!] that was delivered quickly from a menu that was designed for the nonSpanish speaker ... and although our meal bumped into their closing time, there wasn't a single bit of pressure to "eat and get out")
BACON: 5/10 (it's a tricky category, as traditional authentic Mexican food is more about the fresh ingredients ... and although the menu includes many references to pork and carnitas and such, the reality is that I didn't see a single reference to bacon on the menu ... out of sensitivity to the culture and because of the high scores in all the other categories, I'll put a few points on the board)
BONUS: 10/10 (+3 because I scared the server by asking her her name at the end of the meal [I did NOT ask her her immigration status], +3 for having a menu description that included permission to "lick the plate" on an item, +3 because it's so close to where I live and +1 because it is a place to which we will definitely return]
TroyScore: 41 out of 50 -- aka 82, a low B (B as in bacon, which would have raised the score on my scale)
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