Café Chulo

Café Chulo
155 W. Neider Ave.
Coeur d'Alene
667-2705

http://www.cafechulo.com

In a recent column, I spent an entire paragraph complaining about the noticeable lack of decent Chinese food places here in Coeur d’Alene. However, when it comes to great Mexican places we are lucky to have a “mucho grande” amount of places to choose from. In fact, I could make a wild guess and say that there are more Mexican restaurants in North Idaho than any other style of dining. For the most part, each place has a little different shtick from the others, ranging from the walk-up taco trailers and the build-your-own burrito bars to the places which offer a gourmet authentic experience. Falling somewhere between fast and fancy, Café Chulo on Neider Ave. has become one of my personal favorite Mexican haunts.

Chulo opened in fall of 2005 in the glorious Kmart parking lot, taking over a formerly cursed building that housed a series of failed burger joints, none of whose names I can recall. Not that it matters, because the proprietors here have transformed the place into a bright and breezy cabana. Cheerfully painted stucco blends with colorful handmade tiles in an open atmosphere. The tables have fun retro posters resting underneath their glass surfaces. The place always seems impeccably clean and there are open tables no matter how busy it gets.

When I was in Sacramento, California several years ago, the big trend was "Fresh-Mex" cuisine, which is a way to describe Mexican Food that doesn't rely on deep frying, grey gloppy refried beans, and heavy mounds of melted cheese. Cafe Chulo is CDA's first "Fresh-Mex" place, and the food is astonishingly fresh indeed, and quite delectable. The flour and corn tortillas are made right on premises on a constant basis, the salsa is made up several times daily and never sits around for too long. The menu is a bit minimal (tacos, burritos, nachos, with chicken, beef, or pulled pork) but each order comes with the choice of chips and salsa or beans and rice. Plus, the food just seems so different than that of your average Mexican place, it's like trying these foods for the first time.
On a recent visit, I quickly realized that the gentlemen behind the counter seemed to speak almost no English at all. Unlike certain outspoken members of our community, I love to see language diversity in action, sometimes I just wish I had taken Spanish in high school instead of wasting my time with years of French lessons (although that could come in handy on trips to Canada, I suppose). Of course, he did speak enough English to take our orders, but it would've been fun to surprise him by ordering in his native tongue, like I’ve seen some other clever Chulo-goers do. His friendly teenage kitchen helper spoke perfect English, however, as I told her to load my chicken tacos up with fresh cilantro and pico de gallo. My lunch partner ordered the beef nachos, which took three trips under the broiler, with new layers added each round. Everything comes in a shiny aluminum round tray, wisely eliminating any dishes.

We moaned and groaned ecstasy as we dug in to our meals. The flour tortillas holding together my chicken tacos were hot off the press and perfect in taste and texture. The grilled chicken inside was pure, delicious white meat and was cooked just right so it practically melted in my mouth. The salsa added a perfect hint of sweet and spicy that accented the tender chicken perfectly. The lettuce added a healthy crunch, a far cry from the wilted green stuff that many lesser taco joints serve. They went quite light on the shredded cheese, which was a wise decision as to not overwhelm the succulent flavor of the entire package. Each bite was just a tease for the next bite.

I know I probably sound like I'm going a bit overboard here, but these tacos are truly that good. I have never tasted anything quite as dynamic. The accompanying beans were actual beans rather than mush, whole black beans with a delicious sauce. Lastly, the smallish portion of rice was quite flavorful and a perfect way to chase down the main event. Meanwhile, my ravenous lunch partner wordlessly toppled and overtook the largest pile of Nachos I have ever seen, smothered in huge strips of peppery grilled steak, piquant brown hot sauce and guacamole so fresh you could practically see the poor avocado shivering.

Amazingly, almost every meal on the menu is priced near $6. For the quality of food they offer, the low cost is truly jaw dropping. Plus, they have a handy drive-thru, so if you're in a hurry you can treat yourself to something healthy, rather than a slimy Jack-in-the-Crack burger. The only complaint I have at all about Cafe Chulo is that they charge a couple of bucks for a basket of chips and salsa, rather than offer it free like most places do, Certainly, that doesn't mean you will leave hungry. I’d also love to see them bring some horchata into the scene. I get frequent cravings for the sweet rice and cinnamon beverage, and it’s all but impossible to track down in our fair berg. Such trivialities are unimportant when measured against the big picture of what Café Chulo has to offer. Since they’ve opened, I must have sampled nearly the entire menu, and everything I've tried has been nothing less than enticing and delicious. Highly recommended.

