April-Margarita's

Last night we went o Margarita's.  This restaurant is a popular place downtown Valparaiso that I had never been.  My personal experience was less than stellar, but it might have been the fact that we went late at night, so I would like to give it another chance sometime.

The main room of the restaurant looks nice enough.  It looks like an elegant Mexican restaurant.  The main room is a little loud because it is a narrow room and half of it was taken up by men watching hockey at the bar.  Unfortunately I picked all this up in the brief second it took the hostess to lead us out of the main room.  Off the main room there is a small room with three tables, two doors that lead to the bathroom, and then a little closet looking door that the busboys kept needing to get into.  Yep, that's where we sat.  We sat at a two seater high-top right next to that door, so all night I was sucking in my stomach as employees came behind me to get through.

The staff was very nice.  Everybody smiled and welcomed us kindly, even the busboy who helped me decide what to order (by the way all the busboys wear sombrero's which was a nice touch).

The food was good, nothing that stands out above and beyond all of the other Mexican restaurants in NWI, but good.  I had fajitas and Brian had some sort of combo plate.  Brian liked his food.  He agreed with me, that it was comparable to all the other Mexican restaurants we have been to.  Good, but nothing special.  The one exception he said was the tamale, which he said was fantastic (I'll have to take his word on that one, I've never been a huge fan of tamales).  My fajitas were good, I was a little disappointed when they first arrived because I ordered the steak/chicken combo, but when I got it there was no steak on my plate.  Not one to normally take food back, I settled for no steak.  The chicken was very good.  It was tender and well seasoned.  The best part of the meal was by far the delicious flan that Brian and I shared for desert.

Margarita's is good Mexican restaurant despite the couple of things that rubbed me the wrong way.  I would like to give it another chance, perhaps this summer, earlier in the evening, and when it is warm out so we can sit on their outdoor patio.

Food: 3 STARS
Price: Offer to Pay