Mediocre Mexican

Adobe Cafe

1919 E. Passyunk Ave.

***

My sweetie and I decided to check out a new restaurant over the holiday weekend and ended up at the Adobe Cafe, which seemed to be getting some good reviews online. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to the raves I saw on on other sites. It wasn’t a bad experience, but not particularly memorable, either.

The atmosphere was unremarkable, but I will say that the service was excellent and bumped the number of stars I gave this place up from two to three. The waiter was extremely attentive and the margarita was delicious, likely due to the quality tequila. We started with mussels steamed in lager that were so good, we discussed altering our technique for making them at home.

Our entrees arrived before we were finished with the appetizer and I would have preferred they waited, but that’s more a personal preference than a complaint. My fiance had the chicken tacos and I had the red snapper special, which sounded great – if only it had been cooked properly. I am guessing the pan wasn’t hot enough when the fish was added, which resulted in a kind of slimy fish fillet with an oily sauce. Now, maybe this was a symptom of our visiting on a holiday weekend when the A-list chef was likely out, but for me, it really killed the dish. The roasted asparagus was very nice.

Having both had a couple of drinks, we had a sizable discussion about the rice. “What’s up with this?” my honey asked, poking at the lump of rice on his plate. We agreed it was not only uninspired, but actually detracted from the rest of the meal. I don’t know who decided that they needed rice on the plate to be Mexican, but the dishes would have been better off without them. It makes the whole place seem less authentic and more commercial.

The key lime pie we shared for dessert was not up to par IMO, if it really was key lime pie. But, our server, again, was great. Very attentive, friendly and quick, which was one of the highlights of the meal.

Our visit to the Adobe cafe this spring started with the proverbial bang and got progressively less interesting. I’m not saying we wouldn’t give Adobe another shot to get past three stars, but with the wealth of new restaurants on EP, including two additional Mexican places, it’s going to be a while.

Asta pronto!

SPF

*For another perspective and some good food photos, check out Erin & Matt’s review here.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 7:12 pm and is filed under Chic Chef, SPF Perscpective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.