Maxing and relaxing in St. Petersburg Florida
we braved the beautiful but sweltering South Florida sunshine for
dinner. I know, the sun isn’t as bad around dinner time. Don’t
forget, I am from Ohio, fat and pale as paper…this is not the
weather of my people. But what could possibly lure my bloated hide
into the roast? Oh yeah dinner. Red Mesa is one of the local
favorites of our hosts who have always done well by us and our
little project here. After stints at places like
The 42nd St. Oyster Bar and
Bern’s Steak House I will chase
them wherever they want to eat, even if we have to walk through air
which is hotter and contains more liquid than soup. |
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We pulled into the packed parking lot of Red Mesa with a porch full of patient folks waiting for table, good news for dining, not as good for my core temperature. The hostess actually seemed to remember people’s faces and instead of hollering names from the door would mostly approach them individually. We had just snuck onto the bench inside, greeted by the rush of air conditioning, when we were summoned to our booth. Just another side note, being a fat dude I’m not always a fan of booths but there was a surprising amount of room.
The dining area is small and paletted with
Southwestern colors and art. The menu features the same Southwestern
theme with upscale twists compared to your standard Mexican
restaurant. Our server was pretty good throughout the meal and I had
no complaints. She also helped us steal the bill from our hosts who
typically aren’t used to letting other folks get a tab every now and
again…it was long overdue. |
Super Crunchy Taquitos |
Ex-Cellent Rellenos. I'll Bet The Queso Is As Good As The Steak |
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While we were perusing the menu we were
delivered a basket of chips and two monkey dishes of a smooth and
tomatoey salsa studed with garlic and cilantro. We started with a
couple of apps, shredded beef taquitos and chile rellenos followed
by two chicken, one duck and one grouper dinners. The taquitos were
filled with tender beef and topped with the usual suspects like
guacamole, cheese and black beans. What I really enjoyed about the
dish were the tortillas which seem to be rolled thicker than most
which gives the tightly rolled and fried stick extraordinary crunch
to go with good flavor. The entrée version of the chile rellenos
comes with two different stuffed peppers but they were laid back
enough to allow us to order just one as an appetizer. We ordered the
sirloin picadillo version which had chunks of beefy tenderness
crammed into a well spiced pepper which was incased in batter and
topped with cheese, cilantro and onion. The appetizers were familiar
with touches that elevated them to refined places without losing
their spicy heritage. |
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Familiar But Good Chicken Enchiladas |
The Sauce Makes The Chicken Fernandez| |
I ordered the Grouper Al Mojo De Ajo. I was
curious. In our neck of the woods you don’t see a lot of fish on
Mexican menus outside of the standard fish taco you are typically
ordering beef, chicken or pork; so I wanted to see how they would
treat the local stuff fresh out of the water. It should be good,
there is a lot of coastline South of the border as well. Turns out
it is fabulous. The fish held it’s own; fantastically fresh and
sautéed to flaky perfection it stood up easily to the garlic, tomato
and chile arbol it met in the sauté pan. A dome of rice soaked up
the cast off sauce and along with the nicely cooked veg made for a
stupendous dish. The Chicken Fernandez is a pretty standard grilled
breast with rice and veg. The Fernandez comes from the mojo marinade
and a spicy chipotle cream sauce. The sauce, the sauce. More than
pepper and cream there is a couple layers of tang I suspect is crema
with maybe a little lime or other bite to it. It takes it from
simple plain protein to interesting and delicious. |
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Duck Enchiladas. Brilliance |
If This Is Mexican Seafood; Sign Me Up |
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We also ordered two types of enchiladas,
chicken and duck. The chicken comes with two rolls one topped with
salsa roja one with salsa verde, all topped with queso, cilantro,
onion and crema. These chicken envelopes were perfectly familiar
with flavor profiles that are tried and true with the yard bird
inside, they lacked the creativity of other dinners we ordered but
still tasted fine. Where things went off the rails in a wonderful
collision of different were the duck enchiladas. The richness of the
roast duck carried tastes of onion and pepper, pretty standard. Add
the queso and the raspberry chipotle sauce…that’s right the
raspberry chipotle sauce which is ridiculously awesome. Balance all
of the richness with the tequila braised greens and a bright
pineapple salsa and you have summed up a lot of our experience at
Red Mesa, some delicious takes on Latin classics, worth the heat,
easy. |
Ratings | |||||||
Food |
Service |
Ambiance |
What's Best |
What's Worst |
Overall |
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B+ | B | B | A | B | B | ||
Air Conditioning | Much | Chicken Enchiladas |