影片
更多
2016-08-07
1809 瀏覽
This is part 35,000 in my continuing series: Michael visits every Mexican restaurant in Hong Kong (if he can make it there before they close).I was talking with a friend of mine about Tequila on Davis before I went and he said it looked awful. I didn't follow up, because my initial remark was an overture to "Do you wanna go?" and it seemed to me at that point that that question had already been answered. He could have meant that it looked awful because it looked like a Mexican restaurant in Hong
I was talking with a friend of mine about Tequila on Davis before I went and he said it looked awful. I didn't follow up, because my initial remark was an overture to "Do you wanna go?" and it seemed to me at that point that that question had already been answered. He could have meant that it looked awful because it looked like a Mexican restaurant in Hong Kong, which is one strong indicator of awfulness. But I think what he meant was that it looked like a cheesy chain Tex-Mex restaurant like, for instance, On The Border, which you can find all over America.
Indeed, cheesy <strike>chain</strike> Tex-Mex restaurant is exactly how I'd describe Tequila on Davis. Now some people are purists. They want only authentic Mexican food, like tortas and molletes and barbacoa, or whatever. Now, I love authentic Mexican food, it's great. But I also love Tex-Mex, with tons of cheddar, flour tortillas, deep fried things, and beef. I'm not a purist. I'm a Texan.
The first thing we ordered was a pitcher of house margaritas on the rocks. I love that this is on the menu, it is what any cheesy Tex-Mex restaurant requires. The margartitas seemed decently strong.
Here's my glass. I wasn't asked whether I wanted salt, but fortunately there were straws to drink it with, so no harm, no foul.
We ordered two appetizers knowing it would be ridiculously too much food. There were two kinds of empanadas: beef was one and jalapeno and cheese the other. We got the jalapeno and cheese one. They were great: nice pastry crust, served piping hot, oozing cheese. The salsa they came with was unnecessary, but I tried it for reviewing purposes. I would say, "tomato puree mixed with pre-packaged 'taco seasoning'." Not good.
I recently was at the house of a friend who tried to make jalapeno poppers. They are suprisingly difficult to make. At my friend's house, the breading all fell off the slick peppers and the hot cheese burst out and went into the oil. Now I understand why so many restaurants adopt weird battering strategies when they make these.Here, the solution was a batter that was a little like what you get on a corn dog, but less corn-y tasting. It wasn't as crispy as I'd like, but it wasn't bad. The pepper itself and the gooey cheese were great. I was particularly happy that they had the cheddar kind. Don't go sticking no cream cheese and bacon in my poppers, yo.
They came with sour cream for dipping, but, c'mon Tequila, own up to your roots... you need ranch dressing!
I have suffered so much at Tex-Mex places for the sake of reviewing. I always pick the item that is, to my mind, the best thing on the menu if the chefs know what they're doing, and the worst thing if they don't: steak fajitas. The steak is important. Chicken is dry and dull and for losers. Spicy prawns and salmon (like they have on the menu here) aren't even fajitas, what are you talking about?The first test is of course the steak. Tequila gets it right. Nice flavor, nice char from the grill, and most of all, not tough and chewy, but tender and beefy. Even my leftovers after microwaving were still pretty good.
Second test: onions and peppers. These were good but not excellent. Two things: onions and peppers need to be cooked in the skillet the beef was cooked in to gather into themselves the blackened bits, beefy goodness, and grease. Second I detected a slight tomato flavor (and there seemed to be a number of tomato seeds, if you look at the picture) and I just don't know where that's coming from or why it's there. But these are nits that I'm picking, they were serviceable.
Fajita sides: cheese was a mix of yellow and white cheddar, and was a bit 'sweaty' if you know what I mean. Melted well enough. Pico was mostly onions and tomato, could have used more jalapeno and cilantro-- didn't look red, white, and green like the mexican flag. Guac was good, with noticeable chunks of avocado-- not like HK magazine's review which says it has a "whipped texture". But HK magazine also thinks it's a "sin" to serve Doritos with guac, rather than something literally no one outside Asia or Taco Bell would ever do, and they think it's "Dia de [sic] Muertos." Seriously, learn 2 Spanish. Tortillas: warm and flexible, not lifeless and cold. Am I still in Hong Kong?
Here's my fully assembled taco: very good.
My wife got the chicken tacos. She was disappointed there was no carnitas option, but I pointed out that Texans don't eat pork. Growing up, the only pork I had was poorly cooked pork chops, breakfast sausages, and deli ham. I thought I didn't like pork until I moved out of my parents house and realized the vast wonders of the pig that had been hidden from me.Anyway the tacos were stuffed to bursting with chicken and all the same stuff that comes with the fajitas: pico, guac, cheese, and sour cream. She says she would have preferred the same amount of food, but distributed in more tortillas. The chicken was shredded chicken, and she says it was good.
I personally would get the fajitas instead of the tacos. First, I like flour tortillas and that's not an option. Second, you get black beans and I prefer refried-- and that's not an option. Third, I'm weird and don't really like sour cream, and the tacos come pre-made. But you do what you like, my wife liked this.
We were dining with two friends who'd also lived in Texas. They liked what they got, but I didn't press them for details, so I'll just put the pictures here for illustration. This is the chimichanga, a deep fried burrito native to Arizona, but common in cheesy Tex-Mex chain restaurants everywhere.
And this is the steak enchiladas. I can't find these on either the online dining platform or food panda web menus, but if I recall, the menu item is just "enchiladas" and then you pick what filling you want. In Texas they let you pick filling and sauce (so red sauce or greeen sauce or whatever). In Mexico they actually have recipes, and they care that the right sauce goes with the right thing.In conclusion, this is a cheesy Tex-Mex place. Oh, it pretends a little that it isn't. For example, one of the menu items is a Oaxacan dish called a tlayuda. But if you look closely at the pictures here on Open Rice, you can see that it isn't actually a tlayuda, it's a giant nacho disguised as one. Instead of refried beans, it's covered in a layer of yellow cheese, and instead of the Oaxacan string cheese, it's drizzled in sour cream, so it kinda looks like a picture of a tlayuda without, y'know, being one. I always love the "Mexican food created by looking at a picture instead of a recipe" that you find here in Hong Kong.
But it's a *good* cheesy Tex-Mex place, and that's what counts. I haven't been to Coyote for a while, but I'd say that this place is about like that. I was happy with all my food and stuffed at the end. I definitely see myself coming back here.
Note: I've marked the service low here. Up until the next day, I'd have given it a 4/5, which I give to things that are "good" but not particularly "excellent." Here I've given it a 2/5, which I give to things that are "poor" and this is my reason: I asked for a box to take away my leftover fajitas, because I couldn't eat them all, because we ordered two appetizers. Instead of bringing me a box, the server took my food and brought it back to me in a box. That's OK, I prefer to do it myself to avoid gross incompetence where possible, but fine. Today I discovered that they packed the meat and peppers but not the tortillas or other fixings. This is the sort of gross incompetence I was talking about. (a) you don't do what I asked you to do and (b) you do the most ridiculous thing possible, which is toss the tortillas in the trash and hand me stuff that goes in a tortilla to take home. Look, I know it's hard to be a server, but they could've just brought me the box, like I requested. Instead, lunch was me eating fajita fillings out of a bowl. A server who makes your experience noticeably worse is providing poor service.
張貼
