Happy Cinco de Mayo!- Here’s what we ate at Mercadito…

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I thought I’d post about Mercadito, a “Mexican” joint in River North.  We went for lunch one afternoon a while ago and I have to say, I have mixed feelings about this place.  Here’s why:

When we first walked in I thought to myself, “Oh!  This place is kinda cool!”  That reaction was based on the colorful, modern look of the entry, front room and bar, because that’s all we could see from there. Then we were seated and I took a look around.  The wall to my left was painted with a huge, dare I say, ugly, mural of Incan ruins and a couple of war-hyped horses.  What?!  Where does that fit in?!  It’s like there’s some sort of unbreakable tradition in every Mexican restaurant that says you can’t refuse Tio Pablo’s offer to add his artistic touch through a wall mural.  You know what I mean; every mom and pop Mexican joint in America has one.  Usually they’re really colorful and really bad.  Well, this one wasn’t colorful…

Anyway, the food was pretty good!  I put the word Mexican in quotation marks above because it’s not  traditional Mexican restaurant.  It’s one that uses Mexican names and ingredients but you’d probably never see any of these dishes in Mexico. The menu items were more enhanced classics and, for the most part, I enjoyed these non-traditional flavor combinations.

We started with one of their signature items:  guacamole.  Actually, they serve multiple varieties of guacamole.   They even offer smaller portions, almost flights, so that you’re able to taste a more than one.  We chose the traditional and the mango.  I preferred the traditional; fresh and creamy avocados brightened with lime juice and flavored with cilantro and jalapeno.  It was delicious.  The mango, too, was good, even if the mango wasn’t a dominant flavor.  I’m pretty sure that the chips they were served with were made in house.  They were thick and crunchy and salty.