Mouthfuls of Mexico

BANGKOK’S FAVOURITE and oldest Mexican restaurant Senor Pico recently started a new chapter in its life by renaming itself Mexicano and introducing a menu of favourite Mexican dishes, many of them dressed in the three colours of the Mexican flag. 

Located on the first floor of Rembrandt Hotel, the original restaurant opened in 1993 and underwent a major refurbishment three years ago.

The interior decor captures something of the country’s famed Dia de los Muertos celebration with colourful paper flags on the ceiling and black-and-white photographs of Mexican cowboys on the walls.

The bar does a lively trade in tailor-made cocktails, especially margaritas, while the music, always one of Senor Pico’s strongest points, comes courtesy of a talented trio, which plays nightly except Monday.

The dining area is furnished with faux-marble tables and comfy leather chairs and looks into the open kitchen where chef Carlos Bravo and his team whip up the authentic Mexican goodies. 

“Our dishes aren’t cooked in Tex-Mex style. That’s popular in the US but we only serve traditional Mexican dishes. Our concept captures the whole Mexican lifestyle and the Latino ambience. We believe the change of name expresses this more Mexican style,” says Pedro Gonzalez Padilla, the restaurant’s ambassador.

We start our meal with complimentary Tortilla chips served with two sauces – a red one made with chiplote dried chilli and a green dip with jalapeno peppers. 

The next dish to arrive is the Ensalada Del Rancho from the South of Mexico, a salad especially prepared for us and which will be added to the menu soon. It’s refreshing and light, blending corn, avocado, tomato, radish, beans, beef chunks and chicken and covered with an interesting sour mango dressing.

We also sample one of the most popular southern Mexican dishes, Bolas De Queso Con Chiles (Bt275), golden fried cream cheese balls filled with French mozzarella cheese and topped with mixed salad. 

“We serve the cheese balls on a hot burner to ensure the they stay crispy. In Mexico, we like our food just as spicy as the Thais but here we limit ourselves to medium spicy to cater to the European palate. If you want something spicier, just ask us to add more chilli,” Gonzalez says.

Perfect partners to beer and wine, crispy Mexican spring rolls Flautas (Bt350) are filled with shredded beef and topped with sour cream, local cheese and spicy tomato sauce.

Diners can design their own tacos. We opt for Carne Asada certified Black Angus beef, which is cooked with garlic oil for six hours, plus onion, cilantro, salsa and grilled knob onions and are blown away by the result.

Another dish well worth trying is the Roasted Chicken (Bt495), which is marinated with garlic, thyme, butter and rosemary for a full day then grilled for 40 minutes. The tender and juicy poultry comes with Mexican mashed beans, tomato sauce-cooked rice and Mexican-style pickled corn, zucchini, kalamata olive, mushroom and cauliflower boiled in vinegar. 

Espetadas (Bt795), a mixed skewer of herb-marinated chicken, US Black Angus rib eye and tiger prawn, served with herb marinated red rice, refried black beans, salsas and flour tortillas is also delicious.

Do leave room for dessert, which includes Churros (Bt195) – original Spanish donuts served with warm chocolate dip and home-made vanilla ice cream, and Tres Leches (Bt195) – a layered mousse cake filled with three kinds of milk, blueberries and cinnamon. 

For drinks, we opted for Sangria and particularly liked the Canela Cinnamon Sangria, which boasts red wine with orange juice, lemon juice, syrup and triple sec and the Seductivo Summer Sangria, a mixture of white wine, mango juice, orange juice, lemon juice, pineapple juice, syrup and Havana. Both are priced at Bt280.

  

 

VIVA MEXICO!

Mexicano is on the first floor of Rembrandt Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 18. It’s open daily from 5pm to 1am. Call (02) 261 7100 extension 7550 or visit www.RembrandtBKK.com.