Wednesday, February 23, 2011.
Salsas Por El Lago.
When I was around eleven, I noticed that once my birthday (February 6) passed, the continuously cold weather is just about finished. That uplift ran about a week late this year, but it happened. We had ten days of freezing nights surrounding my b-day, but then nighttime lows rose to much more agreeable fifties. Yesterday it was eighty-one at midday. We'll get a few more cold nights, but the clovers are covering large patches of ground, the pink Japanese magnolias are lushly blooming, and other evidences of spring are all around. I'd better get to work fixing the fascia so the returning bats can't get into my attic.
Some dishes--even some entire cuisines--are habit-forming. Sushi, Indian food, and dishes with hollandaise have that effect on me. So, apparently, does Mexican food. Or maybe the dinner I had in the allegedly Mexican restaurant Santa Fe Yesterday wasn't Mexican enough, because that was on my mind again today.
Salsas Por El Lago is in the former Ground Pati on Marina Drive, around the corner from Russell's Marina Grill and Wasabi. The rough roadways, the knocked-out sign, and the parking lot look more like Katrina plus two years than what it actually is. Inside, the place has the look of having been fixed well enough to function cleanly, but is in need of renovation.
However, all reports from listeners and readers about Salsa Por El Lago during its first half-year have been admiring. A very friendly young waitress told me about some interesting specials and fetched me a Negro Modelo cerveza.
The menu looked good. Not much Americanized. At the bottom of it, taunting me, was my favorite Mexican flavor: mole poblano. But it's available only on Sunday, said the menu. I thought I'd ask anyway whether at least the sauce were around to be applied to something other than the roast chicken.
"Oh, I know. It's a shame because we're not even open on Sunday anymore," the waitress said. "I'll ask them. Want some chips and salsa?"
Yes. They have several kinds of salsa, with varying degrees of heat. The house standard was very good. Some sauce in squirt bottles were also tasty.
I also asked for the soup of the day--tortilla soup, light on tomato, with an extremely tasty chicken broth, cilantro, and onions. The waitress seemed very pleased by that news, and by what she learned from the kitchen. They would apply mole to whatever I wanted. I already knew what: chicken enchiladas, ordinarily made with a tomatillo sauce.
That proved to be as delicious as I'd hoped. There was almost nothing but chicken in the four corn-tortilla tubes. It was very moist and fresh-tasting.
I finished the dinner with a rectangle of good flan. The waitress visited with the check and two questions. "Is this your first time dining with us?" Yes, I said, and it was all delicious. Then something no server has ever asked me. "Favorite restaurant?"
What? I thought about it for a second--not about whether it was, but whether I should tell the truth or something that would add sparkle to the moment.
"No," I said.
"One of your favorite restaurants, then?"
"No."
She looked let down, but only a little. I felt guilty. But only a little.
Salsas Por El Lago. West End: 124 Lake Marina Drive. 504-286-3057.