Wah Hing , Kellogg

Wah Hing Restaurant
215 McKinley Ave., Kellogg
208-783-3181

I’ve heard it said many times in recent years and sadly, I have to agree: there just aren’t any really great Chinese restaurants in Coeur d’Alene. There is one in town that I consider to be acceptable, but it only creates a mild twitch on the Richter scale of excitement. Chinese is probably my favorite cuisine, and I’ve spent a lot of time and lunch money exploring the literally endless cache of Chinese joints over in Spokane. I’m pretty sure the Lilac City has more Chinese restaurants per capita than almost any other city - just drive north on Division and you’ll find dozens. Most are better than anything Coeur d’Alene has to offer, so whenever I long for the really good stuff, I head over the state line and pick one of my many favorite spots. With no place in Coeur d’Alene really getting those mouth juices flowing, I’ve just resigned myself to making that familiar jaunt westward whenever I need a fix of the perfect Almond Chicken.

Whenever this dilemma comes up in conversation, someone inevitably mentions the Wah Hing Restaurant in Kellogg. “Oh, you’ve GOT to go and check it out, it’s really good, the best Chinese place in the whole area…” So on a recent blazing hot Friday morning, Q. and I recharged our camera batteries and windexed our sunglasses and headed out for a day in the sunny Silver Valley.

When Noah Kellogg’s donkey went wandering astray on that fateful September morn so very long ago, it’s hard to imagine that he ever thought his little galena mine would one day turn into endless rows of shiny new Dodge trucks. The sprawl of the Dave Smith auto dealership has taken over easily half this small town. It’s a little surreal driving through parts of Kellogg where car lots butt up against more car lots, and just when you think there can’t possibly be more car lots, you go round the bend and run into even more car lots. We headed up the hill toward downtown and had no trouble finding a parking spot right in front of the restaurant. It was still a little early for lunch, so we decided to work up an appetite by exploring the area.

It was a little depressing to see that easily seventy-five percent of the storefronts in downtown Kellogg were sitting vacant and quickly deteriorating. On the brighter side, someone has purchased the old YMCA building and is turning it into “lofts” (read: high-priced condos), so maybe the Richy Rich folks that move in there will snap up some of the empty shops and revitalize the area with their Fruit Smoothies and Shabby Chic.

Meanwhile, the shopping scene here is obviously a little on the scant side, but worth mentioning is Papa’s Barn, an antique/vintage/thrift place that goes on forever, taking up three entire large connected buildings and their full basements. We lost an hour in there looking at amazing things like a large collection of Pez dispensers, a complete set of Kiss dolls, and a dusty box of vintage Playboy magazines from the ‘50’s and ‘60’s. They’ve converted one section of the basement where there’s an actual old mine shaft into a makeshift museum. It’s a dank little room with some abused looking mannequins sporting the hottest fashions of 1893 and a full human skeleton wearing a miner’s cap and leering up from a dark alcove. I ended up scoring a perfect copy of “50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong” and a disintegrating copy of the Spokesman Review dated October 9, 1951.

We were definitely hungry by the time we shuffled out of Papa’s Barn and out into the blistering sun. When we walked into the Wah Hing, I was hit by the powerful chemical aroma of some cheap cleaning agent. Granted, there are worse things you could smell when you walk into a restaurant, but it took a little getting used to. More importantly, the place was air-conditioned and cool to the max, and the waitress brought water and hot tea immediately. I wouldn’t have thought to order hot tea on such a sizzling day, but I poured a cup and it was so fresh and sweet tasting, it was actually refreshing.

The restaurant was percolating with lunch goers and our girl Terri seemed to be the only waitress on duty. To her credit, she never once slacked or lost her cool. We got the impression she’d been serving food here for many moons, and she fit into the natural scheme of the place just like one of the paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Some string-laden Asian pop music crackled out through dusty speakers, mixing with the dramatically punctuated Chinese-language conversation being held by the kitchen staff, lending the Wah Hing an authenticity that seemed oddly out of place in little old Kellogg. A stern-faced older Chinese woman emerged from the kitchen and sat down to relax a while amidst the chaotic lunch rush, and we assumed her to be an owner, sipping tea and eyeballing the proceedings like a hawk.

