[title type="h5"]
Wednesday, June 17, 2015.
Velvet Cactus.[/title]
Mary Leigh and I are enduring the absence of Mary Ann all this week. While MA continues her idyll in her beloved Langham Hotel in Pasadena, ML and I try to get together for lunch or dinner, to slake the loneliness. Her work schedule and mine don't coordinate well, but she doesn't work every day.
We meet up for supper at the Velvet Cactus in Lakeview. I recall that she said she liked it. She corrects me on that. She says that she found the menu appealing, but the realities were less impressive.
[caption id="attachment_47976" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Inside the dining room at Velvet Cactus. They also have outdoor tables.[/caption]
I'm glad she and I get together for this review. As soon as I enter, it's clear to me that the Velvet Cactus is aimed at a much younger audience than my generation. The premises, the music, and the service style seem more appropriate for twenty-somethings--ML's age. She is a fan of Americanized Mexican restaurants since she was a little girl, with a long memory of all the salsas in town.
Our dinner at Velvet Cactus tonight is the most disappointing meal I've had in awhile. Everything about the place makes me hope that I've replaced myself as NOMenu's critic before it's time to review it again. I have no doubt it will still be around. The place is packed all the time. The wait for a table tonight is a half-hour. But that's better than previous attempts to dine here, when I couldn't find parking within four blocks.
Whatever the magic is in the Velvet Cactus's appeal to its customers--and I have no idea how it works--the management has made the most of it. What I find here is mind-numbing music, an ambient sound level that makes it nearly impossible to carry on a conversation with the person sitting next to you, a menu whose length is an illusion created by using most ingredients in many different dishes, a rushed service routine that seems calculated to turn tables as quickly as possible, and thoroughly uninteresting food.
About the only aspects of the place I can get my head around are the low prices for massive portions, and a clever interior and exterior design. It looks like a New Orleans version of Angkor Wat, seeming to be an old, disused facility covered with vines and tropical plants. Actually, the restaurant was built from the ground up a few years ago.
[caption id="attachment_47975" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Nachos.[/caption]
Here's how it went after the half-hour wait passed. The eager waiter came over to suggest margaritas or beer. Failing that, he suggests we get an appetizer while we're looking over the menu. The urgency in his pitch persuades me to get guacamole. It comes out with the expected rapidity, a ball of mostly-avocado that appeared to have been rendered with an ice cream scoop. Not terrible, but below average. When the waiter brings it, he presses us for a decision on the entree. After all, we've been sitting in one of his tables for a full four minutes. But I actually read menus, and I wasn't quite ready. To calm the waiter down, I ask for a plate of the house nachos. And here they are, with two-thirds of the guacamole still left to be eaten. The nachos are mountainous in portion, and not worth eating.
[caption id="attachment_47973" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Quesadillas. [/caption]
But by then we manage to choose entrees. ML has beef quesadillas. For me, the cochinitas pibil. They both arrive with some ninety percent of the nachos remaining, and over half of the guac. I issue my usual question when this happens: which dish should I allow to get cold while eating the other?
[caption id="attachment_47974" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Cochinita pibil.[/caption]
The presence of the pork pibil gave me hope. It's a Yucatan specialty, made with slow-cooked, tender pork with a sharp marinade involving peppers and pineapple. I've always liked it--particularly in Cozumel, where I have it almost every time my ship docks there. I should have known that knowledge of the authentic dish from the place if its birth would be a handicap at Velvet Cactus. The pork is shredded into an unidentifiable mash. The rice underneath the pork is the better part of the dish. I lost interest after three bites (or six percent by volume).
The waiter, to prove that he is on top of things, analyzes the quantity of uneaten food on the table. "Do I like the cochinita?" he asks. No, I say. Within the next sixty seconds he checks with the floor manager, who picks up the dish and erases it from the check, even though I didn't ask for such a drastic move. But they seem to be completely amenable to making it good.
Mary Leigh, who lately has picked up some of her mother's adoration of leftovers, asks to have the pibil and the nachos, and--oh, well, while you're at it, half of the quesadilla--packed up to go. I roll my eyes. I was hoping never to see this stuff again.
Good lord, this music is awful. The many avid customers, laughing and yelling to be heard, will pick up the slack from my not coming back anytime soon. This restaurant, I keep thinking, is not made for people like me.
[caption id="attachment_47972" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Tres leches cake at Velvet Cactus.[/caption]
But I check one more thing. Tres leches cake. Mmmmm--no.
[title type="h5"]Velvet Cactus. Lakeview: 6300 Argonne Blvd. 504-301-2083. [/title]
