Food Porn.

[rivka]

Friday night, Ben and I tried a new restaurant: Blue Agave Restaurante y Tequileria in Federal Hill. (The link takes you to the menu, which is well worth browsing.) This is not your $5.99 combination platter, shredded iceberg lettuce, deep fryer heavy, refried beans straight from the can kind of Mexican restaurant.

I had duck. Excuse me, I had pechuga de pato a la parrilla con mole de Xico. Chargrilled duck breast, medium rare, in a pool of deep rich nutty mole sauce, served with what looked like mashed potatoes, but turned out to be mashed roasted corn. And nopales (cactus) cut in strips, marinated, and grilled. I'd never had cactus - it tastes like aloe vera smells, refreshing and astringent.

Ben had lamb colorado, a sort of a lamb stew that had been baked overnight in banana leaves and then served with chile sauce. It was good, but I think I made the better choice. I've never seen duck in a Mexican restaurant, but once I'd taken a bite it seemed as if nothing in the world suited duck better than mole sauce.

We shared an appetizer platter: homemade chorizo and loganiza sausages, a grilled quail in mole sauce, a goat quesadilla, cactus salad, tortillas, and two kinds of cheese: one sharp and crumbly, one soft and mild.

We'll have to go back, because I didn't get the chance to try the mahi mahi veracruzana, seared mahi mahi with a sauce made from tomatoes, poblanos, lime, Spanish olives, garlic and Mexican oregano. And we'll have to go back with someone who likes tequila, because they have eighty different varieties. Any takers?

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Yum. :)

About those question marks:
http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=news&itemid=54041

[elynne.livejournal.com]

I clicked on the link, because myles_otter wanted to know where the resteraunt was, and read some of the menu to him. He agreed that Baltimore was a bit far to drive from Seattle, but now he's drooling for good Mexican food - and we've never seen Mexican food as good as this! Yow. Argh. Food porn envy! :9

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I'm not much of a tequila fan, but the food sure sounds good. I think I'd like to sample it.

In separate food news, I have some lemon stilton cheese here that Gene S. sent back with me. It's surprisingly good.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Ooooh ... tell me more about that mashed roasted corn? I got the munchies sometime after midnight last night and whipped up one of my favorite quick dishes: corn (frozen - the next best thing to fresh) sauteed on high heat with a half-slice of diced bacon, some diced red bell-pepper and onion, and a lot of black pepper. Delish.

There's a "Mexican fusion" place near the campus where I work that serves a duck chimichanga (duck confit, black beans and chipotle peppers rolled in a very light flour tortilla and quick-fried) with a dab of habanero-tinged yogurt and a corn salsa that's to DIE for ...

And yes, if I were in your neighborhood, I'd definitely take you up on the tequila tasting. In recent years I've discovered the joys of sipping really good tequila, which is a whole different experience from the "let's see how much of this rotgut we can drink before we puke" variety of tequila-drinking I recall (*shudder*) from my misspent youth ..

[geekchick]

mahi mahi veracruzana, seared mahi mahi with a sauce made from tomatoes, poblanos, lime, Spanish olives, garlic and Mexican oregano

Oh, *drool*. =)

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Surely I've mentioned that as much as I lack a taste for whisk(e)y, I lurve sippin' tequila?

(I would be having paroxysms of foodie envy at that menu if it were not that I have a source for similarly spectacular Mexican food nearby. I'll have to ask them about mole de xico.)