The menu itself was quite varied with both the usual suspects like Mongolian Chicken, Szechwan Beef, and Kung Pao Shrimp as well as some enticingly unusual items like Golden Crown Bird Nest (a combo of meats and veggies served in a nest of noodles), Westlake Fried Duck, and Dragon and Phoenix Special (includes lobster and chicken, cleverly). Naturally, a selection of American fare is available as well, although I don’t know anyone over the age of ten who goes to a Chinese joint and orders a grilled cheese sandwich. I almost always go for a combination lunch, since it’s the best way to really get an impression of what a Chinese place is all about. Q. and I usually try to order something different so we can taste a wider variety of items, but this time we both picked Combo Number 2 and neither one of us wanted to budge.

I must have looked totally stunned when Terri asked us if we wanted Egg Drop or Hot and Sour soup with our meals. This is a standard option in many regions I’ve visited, but in these parts it’s always Egg Drop only, even in most of the Spokane places I’ve dined in. Tears of joy welled up in my ever-so-jaded eyes as I ordered the Hot and Sour. I told her to start us off with some Fried Won Tons as well, which she brought out with our soup. Hot and Sour soup, if done well, is a miracle substance known to clear sinuses and cause happy brain tingle. Wah Hing’s version was perfection, crispy bamboo shoots and shitake mushrooms mingling gently with stringy pork pieces and white chunks of tofu. It was so good I pondered if maybe I should have just ordered an extra large bowl of the soup and called it a day. I was impressed that they actually put a garnish of shredded greens under the Fried Won-Tons, and thin carrot strips to jazz up the delicately sweet dipping sauce. So many places just throw them on a white plate and serve them with that toxic red goo, but Wah Hing obviously takes care in the presentation of their food, even with such a simple dish.

Terri brought out our two Number Twos and after admiring the visual beauty of the cuisine, we dug in. The batter coating the Sweet and Sour Chicken was incredibly light in texture, almost like a Tempura. The glaze was decidedly fresh and made from scratch, simply delicious with hints of sweet orange, making me wonder what that brown glop is that many Chinese places pass off as Sweet and Sour. Fried Rice and Chow Mein seem like they would be difficult to really screw up, but I have had many forkfuls of nastily burnt tasting rice and overly slimy, bland chow mein in my long Chinese-food eating career. Wah Hing avoids these pitfalls and serves fresh, fluffy rice sprinkled with green onions and BBQ pork shreds, and the chow mein is crisp and savory, with a sauce light enough that the noodles remain crunchy throughout. Both of us finished everything on our plates, a rare occurrence indeed. We cracked open our fortune cookies. Mine: “Do something unusual tomorrow.” Q’s: “A pleasant surprise is in store for you.”

People were indeed correct: Wah Hing is a great hidden small-town gem and is well worth the short drive east. We waddled out of there after leaving a twenty dollar bill on the table, astoundingly cheap considering that included both meals, the appetizer, the tea, and a well-deserved fiver for a tip. We decided to vacate Kellogg and spent the rest of the blazing afternoon swimming around in the cool exhilarating waters of the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River.

Pho Thanh & Café

Pho Thanh & Café
2108 N. 4th St.
Coeur d’Alene, ID
(208) 665-9903

“Nobody home, ha, ha ha!” These were the words of the host as I entered the front door of Pho Thanh & Café Vietnamese Restaurant on North 4th Street in Coeur d’Alene. “Ah…just kidding” he grinned. A few minutes after I settled in and ordered an older couple walked in. “Nobody home, ha ha ha!” he cackled gleefully. “Ah…just kidding.” Turns out, this was part of his routine and he was laying it on everyone who walked in the door.

Pho Thanh is a family-owned establishment, and I’d like to imagine the host must be the favorite kooky uncle of the bunch. Sau Nguyen and family established their café in 2004 in the former Skippers and GW Hunters building near where I-90 crosses 4th St. The Nguyens, including their 10 children, had previously lived in Spokane, where they ran Pho Tai Café. Perhaps their move eastward was prompted by the fact that there was no competition – Pho Thanh was the first Vietnamese place to establish itself in North Idaho, and the place has been booming ever since.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Vietnamese cuisine, let’s review the basics. The specialty dish is pho (pronounced “fuh”), which is a steamy soup consisting of seasoned beef or chicken broth made from scratch, clear rice noodles, bean sprouts, green onions, white onions, and the main ingredient, which is your choice of round steak, meat ball, soft tendon, or chicken. If you’re feeling a little experimental, you can choose to have your pho with beef tripe or oxtail. Fresh basil, hot peppers and lime wedges are served on the side for seasoning to your own taste. Condiments include hoisin sauce, red hot Sriracha sauce, and even hotter chili oil.

