I'll preface this by saying I didn't grow up with Tex Mex. I grew up with...California Mexican? My family on my mom's side owned a Mexican restaurant in the San Fernando valley in Los Angeles. As a result, I guess I never grew to like the Tex Mex style stuff you get here in Florida more commonly. It's not because of the Texas influence. It's because those places are usually pretty crappy in some ways. Bad quality ingredients, crappy cooking, and bland flavoring have combined to make me apprehensive whenever I encounter a Tex Mex place. Personally, I never understand the Texan influence when places claim to be Tex Mex anyway. What exactly is Texan about your Tex Mex? What I've heard is that Texans love to melt cheese on everything and fit beef into whatever they can. Sounds pretty Texan to me. All the same, I'm a fan of both melted cheese and cuts of steak, so I figure I should be amenable to someone doing that kind of thing right. Hell, I love chili con carne as much as any other American should, so let's get this show on the road.
I was once told by my uncle that you can immediately judge a Mexican restaurant by the salsa they bring out when you sit down. So...let's see what Chuy's offers:
 |
| Huh. |
Yeah.
Well...I think that's all that needs to be said.
Alright, alright. A full review is what I promised, so a full review is what I shall give.
So, as you can see, we're not off to a great start with the salsa. There was a white foam from the tomato water on the other bowl of salsa as well. If their attempt was salsa fresca (the salsa of a diced variety,) perhaps they should have drained out some of the water. That's actually the better thing of salsa my table got as well. The other had foam covering the top from the clearly non drained tomatoes reacting to the lime. Speaking of the lime, it was fairly overpowering, and honestly, I'm surprised. With this super liquid form of salsa, there's no way to establish any form of quality control over your ingredient balance. Was it freshly made? I suppose at one point it was. Did it taste that way? Well, it reminded me of the "fresh" salsas you can buy at Publix in the produce section. A whole paragraph on salsa not enough? Oh, we're just getting started.
So one of the interesting things about this place is they had a nacho bar. Well...sort of. They had a bar set up where you can get chips, the salsa shown above, seasoned grown beef, refried beans, and queso. This was all included in the meal, apparently. I suppose the beef, beans, and queso were there to create your own nachos, and free is a pretty awesome price, so that's what we did.
As you can probably tell by the color and consistency, that queso is of the plasticy variety. You probably recognize it from your local grocer's chip and dip section. Adding the seasoned beef added a much needed element of flavor to the very bland queso. If you can't get past the "free queso" part, you probably don't care at all, but all the same, this came back with a vengeance. By the way, I'm not using hyperbole by comparing to what you get out of a tostito's queso jar. In terms of value though, quality over price with price at 0 means I can do very little bitching about this. Just know...not that good. On top of this, we got to sample some of their special sauces as well. The hatch green chilies were, shockingly, actual hatch green chilies. The only issue was that after being picked, likely canned, and shipped here to good ol' Gainesville, any flavor those things might have brought to the party in terms of quality was largely canceled out. Instead, I got some of the burn of the peppers without the underlying good flavors you get with the roasted green chiles you get at places that actually make a point to do it right. Not all that surprising considering New Mexico is all of 2500 miles away. And these are the problems you run into with chains. Instead of getting something that would actually be awesome for Gainesville because it's grown here, they attempt to try and make the green chilies thing work. It doesn't.
In order to get a good idea of what this place was all about, my table ran the gambit trying to get an idea of what this place could offer. I asked for their signature dish as well, attempting to ensure that they put their best foot forward to avoid any complaints of picking only the shitty things from their menu. In the end our order consisted of their Deluxe Quesadillas, their steak fajitas, and, their signature dish, The Elvis Presley Memorial Combo (an enchilada dish with three different types of enchilada.)
