Cafe Mexico

Last night we were both to shattered and tired to try and cook, so we decided to go out and eat. We considered where we could go that would suit our mood and be ok for Max to be there as well. We talked about several restaurants - Mo:le was too expensive and we would not have enjoyed the food, Mint has a menu that seems to be all over the place and I was not into the risk, Eugene's is great but we go there a lot, we were not going to consider any Chinese or Indian so this left us with only a few choices.

Cafe Mexico is a places I have been going to since about 1986. I have had some really good meals there and some acceptable ones, I have never had a bad meal here and last night was no different.

The other week we had some of the most horrific nachos at Spinaker's, the ones last night were everything that godo nachos should be. The chips were freshly made from tortillas, thin and crispy with a lot of flavour. The cheese was well mixed through out and not overwhelming. And finally they did not cheap out on sour cream and guacamole.

I had the prawns diablo - something I have always enjoyed about Cafe Mexico is the selection of seafood on the menu. Mexico has a very long coastline and seafood is core to much of the cusine. Most Mexican restaurants offer very little seafood. The prawns diablo is a dish of prawns in a moderately hot sauce made with a lot of bell peppers instead of tomatoes. The rice accompanying the meal was perfectly done.

The service was good, the restaurant was moderately full which is good for a Monday night in Victoria. I had to laugh to think that many of the servers had not been born when I first ate at the Cafe Mexico.

There is one incident that happened at Cafe Mexico back in the 80s when I ate there that has always impressed me. I was eating there with about six other friends and we were drinking a nice valpolicella but had their last bottle. We wanted another one. The waiter went to a neighbouring restaurant and bought a bottle so that we could drink it. We were not charged anything extra for this, though admittedly they bought more than 20 years of my loyalty to the restaurant.