Everything I ate there was absolutely delicious.
We started with drinks and since it was a Mexican restaurant I had to have a margarita. In this case, a blood orange margarita with a sugared rim, made with Cointreau (orange liquer), blanco tequila, blood orange juice, and lime juice, which was great (I like the sweet drinks). The regular margaritas were also good, although a bit tart. They mixed them right in front of you, using lime halves to cap the cocktail shakers. I also tried some of the Marisol, a Belgian style wheat beer brewed by Goose Island specially for Frontera. It was fruity, so again, my kind of drink.
Next came the guacamole and chips. Not a particularly challenging dish, but they used really fresh ingredients; tomatoes onions, avocado, lime, which were tasty. The fresh chips were warm,crunchy, and very pleasantly flavored with lime (enough to taste it without being overpowering--usually I don’t like lime tortilla chips). It was also beautifully presented with two slices of watermelon radish stuck at slight angles to the vertical.
For my entree I ordered a couple of the snacks. I couldn't decide on a meal, partially because a lot of things looked good and partially because I couldn't understand a lot of the menu. I'll translate/explain as I go, mostly for my own benefit. The tamales de elote were sweet corn tamales served with crema, cheese (I think queso fresco), wood-grilled poblano chilles, and onions. By themselves the tamales were very sweet, but the crema and queso fresco cut that sweetness while the spice from the peppers provided a nice balance. It was served on banana leaves, in which the tamales were cooked I think, and covered with a sprig of cilantro. I wish the cilantro was chopped and sprinkled in stead of just plopped on top; as it was I just pushed it to the side and did without.
Fun facts: According to google translate, elote means cob. Which is confusing, because I thought it would mean corn, but of course maíz means corn, so whatever. Anyway, corn is traditionally served with limes in traditional Mexican cuisine. The chemicals in the lime (citric acid, you would think) combine with the chemicals in the corn to produce niacin, or vitamin B3, that the body can then absorb. When explorers brought corn, a new world crop, back to Europe, they neglected to bring this tradition with them. During times of famine, poor Italians would subsist almost entirely on corn in the form of polenta and would suffer from vitamin B3 deficiencies as a result. One of the symptoms, skin lesions, led to the conditions name: pellagra or "sour skin."
I also ordered the sopes rancheros, which consisted of crispy corn masa (corn meal dough) boats, savory shredded beef, roasted tomato, avocado, and homemade fresh cheese (queso fresco? I'm not sure why they didn't specify). Although I think the flavors were less unusual here, I like the sopes better than the tamales. Otherwise, I don't have a lot of intelligent things to add. They were tasty. There you go.
I tried a little bit of almost everyone else's dinner. The falda asada "brava" had spicy serrano-marinated grass-fed Tall Grass flank steak, which was beautifully cooked and subtly flavored with lime. It was also served with grilled knob onions, which surprised me because their only flavor came from the onions themselves (which were served tied in a knot) and the char from the grill. Wasn't my favorite, but still kind of interesting. The enchiladas de mole poblano were good. I couldn't taste as much because of the spice (I'm wimpy when it comes to spicy things) and I didn't really know what to think because I had never tried mole before. The only one I ate that made me wish I had ordered it was the puerco en clemole castellano, a Grill-roasted Gunthorp(the farm) Duroc(the type of pig) pork loin served with nutty mole (ancho & pasilla chiles, pecans, hazelnuts, pine nuts, spices, avocado leaves) and a bunch of other stuff. I only had a bite of the pork, but if I could eat all of it and nothing else it would be worth it. Finally, someone ordered the Thursday special, chiles rellenos, a souffle-battered stuffed chile. I didn't try it, but it looked about as nice as chiles rellenos can. I think it's inevitably kind of an ugly dish. At any rate, the person who ordered it enjoyed it.
For dessert (yay!) budin de platano y paw paw. Breaking that down: budin-a bread pudding, in this case made with brioche; platanto-plantain, although it was served with bananas(?); paw paw--papayas; covered with cajete (goat-milk caramel), caramelized bananas, and candied pecans; served with Mexican vanilla ice cream (although the menu said white chocolate) and a salty crumble. What surprised us all was how light this dish was. I could have eaten it in its entirety all by myself and not have felt like I wanted to explode. My favorite part was the salty-sweet combination of the ice cream, which had this great punch of vanilla, and the crumble.
What surprised me most about the meal was that nothing was greasy in the slightest, a first for Mexican food in my experience (which, to be fair, is somewhat limited). I think that's what really made the meal so great--not just that everything was tasty, but also that for me it expanded what this particular cuisine could be. Some of the dishes I ate I had never heard of, or had only heard of and never had the opportunity to eat, or had eaten elsewhere and disliked. Everything was beautifully presented, expertly cooked, and uniquely, undeniably, Mexican. I can't wait to go again.
A note on service and decor: The service was very good. They added an extra seat last-minute (mine!) for which I was very grateful. Our waiter had this crazy moustache with waxed and twirled ends, so that every time he talked the points of his moustache moved up and down in unison. It made him look like the villain in an Italian opera. He was knowledgeable about the food, made suggestions without being pushy, and was generally accommodating and positive. Everyone from him to the busboys provided the perfect amount of service--they there when you wanted them to be and gone when you didn't. The atmosphere was nice enough. It was a lot like your run-of-the-mill Mexican restaurants if in place of cactus pinatas they had actual art from Mexico. Some of it was quite interesting and beautiful.
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