The first time I found myself dining at Pho Thahn was a few years back, shortly after they opened. My roommate and I had nasty colds at the time and decided the hot steaminess sounded good for our aching sinuses. We were seated and we began examining the elaborate little set-up at the end of each table: a basket full of bottled condiments, the little jar of oily chili paste, a bin of plastic chopsticks in paper wrappers, a neat pile of soup spoons. A colorful chain of plastic flowers hung brightly around the room, and big, gaudy art panels were placed randomly around on fresh white walls. The atmosphere was unfussy but appealing, complete with the Nguyens chatting away in their native Vietnamese.

Our pho arrived and I noticed that the beef splayed attractively across the top was rather on the pink side. I soon realized that that was how it was served – the intense heat of the broth continues to cook the rare meat until it’s done, allowing it to retain its natural juiciness. I added a brave dose of chili paste and tasted the pho – woah! The intensity of the seasoned broth and aromatic quality the fresh basil combined with the heat of the chili made for an incredible, sinus clearing experience. Delicious.

“What kind of pepper is this?” I asked my roommate innocently, pointing at the bright orange slice with my chopstick. “Ah well, I like spicy anyway” I thought, and before he could answer, I popped one in my mouth. His eyes widened. “Oh, my god, that’s a habanero, you can’t just eat it like that!” Habanero. Hot. Suddenly my tongue was ablaze, my eyes were bright red and welling with tears, and my pulse was like thunder, throbbing in my ears. I spat the pepper out and my evil roommate laughed as I emptied my water glass, then guzzled his down. The feeling was so intense all I could do was sit there speechless with teardrops pouring down. The place was full of people, and most of them were probably wondering what kind of terrible news I’d just received. I tried to disguise my trauma from the waiter as I asked for a to-go container – there was no way I was finishing my pho if I couldn’t even taste it. I must not have been the only fool to end up in habanero misery – I noticed the little buggers are no longer served with each order.

In addition to 9 varieties of pho, Pho Thanh has some other tasty options to explore on their menu, all within the $7-9 price range. My all-time favorite is the #15, the Com Ga Xao Xa Ot, which translates to Steamed White Rice with Lemon Grass Chili Chicken. Another option is an order of “Bun” which are long vermicelli rice noodles, served with your choice of char broiled pork, beef meatball, shrimp skewer, or lemon grass chicken. Intriguingly, you can order this dish with pieces of crispy deep fried eggroll swimming on top, which is the #22, “Bun Cha Go.” It’s an unusual combination, but it is texturally magnificent and instantly addictive.

One menu item I’ve learned that I can’t live very long without is the fresh spring rolls, served cold, not fried like an egg roll. It’s made with a clear rice wrapper containing a handful of cooked-then-chilled rice noodles, two plump shrimp, a thin slice of pork, and some fresh mint and basil leaves. When dipped in the accompanying sauce, a sweet blend of hoisin and peanut, these little babies are pure heaven. Two orders (four rolls) will set you back a mere $6 and make a wonderful, filling lunch served a la carte.

Like most family-run places, service here is always fast and amazing. I frequently pop in to make take-out orders and even during a rush, I’ve never waited more than a few minutes. Near the door is a table piled high with odd publications such as restaurant equipment and office supply catalogs, presumably for take-out customers to peruse while they wait. Always, just as I get bored enough to actually start paging through the Costco Connection, the smiling host is handing me my order. “Nobody home, ha ha ha!” he laughs as more hungry customers file in for their fix of delicious pho.

What's Cookin' Coeur d'Alene review

Café Carambola

Café Carambola
610 W. Hubbard #110
Coeur d'Alene
208-676-8764

The night of Cinco de Mayo is traditionally when we enjoy a lot of Corona and Jose Cuervo and perhaps get a little loco. So, of course you will want to spend the day grazing on goodies from south of the border to get your tummy prepared for the party. You can’t settle for plain old Taco Bell on such an important day, you’ll want to go for something different, something on the more authenitic side. I’d approvingly suggest that a visit to Café Carambola for lunch is a great way to get the fiesta started.

