Guadalajara restaurants

[gnkindrick]

Hello everyone!!! I've been in Guadalajara for about a month now and I'm here to stay quite a while longer. I'd love to know the names of some great restaurants in the city. Mexican suggestions are of course okay, but variety is the spice of life! Just a disclaimer...I realize that one person's idea of "great" isn't necessarily mine, or vice versa. I just want to know some names of restaurants that are, in general, considered a cut above the rest. Thanks.

[ExtraMSG]

I thought Puerto Vallarta was a better food city than Guadalajara in many ways. My favorite place was the birria place at Las Nueves Esquinas. Something like that. Mexican food. Here's a pic:

Report back. I'd like to be proven wrong on Guadalajara's food the next time I'm down there. I only ate Mexican, btw. But I wasn't there for an extended time.

[esperanza]

I live near Guadalajara and have found a few 'keepers', although my eating forays into the city are mostly downscale mom'n'pop kinds of places.

In Tlaquepaque--off the tourist path--, eat at Mariscos El Pescador Rojas, open only for comida from 11AM till 6PM. Take Juárez to the Parián, turn left at the end of the Parián. Go two blocks; you'll see a Canadá shoe store on the right-hand corner. Turn right. About half a block down on the right-hand side is a public parking lot; park there and walk back the way you came about two or three doors; you'll see the restaurant's oyster bar. I ate there for the umpteenth time yesterday. My friend and I shared an order of guacamole; she ordered filete de robalo a la Mexicana (sea bass filet with tomato, onion, and chile). I ordered what I always order: huachinango dorado (whole fried red snapper). If you order the whole fish, you can get the size you want--mine was well over half a kilo. The meals came with sautéed vegetables (carrots and chayote), salad, and rice, accompanied by house-made tortillas. She had a soft drink and I had a limonada, although of course there is a full bar. The entire bill was 268 pesos.

Also in Tlaquepaque but definitely an upscale tourist draw is Adobe, on Independencia (the walking street). The ambience is lovely inside; there are also tables outside where the breeze is delightful but where you are also frequently approached by ambulatory vendors. Food is delicious for the most part; I particularly like the cilantro soup. Full bar, wine list. Substantially more expensive than the fish restaurant.

One last Tlaquepaque suggestion is Casa Fuerte, also on Independencia. It's another upscale and lovely restaurant with outstanding food and full bar/wine list.

In downtown Guadalajara, go for an Italian comida to Ma Come No on Avenida de las Américas, about 3 blocks north of the corner with Avenida México. They open at 1PM for comida and remain open until late evening. Some nights there is live music. Be sure to order the salad bar with your meal--in fact, if you want a light lunch, order only the salad bar. The menu doesn't show that as an option, but for 30 pesos you will have a heaping plateful of incredible vegetables, a variety of salads (seafood, orzo, etc) and cold meats, as well as a slice or two of fritatta, along with grisini and other crunchy breads. All of the breads and pastas are house-made. You'll be served a complimentary rosemary focaccia with olive oil and balsamic vinegar before your meal. I've eaten there frequently and particularly like the putanesca, the four-cheese ravioli, and several others I can't remember at the moment. I often eat just a pasta and the salad bar. The last time I was there I ordered the salad bar and the grilled fresh tuna, which was served seared and medium rare as requested. Expect to pay 60-90 pesos per pasta and 80-150 pesos per entree; add 20 pesos for the salad bar. Full bar, decent wine list. Clientele is mainly very upscale Guadalajarans out for a business lunch or lunch after a morning's recreational shopping.

For a way-off-the-tourist-beaten-path treat, go to Karne Garibaldi at the corner of Garibaldi and José Clemente Orozco in Colonia Santa Teresita, just west of the Centro Histórico. They're open from about noon till late at night. The restaurant serves only one dish: carne en su jugo, and holds the Guinness Book of World Records record for fastest restaurant service. Before your rear end hits the chair, a platoon of waiters will deposit plates of frijolitos refritos and grilled onions on your table. The choice for your main dish is small, medium, large, or extra-large, with chile or without. Go for the medium, with. When your meal is in front of you, add as much chopped onion and chopped cilantro as you like, a pinch of coarse salt, a squeeze of limón, and as much more table sauce as you want. Get ready to be instantly addicted. The waiter will also offer you quesadillas. For dessert there is flan, jericalla, and mil hojas--maybe something else, but I don't recall. The mil hojas is outstanding. Full bar and soft drinks. I've eaten here a hundred times and have never been disappointed. Ridiculously inexpensive.

