Great Mexican

NNTP-Posting-Date: 9 Feb 2002 18:09:10 GMT
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>  - the decor/atmosphere is essentially magical realism ... but everyone
>    acts like it's all perfectly normal. A usual-enough bar/entry opens up
>    into a dark, rectangular dining area with a high ceiling. Trees grow
>    through the restaurant, the walls hang with a combination of the tasteful
>    and the tasteless, giant sculptures and cheesy paper cutouts and
>    Dega-esque folk/history murals. Color and texture and layers
>    everywhere...but somehow not overwhelming to the senses. It's not a kiddie
>    place or anything ...  think Like Water for Chocolate, not Disney. There's
>    been live 'music' on the nights I've been there, guy with keyboard singing
>    80s Americana....

I would definitely agree with your assessment of the food, but I think you might have gone a bit deep on the decor.  When they first opened, the back area was actually a garden area between the buildings on either side of it.  Given that the restaurant is in a standard store front on Milwaukee, it is maybe 25 feet wide.  So, after getting great reviews, the owner simply connected the outer walls and roofed in the existing space, trees and all.  Essentially, he just left bare studs (the building kind) and joists and covered them with paper doilies and things.  This was an incredibly cheap way of accomplishing his goals. From an owner's standpoint, I have to say this was just brilliant.  I guess that I had not conidered the possibility that he was trying to evoke Gabriel Garcia Marquez or something, or maybe I am just too shallow (or more likely jaded) to see it.  If that was the goal, then what the hell, that was pretty brilliant too.  The only downside, and it is a big one, is that by trading off the outside for more inside seating, it is pretty stuffy in the summer.  The garden was nice.

>  - appetizers are tasty but small for the price (too small to share, maybe
>    $6-$9 ea. iirc, I remember having a good spicy shrimp appetizer)
>
>  - it's on the trendy-spendy side of "a night out", entrees are in the high
>    teens/low twenties (iirc). Presentation is lovely, composition/balance of
>    flavors is very nice, but entrees are lower on veggie content than I'm
>    accustomed to at this class of place. Meat + potatoes + yummy sauce. Maybe
>    a veggie garnish or something.
>

You really are dead on with regard to the food.  The mole sauces are fabulous, but the prices have gone a bit out of whack.  This is the constant conflict of the restaurant business.  Ixcapuzalco got raves shortly after opening, which brought huge business for a store front Mexican restaurant in Logan Square, albeit one that serves really high quality food.  Consequently, he raised the prices because he could. He also added $7 valet.  There is nothing wrong with any of this, it is just that it is no longer a place to just go get some good mole on a week night.  You have to really want to go.

A couple of other things:

The coconut pie is really good.

What does "iirc" mean?

I don't know about "kid friendly" per se, but they were certainly very nice to our two year old.  Of course it didn't hurt that she asked for agua, which cracked up the staff (and us).  (It seems her occasional baby sitter was teaching her spanish - hopefully it will stick).

I might have to go back and see if it can really induce ecstacy in the wife because she seems to be getting a bit tired of just me.

Cliff Einhorn

NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 Feb 2002 02:54:36 GMT
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Someone wrote:
> inDirect wrote in message news:...
>> I was listening to NPR this morning, and they were rattling off some
>> "great" chicago restaurants too quickly for me to write or remember.
>> They mentioned a couple of Mexican places with great moole, made
>> daily.  I think it was on Milwaukee, 5000N or so.  Anybody know?

> Ixtapuzalco, much written about below, is on Milwaukee, but much
> further south. Las Cazuelas is on Elston Ave. (another diagonal
> street) just north of Lawrence, which would put it about 5000 north.
> They make their own mole, it is good, they cater to an upscale
> neighborhood crowd, almost exclusively anglo on my first and only
> visit, which was recently.

> It is family run, the owner has a long pedigree in Chicago upscale
> dining, starting (if I remember correctly from the newspaper article
> posted in his foyer) as a bus boy or waiter many years ago. We will
> probably return, and I hope to find out from him whatever happened to
> the Gulfport Cafe, as he and the owner of Gulfport both worked at the
> original L'Escargot on Halsted.

> The atmosphere at Las Cazuelas is very nice, you might not think so
> from the outside, it is in the kind of building that I can only
> characterize as '50s franchise, but it has lots of windows and appears
> to have patio dining during warm weather. I have a fondness for this
> sort of architecture ever since a family of cousins moved into a very
> old mobile home court in Florida, with huge large palm trees, and a
> house that they rehabbed from a gas station and lunch counter into
> something that actually worked for two parents and seven children.
> Adaptive reuse.

It looks nice, but I don't care for the food there.  Further south on Elston is C. Manny's.  Their food is much better, imho.

NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 Feb 2002 18:27:33 GMT
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Someone wrote:
>>
>> Welcome back to the group Cliff. Where have you been?

> I have been busy consulting with the Marchettis on how to keep the
> Como Inn open.  That, along with computer issues and and the complete
> lack of a need to read polemics by morons re: gays, right wing
> conspiracies, and smoking prohibitions.

>>
>> Still using google I see. Still want me to help you use a real
>> newsreader for usenet?

> That would be great.  The offer for complementary mediocre tavern fare
> still stands.  Let me know when a good time for you would be.  Thanks.

BTW, I went to Bone Daddy on Saturday--good food, came too early for the band, though.  Buffalo Strips were hot! (for me, at least).  Didn't care too much for the prime rib, but wife's brisket sammich was killer.

NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2002 22:20:57 CST
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Dan D. wrote:
>(Jamie_Eimermann) wrote:
>>
>>Ixcapuzalco at 2919 N. Milwaukee makes a different mole every day
>>of the week.
>>
>>Jamie
>>
>Chef/Owner used to be at Frontera/Topolobompo didn't s/he?
>Haven't tried it but have also heard good about it.

I definitely enjoy Ixcapuzalco -- it's been a while since I was there so my review will leave something to be desired, but a few scattered notes --

 - they seem to wish we had reservations when we just show up. Wait was never
   that long, but their disapproval was noticeable...not much space to wait
   in, either.

 - the daily mole specials are scrumptious, wonderful, delightful,
   ecstasy-inducing. I've never had better. Ummm...

 - appetizers are tasty but small for the price (too small to share, maybe
   $6-$9 ea. iirc, I remember having a good spicy shrimp appetizer)

 - it's on the trendy-spendy side of "a night out", entrees are in the high
   teens/low twenties (iirc). Presentation is lovely, composition/balance of
   flavors is very nice, but entrees are lower on veggie content than I'm
   accustomed to at this class of place. Meat + potatoes + yummy sauce. Maybe
   a veggie garnish or something.

 - the decor/atmosphere is essentially magical realism ... but everyone
   acts like it's all perfectly normal. A usual-enough bar/entry opens up
   into a dark, rectangular dining area with a high ceiling. Trees grow
   through the restaurant, the walls hang with a combination of the tasteful
   and the tasteless, giant sculptures and cheesy paper cutouts and
   Dega-esque folk/history murals. Color and texture and layers
   everywhere...but somehow not overwhelming to the senses. It's not a kiddie
   place or anything ...  think Like Water for Chocolate, not Disney. There's
   been live 'music' on the nights I've been there, guy with keyboard singing
   80s Americana....

 - the tables are close together but it's not too loud, the desserts are
   great, the wine list good but not excellent, the staff must have been
   decent and all but I don't recall...my strongest impressions were of the
   mole and the atmosphere, both of which merit many many return visits.

(hmm, that's kinda long)
-Kaylea