I have a friend who cracked me up one time when we went to lunch at another “fresh-mex” restaurant a while back in Coeur d’Alene and after we got our food he sat down said, with all seriousness: “This isn’t a real Mexican place – there aren’t any tater tots on the menu!” Poor kid needs to get out more often, I think.

With that in mind, I wouldn’t suggest that he should bother with Café Carambola either, where nothing is murdered in hot oil, and everything is served fresh, fresh, fresh in an intriguing variety of Latin dishes. In fact, they claim that many of the veggies are plucked daily from the owner’s home garden, at least in the warmer months. The location is a bit off the beaten track, tucked away there in Harbor Center next to the Lewis-Clark State Student Lounge (they offer a discount to LCSC students, by the way.) I’ve driven by the place a zillion times, but it never really registered to actually dine there until a few days ago. A friend and I were hungry but couldn’t decide where to eat - we were sick of all the usual spots and were craving something new. Bing! I remembered Café Carambola and we headed out the door.

The cafe is teeny-tiny but the addition of several al fresco tables on the front sidewalk made for a bit more space. There was only one table left when we arrived during the busy lunch rush. While its strip-mall location renders it rather nondescript from the outside, the place is bright, clean and welcoming inside. A few minimal bits of South American décor add some color and charm. A friendly gentleman with a wild floral shirt and a thick Latin accent waited patiently as we scanned the menu.

Although the owners have lived in Mexico, this is not your standard Mexican fare at all. Menu items also derive from exotic places like Peru, Argentina, and Cuba. For lunch, they offer a variety of tortas (which is Spanish for “sandwiches on a firm and crusty grilled bread roll”), homemade soups and salads, and the special of the day, which this day was their legendary tamales. I spied the variety of colorful salads in the display case and our host named them off to me, each utterly unpronounceable to these non-Spanish speaking ears. Prices here are a little on the upper ridge of my normal lunch budget, ranging from $8-12 per person.

I decided to go for half a Torta Mexicana (slow roasted pulled-pork, goat cheese, tomato salsa) and a small order of the unpronounceable salad with fresh tomatoes and avocados frolicking lightly in herbs and olive oil. My dining partner immediately sprang for the tamales, his favorite, along with the soup of the day, which was a mean bean concoction of some type. Our food arrived expeditiously and my partner looked at his plate and at me and back at it and at me and we both started laughing. He has a quite a notoriously voracious appetite and could have quite easily eaten about four times the amount of food presented. Two wee tamales (two bites each) and a half-dab of soup was it. I told him to get over it, that it was “gourmet.” In all honesty, I suppose that for $8.95 they could have at least tried to feed the poor starving boy instead of just teasing him. The food was absolutely delish, he said, but as soon as he was done he was ready to go to Zips for round two.

My torta and salad portion weren’t exactly mammoth either, but I was just hungry enough that it seemed like the right amount. The slow-roasted pork was melt-in-your-mouth good, the cheese was perfectly creamy and made a nice accompaniment to the tangy fresh tomato salsa. The avocado-tomato salad was vibrant, coated in a variety of herbs and olive oil and practically sparkled on my tastebuds. Yum-ola! A good old fashioned Pepsi was the perfect thing to wash down this singularly enjoyable meal.

Despite the lunch rush, our waiter was kind and attentive, returning frequently to check on us and fill our beverages. Again, our only complaint was that the small-ish portion size didn’t seem to line up with the large-ish prices. A suggestion: sit people with a bottomless basket of homemade chips and fresh salsa and allow those with larger appetites to fill their tummies that way. Overall, Café Carambola does a fantastic job of providing an uncommon alternative to traditional Mexican lunches, and being that the place is always hopping when I cruise by, I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Fiesta Mexicana

Fiesta Mexicana
2605 N 4TH Street
Coeur d’Alene
208-665-2400
www.orderfiesta.com

There are still times when I drive by that neon orange and green building on the corner of 4th and Appleway and long for the glory days of the Godfather’s Pizza’s all-you-can-eat lunch buffet. For years, many lazy noontimes were spent grazing over taco pizza, cheesy breadsticks, and yummy dessert pizza while watching talk shows on the house TV. Alas, it seems the chain has gone the way of the dodo, at least in our corner of the world. The short-lived Los Sanchez soon took over the building. Their food was one-half step above fast food - sometimes it was OK, sometimes borderline rancid. When they moved in, they did virtually no redecoration at all, which always left me with the uneasy feeling that I was dining in the corpse of a good memory – I still wanted pizza. Fortunately, any memory of Godfathers was permanently kaput with the opening of the Fiesta Mexicana Restaurant late last fall.