Go to Birriería El Chololo, just past the airport on the Guadalajara/Chapala highway. They're open only for comida from about noon till 7PM and serve only birria, the best I've ever eaten. Birria in this case is goat, stewed and plated, then glazed under a salamander, served with a bowl of consomé (the seasoned stewing juices), frijoles refritos, and house-made tortillas on the side. This is another place I've been to more times than I can count and have always been delighted. Unless you want birria surtido (your plate will include slices of snout, ears, intestines, etc), ask for maciza. That plate is less exotic--it's just slices of non-offal meat. The waiter will ask if you want frijoles. Yes, you do. There's a squeeze bottle filled with a house-made salsa on the table; it's to be added to your consomé. Also add onion, limón, and a pinch of coarse salt. The restaurant seats nearly 1000 people. The best time to go to El Chololo is Sunday afternoon, when all Guadalajara is there. The mariachis are playing, the joint is jumping. I'll be there tomorrow afternoon at around 3PM.

These suggestions should keep you grinning for a while. Send me a PM and we'll talk about it some more. You too, ExtraMSG. Next time you're down here let me know before you come.

[caroline]

Esperanza, I'm thrilled to hear you liked Karne Garibaldi because just today our local paper said they were opening a branch in Leon. I can't wait to go,

Rachel

[wordwiseguy]

If you're still in Guadalajara, try Sacromonte. What an amazing restaurant. My friends, who live in Zapopan swear it's better than Santo Coyote, the most discussed of the trendy restaurants in the city. Another great restaurant is Tacos Providencia Centro on MORELOS 86 CENTRO 44100. This place has the best tacos al pastor of the places we ate during our last visit. It was just down the street from my wife's grandparent's house and we ate there as much as we could.

[gnkindrick]

Well, thanks to everyone who has replied to my original post. We've been in Guadalajara for quite a while now. I finally feel that I can post a follow-up to my original and give a survey of our favorite restaurants so far.

Esperanza, you were right. Karne Garibaldi is a great eat (especially for someone who happened to be starving when he arrived after biking around Guadalajara all morning) and a very economical one. For 50 pesos I had mountains and mountains of food. The Guinness record is still painted on the wall and they certainly deserve it. When I was there, the service was very, very quick and friendly.

Ma Come No does have a good salad bar as do most of the ubiquitous "Italian" restaurants in Guadalajara. One of them, Il Pomodoro, which is just a couple of blocks north of the Minerva Glorieta on Lopez Mateos North, also has a good salad bar. When I was there they even had arugula which made my day because I haven't found it anywhere here other than the little bit I grow in my garden.

By far the best thin crust pizza in town is at a tiny place on Lopez Cotilla a couple of blocks east of Centro Magno, west of Downtown. It's called Funicula and it's owned by a charming Italian man who makes them right there in front of you. The place also shows the work of local artists on its walls. Dessert has always been pretty memorable as well (the tiramisu is another "best" of Guadalajara in my book).

Further down on Lopez Cotilla, going east towards Downtown, is a place called Mont Juic, which serves a variety of tapas and wines. The place bills itself as a wine bar so the variety of wine, particularly by the glass, is pretty impressive. I've been a couple of times and everytime the tapas have been solidly good. I'm not certain how I'd describe the crowd however. It's definitely a place to see and be seen, which isn't really my style. I go because it's really the only place in Guadalajara that I've found that has solid tapas. I can't wholeheartedly say that about the rest of the patrons whom I've observed each time that I've dined there, which may explain why I've only found the tapas to be good and not great. Nontheless, there's good food and eye candy if that floats your boat.

For really good Argentinian food, La Matera on Avenida Mexico is superb. Meat, meat and more meat is what you'll find there and it's always been perfectly prepared to order. They also have yummy Cream of Asparagus soup on Mondays that is a perfect beginning to a scrumptious meal.

On the more upscale end, I've eaten at the restaurant in the Quinta Real hotel. The one time I was there I had the quail with couscous and it was divine, as were the desserts. The wine list was varied and exceptionally reasonable, price wise. The service was impeccable. The servers were so attentive that it bordered on the comical. The atmosphere is lovely. It was a truly pleasant dining experience (minus all of the f*cking smoke that is in every restaurant in Mexico ).

We also took the advice of many guidebooks and ate at Santo Coyote, which wordwiseguy mentioned. The setting of Santo Coyote is beautiful, but the place is a little surreal. I don't particularly enjoy eating in a factory and that's how I felt - one that mass produces predictable food, disinterested servers, and by the number of expensive handbags floating around the rooms, apparently this factory specializes in accesories as well.

I'm eating at Sacromonte tonight so I hope to enjoy myself.

As for Mexican, I loved La Fonda de San Miguel in the Centro. It is in a beautiful courtyard of a building that formerly housed a convent. I felt like I was in a different era when I ate there. The traditional Mexican food they offer was very good and lovingly prepared. The servers made me feel so welcome that I was sad when it came time for me to leave (of course maybe the margaritas I enjoyed also had something to do with it).

For a more creative and modern take on Mexican, I recommend a place on Avenida Mexico called La Tequila, formerly called La Distileria. If you can get over the fact that there are televisions (usually with some sort of soccer game on) in every room - which was hard for me because I hate eating in front of a television - you will not be disappointed. Lobster tacos, great salads and the margaritas are enough to make me keep coming back to this place. They have three kinds of margaritas and I suggest trying them all, regular, mango or tamarind. They also have an AMAZING selection of tequilas (like over a hundred).