Deluxe Quesadillas:
So their quesadilla was actually 4 small quesadillas. I actually like this change. It allows for more quality control then the big monstrosities you get at other locals. As a result, this simple dish was the best thing we received. The chicken was dry and relatively unseasoned, but there were actually decent chunks of chicken, onion, and peppers mixed in with the cheese. The fry job on the quesadillas wasn't that bad either though the cheese could have been melted a bit more thoroughly. At 8 dollars, it seems fairly reasonable as well. Quesadillas are difficult to mess up too thoroughly and Chuy's did not do that. They could have done something with the chicken to make that add more than just existing as chicken, but I usually won't complain too much over going barebones with a quesadilla. Firefox telling me I spelled quesadilla wrong is the most irritating aspect about having gotten that dish. Oh, and the guacamole wasn't very good, but color me shocked on that one. I don't think I've ever seen a chain do a fresh guacamole well basically ever due to the challenge of working with non highly processed avocados.
Steak Fajita:
As you can see, this picture had to be taken longways. If you're a connoisseur of steak, it should jump out to you pretty quickly what is wrong with that steak.
1. Where's the crust or marks indicative of the Maillard Reaction found in the correct cooking of steak?
2. Why is the whole thing cooked through in the greyish color indicating well done?
Indeed, the flavor in this steak seems to all come from an overwhelming smokiness. Whether that was part of the marinade or involved in the cooking process, it's pretty clear with the end result. As a result of the cooking process it came out tender and dry. You would think someone would have shared with them the process of cooking food to allow it to be tender and moist. At around 15 dollars, this was the most expensive of what we tried.
The Elvis Presley Memorial Combo
You'll need to believe me when I say that I was prepared to lay into this dish to defend the good name of Elvis. I had a bunch of puns and such ready. It was going to be awesome. I was going to talk about how the Elvis tribute burgers actually are a tribute to Elvis's favorite kind of burger (peanut butter on a burger...go figure) while this seemed to just pay tribute to Elvis out of its sheer size, I suppose. Regretfully, I just don't have the energy to fight the good fight on this one. The combo actually came on two plates. I'll start with the bottom first. As you can see, it was a beef taco that came with two oversized tortilla chips with some of the queso poured on. The queso poured on was the same type of queso from the nacho bar, so I was not wholly psyched for those. As they sat for all of 1 minute while I took pictures of the above food, they cooled and congealed into some very close to rubber. Unlike an actual cheese queso that would have, upon cooling, become a delicious cheese spread, this felt more like glue stuck on the chip. The beef of the taco was not very well seasoned and was clearly cooked down to a substance with extremely little to offer in terms of meaty taste or texture.
The Enchilada platter had a bit more going on. The one pleasant surprise were the chunks of actual pinto beans in the refried beans. While the beans came on my plate at an (at best) lukewarm temperature, clearly having been scooped out of a large cooling pot before coming to my table, having the actual chunk of real beans gave it some body and let me know that these were, at one point in time, not just a processed glob but actual pinto beans. The rice was bland and largely unflavored. It felt like all they hit it with was a lot of salt, a tiny pinch of their Mexican seasoning, and some tomato paste to color it. The ranchero cheese enchilada was notable by attempting to make up for its lack of flavor with a ton of cheese. Being as their cheese wasn't bringing much flavor to the dish anyway, each bite was really just experiencing the texture of enchiladas. The beef TexMex enchilada had the feeling of being the tomato sauce of the Ranchero made slightly spicier with some of the ground beef previously talked about stuffed inside. The final enchilada had tomatilla sauce with chicken. Like the quesadilla, the chicken was relatively unseasoned and dry, mostly there to exist as just a texture rather than a flavor. The tomatilla sauce was, at the very least, something different, but it suffered from the same blandness of the other enchilada sauces. For $12.50 though, it was a ton of food.
In the end, the whole experience reminded me of why I don't want to review chain restaurants for this blog, and why, the vast majority of the time, I do not recommend them. They're all variations of the same tune largely. Even when you get something that throws down in defiance at being counted one amongst many, there are many, like Chuy's, that are expanding out to offer much of what we already have. Due to the specialized nature on this place, it might beat out the Chilis of the world by a hair in terms of value, but in terms of flavor it's right about on the even with those titans of Archer Road. It certainly doesn't beat out local places like La Tienda or Mexico Lindo. That being said, the restaurant was bustling upon exiting and leaving, so it's clearly striking a note with some people. Well, maybe they just like the unlimited free queso.
-Charles
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