Sunday, May 06, 2007

Baby Acapulco

The original party place?

Website: www.BabyAcapulco.com

Our first visit to Baby A was prompted by colleagues from my former life in town for training. The Woman and I cruised on up and caught them on the patio by the giant circular fireplace, where they had a head start on the signature purple margarita. (Limit 2) Not being a margarita guy, I opted for a Dos Equis Amber, my cerveza of choice for Tex-Mex. The Woman, a life-long designated driver, had water with lemon.

After a skim of the menu, I decided I had to try the catfish enchiladas. I mean, how often do you get a chance like that? They were a nice change from the typical Tex-Mex treadmill and I'd do it again. But I didn't. This time I tried the ceviche: citrus marinated shrimp, scallop, octopus, and tilapia blended with pico de gallo and olive oil and topped with sliced avocado. It's a cold, tomato-based soup that is sort of like eating shrimp cocktail with a spoon. Only it's so packed with seafood that you could really eat it with a fork and not miss much. Or forget the cutlery altogether and scoop it up with chips. It was a nice light alternative to the more traditional, heavier Tex-Mex options.

The Woman branched out with the Smothered Chicken Poblano, which I couldn't read without thinking of Lisa Samson's Straight Up, which has a joke about smothered chicken in it. (In my humble, but accurate, opinion, it's her best since The Living End. If that girl doesn't get a Christy for Straight Up, there's no fairness in this world. Which of course, there isn't, so perhaps things aren't looking up for Lisa. Oh well.) Back to the smothered chicken. It was a chicken breast smothered with poblano peppers, mushrooms, fresh spinach leaves, and Monterrey Jack cheese, served with an avocado salad, beans a la charra, and rice. Now that sounds like the perfect Tex-Mex entree if you ask me, and I ate a significant portion of it. Which explains how I ended up waddling out even though I had ordered something light.

It was karaoke night (Tue/Thu) and out on the veranda locals were murdering everything from "The Letter" to "I Love Rock and Roll." We considered sitting out there for the "entertainment" (quotes used advisedly) but it was the outdoor smoking section and we weren't in the mood for dinner with a side of nicotine. Baby A might indeed be the original party place, although I'm pretty sure there have been party places for many centuries past, so they might be wrong about that. But they're not wrong about the food. It's worth going back for.

2 comments:

~k/c~ said...

looks fun there
are palms found naturally in your area or are those in the pics landscaped in?
(there are no dumb questions)

Brad Whittington said...

We're too far from the ocean to deserve palm trees. We do grow a mean mesquite, though, as well as some powerful cedar which makes itself known during the season.