So, that's my follow up.

[caroline]

Thanks so much. I for one have filed this away for the next chance I get to visit Guadalajara,

Rachel

[esperanza]

Out of town friends have been visiting and wanted desperately to go to Santo Coyote, which had been strongly recommended to them by some of their friends in the States. Sunday a group of us went for comida. Two of our group were former San Franciscans, one of whom is a Parisian and a retired wine seller. So: three of the five of us know food and drink. None of us had been to this highly touted restaurant and we were all ready for it to live up to its billing.

Well...it's wildly over the top in terms of decor, all right.

However, we knew we were in rocky territory when Bob asked, as the waiter was taking drink orders, if they served mojitos. The waiter said, '¿Mojitos cubanos? Sí señor,' so we all ordered one. Then they brought us all the most godawful drink you ever saw--it looked like the water you'd drain out of a nasty slimy fish tank and didn't taste much better. None of us drank them, they were horrible. The mint, instead of being muddled, was ground up and thick in the drink, the limón was margarita mix--ugh.

Rather than order the (according to the menu) sauced and gussied up food we'd been thinking we might order, we all had a premonition of bad things ahead and decided to keep it simple. Even so, it was just disgusting. One friend ate only half of her dried-out chicken breast, and Bob and I could barely cut (much less chew) our steaks. An American woman at the next table asked Bob what he was eating (a T-bone) because it looked so good and he told her not to bother, that it was terrible. On top of that, the waiters were so busy having fun with one another that they just barely had time to look after us--they never gave us butter for our bread (although later I noticed that the next table got a plateful), the bread was actually microwaved to heat it up before they served it and of course got cold and hard as a stone in two seconds, we had to beg for drinks and practically hog-tie the waiters to get them to pay attention to us, etc.

Plus, they had given me strict instructions when I called for the reservation that there was only a 15-minute grace period to arrive after your reservation time or they would give our table away. Of course when we arrived on the dot of 2 PM the place was empty. It did start to fill up, with a mostly Mexican crowd, by about 2.30.

The food and the service were so awful that I went and had a little Mexican style chat a solas with the manager about how lovely the restaurant is, how famous it is, how we'd had such high hopes and it was our first time there, how something must have gone dreadfully wrong with our meal and service, how I live in the neighborhood and would so like to be able to bring guests there from time to time, how my companions were food/wine professionals, etc etc, and then I laid it on him about how awful it all was. He said 'Oh, usted debe estar muy molesta,' (You must be really upset) and I told him 'Nada de molesta, solo muy desilusionada' (Not upset, just disappointed). He told me he was 'muy pero MUY apenado' (very embarrassed) and he ended up comping Bob's T-bone and mine too, which were so tough they were all but inedible. They also comped us tea and desserts all around--the desserts were quite good, actually. The manager came to the table later and gave me his card, his profound apologies (yeah yeah) and a handshake. The bill was over 900 pesos (approximately $85 USD) for the five of us, even with all the comps.

It's funny, I had never wanted to go to Santo Coyote and was reluctant to try it. But hey, it might have been fantastic. It was anything but.

Next time out I want to try La Parrillada Argentina, about six blocks from my house.

[caroline]

My goodness, Esperanza, how can they get away with it? What impresses me with most restaurants catering to the upper middle class in Mexico is that they are thoroughly pleasant even when they don't rise to star status. Often the surroundings are lovely and almost always spacious, the waiters are attentive, the food is cooked on the premises etc. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come!

Rachel

[esperanza]

Santo Coyote is everything you described, Rachel--and it's also everything I described.

The restaurant's physical plant is enormous and just gorgeous. Every detail seduces you with visual pleasure. We were seated outside under a palapa, flowers, greenery, and cascading waterfalls all around us, charm oozing from every nook.

The waitstaff, when we could pin a waiter down, was syrup-y sweet, bowing and scraping like no tomorrow. Or like no service, once all was said and done. At one point I did everything but reach out and grab a waiter's arm to get him to stop at our table so I could order a beverage to replace the mojito.

The food was definitely cooked on the premises. They should have ordered out.

[esperanza]

Santo Coyote is everything you described, Rachel--and it's also everything I described.

The restaurant's physical plant is enormous and just gorgeous. Every detail seduces you with visual pleasure. We were seated outside under a palapa, flowers, greenery, and cascading waterfalls all around us, charm oozing from every nook.

The waitstaff, when we could pin a waiter down, was syrup-y sweet, bowing and scraping like no tomorrow. Or like no service, once all was said and done. At one point I did everything but reach out and grab a waiter's arm to get him to stop at our table so I could order a beverage to replace the mojito.

The food was definitely cooked on the premises. They should have ordered out.

[caroline]

Oh dear, Esperanza. It sounds horrid,

Rachel