Not only is the outside of the building an acid trip in ‘70’s colors, but the color scheme inside is loco as well, all bright yellow, orange, and red sponge painted walls. The remodel here is quite drastic with the construction of several new walls to create separate areas, the addition of comfortable, overstuffed red booths, and classy modern colored-glass lamps hanging low above the tables. The former counter area is gone, and a small open bar area occupies the corner where the salad/salsa bar used to live. The owners have clearly put a lot of thought into the new look of the place, complete with fun knick-knacks everywhere that look like they could’ve been purchased at a street fair in Tijuana. Also, the landscaping here, formerly an eyesore on one of the city’s main intersections, has been much improved and makes the place seem inviting despite the headache-inducing color scheme of the actual building.

On a recent early Sunday afternoon the place was bubbling with activity, but my friend and I were seated right away by one of the many Latino boys sporting trendy ‘faux-hawk” hairdos. Seriously, all the hosts and waiters had this hairstyle going on and somehow it worked really well for them. Before we could even get out of our coats, our gracious host was delivering fresh, hot tortilla chips and homemade salsa to our table, along with water right away. To me, there’s no worse example of food service than seating people with no water right away. It should be there the moment you sit down, and to Fiesta Mexicana’s credit, it was. Also, I ordered a Pepsi, and when the waiter returned with it he said in his thick accent “Your Root Beer, sir…” and before I could muster a protest he laughed and said “Just kidding, you ordered Pepsi, right?” Sometimes just a little joke like that makes for a memorable and wonderful customer service experience, and so far so good.

I was especially famished and I already knew what I was going to order, so I didn’t really examine the menu too closely. I would say the fare is similar to what one would expect from a nice Mexican place where dinners run in the $8-$14 range. The menu was large and quite varied. I did notice lots of shrimp dishes, and even Menudo (I know, tripe - yuck – but you don’t see it too often), along with some interesting desserts and even homemade Sangria – a fruit and red wine combo that would have been delicious had I not been driving that day. My long-standing favorite Mexican dish is Pollo en Mole, and it’s always the first thing I try to test out a new Mexican place. Historically, Toro Viejo has the best in the area. So naturally that’s what I ordered, and my friend opted for his standard Carne Asada platter.

Our food arrived instantaneously along with a warning about the hot plates – “No touch!” Our platters were visually perfect, with melted cheddar over creamy refried beans, a heaping scoop of rice, and a sizzled green onion for garnish and color. The main event, however, was the chicken in mole. The sweetness of the chocolate and peanut butter mingling with spices in a rich sauce smothering tender strips of chicken breast, all scooped into a warm, fresh tortilla. Wow, wow, wow. Perhaps I was just especially ravenous that day, but the food was intensely delicious and I managed to finish every last spec, mopping up every last drop of that yummy brown sauce with my tortilla. My lunch partner was also in food heaven, and was raving about how he hasn’t had such good Carne Asada since he was a kid and his Mexican granny would make the real deal at home.

I’d heard from others who have eaten at the other Fiesta Mexicana on Spokane’s South Hill that they’re food was bland and nothing to write home about, but our experience was quite the opposite. The waiter cleared our licked-clean plates and returned with a small dish that had a couple of little deep fried cinnamon tortilla triangles topped with little mountains of whipped cream and drizzled with strawberry glaze. What a nice touch, and an excellent chaser to a fantastic meal.

The sign out front of the place says “Authentic Mexican Cuisine” and they aren’t fooling around. Between the blaring Tejano music, the Spanish yammering of the staff and some customers, the fun colorful atmosphere, and the delicious meal, I felt like I went on a mini-vacation south of the border. I was pleasantly surprised as well when the bill arrived. I could’ve sworn the menu had said that my dinner was $10.50 and my friend’s was $10.95, but we were only charged $6.95 for each and our sodas were free. Maybe there was a special lunch price we weren’t aware of, or perhaps it was a random (accidental?) discount, but it was a perfect way to end an all-together impressive and fabulous dining experience.