Cascadas Restaurante y Cantina

12126 Westheimer Rd., 77077.

This Mexican restaurant boasts fame from its cuisine alongside atmosphere. Cascadas has both indoor and outdoor dining, a tequila bar, landscaping complete with a waterfall. I had dinner here on a Friday night, well after dark. We sat outside, much to my astonishment, wasn’t that bad. The weather was a little chilly, but I had my jacket.

We sat right in front of the mini-waterfall, and it even had a sign that says, ‘do not swim’. There are palm trees in the back which really tries to bring you away from the fact that the busy street of Westheimer is a 5 feet away. The outdoor dining area supplies diners with iron patio chairs and table… I’m not too fond of sitting on those thing to begin with, I think they really should of used nicer setting for outside. I guess, thank goodness it wasn’t plastic lawn furniture. Besides that it was dark, but they had waterfall lighting up near the ‘wet’ area. Some like the dark mood setting… but for me, again, I love bright fluorescent lighting. Makes me able to tell if a place is clean or what not… Dark places are usually a hit or miss with me.

So we grubbed on some chips and salsa and margarita. I’m not a big margarita drinker so I can’t really say if they serve good ones here, but it was very sugary sweet.

The appetizers are skipped in hopes of, once again, a light dinner (Friday night people! You know what that means). I ordered the Carne Asada, mesquite grilled beef tenderloin cooked to perfection Mexican style. I was just going for meat that day and was very surprised. It was served on a hot plate and it came in two pieces, perhaps 12 oz together. One was plenty for me that night, I ended up taking the other piece home. Underneath the tenderloins we have squash, carrots, peppers, and tomatoes. The ‘Mexican style’ of this dish is a special sauce. I can be compared to the Chinese black pepper sauce, very peppery, but delicious. The tenderloins themselves were extremely tender. I am not sure what technique or spice they used, but I desperately NEED to have it! Even though I ordered my steak medium, it came out medium rare. But I ate it anyway because it was so tender. The tenderloin cut does not have a lot of fat distribution, so I wonder if they beat this piece of meat for the better part of the day…

The Carne Asada comes with rice, beans, pico de gallo, guacamole and tortilla. I didn’t get a chance to try the tortilla to tell you all if it is the good homemade kind, but I am sure it will be better than store bought at least. Not really crazy about the rice, actually it had a weird flavor… I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but I didn’t like it. Everything else was the same as anywhere else.

This place has potential to be a great place for relaxing outside, next to a man made waterfall that is, sipping on margaritas… all afternoon. If you go, you definitely must try the Carne Asada, very very tender and not shabby for $16 at dinner. I, however, must go back a second time for experimental purposes. I need to try it again to make sure that it is consistent, yes.

Las Rosas Mexican Grill

19831 Northwest Freeway, 77065

Las Rosas is a chain restaurant in Houston. This particular location is a new opening for them, previously there were 2 or 3 other restaurants that opened up before but didn’t do so well. I realized, its not about location, the location is fine, what it really boils down to is cuisine. I’m not saying that the palate is traditional or un-adventurous in Houston, but in this particular area of town, the tried and true always wins. Mexican is so common and general, no one ever has a problem going here for lunch. And, this is a good lunch spot location.

With that behind us, Las Rosas is not a bad Mexican restaurant, it is decent. But after living in Houston for a while, there just seems to be a bunch of decent Mexican restaurants all over the place, so finding one is not a daunting task.

I ordered the spinach enchiladas dish. Decided to try something other than cheese enchiladas this time, although I will have to say, I am a addict for cheese anything, and cheese enchiladas certainly fit the bill. The spinach was soft and cook to the point where you want them to be in an enchilada, there was lots of cheese so kudos for that. The rice and beans however was just plain, it was okay, but not as good as the enchiladas. The added slice of avocado and scoop of sour cream made the enchiladas even more enjoyable. Las Rosas salsas for the chips are quite tasty because I had a whole bunch before my main meal even set foot out of the kitchen.

My coworker had the beef taco el carbon. She said it was good and I just took her word for it. I didn’t try it because I was stuff on the basket full of chips before hand and was also trying to practice portion control for lunch. I forgot what that sauce on the side was, looks like some butter infusion to me, oh and the addtion of guacamole is always welcome.

So, for lunch you could spend about $6-$10, on pretty decent Mexican food… and yes, Houston has high standard for those, so I say go for it, more times you will enjoy than complain. the waiters however, could work a little faster…

|Las Rosas Webpage|

Las Mananitas

Las Mananitas, 3523 N Halsted St, Chicago, IL 60657
Cross street: Addison St

Centerstage.com reveiws and details.

Crepe de Cangrejo 4.95
A crepe with claw crapmeat cooked with tomato, cilantro, onion and garlic, served on a sauce made with chipotle peppers and sour cream.

I am a big fan of crap meat. The chipotle peppers were very tasteful; plenty of spices in this small dish.

Salmon Entomatado 15.95
8 oz. of broiled Norwegian salmon topped with a sauce made with tomatillos, cilantro, onions, garlic, and jalapeno peppers.

Ok, so this place had a thing with pretzel sticks. My friend’s dish was pretty good. I had a bite, and there was a good kick to the sauce. I am not much of a fish person, but it was not dry, nor fishy so I would say it was good.

Enchiladas con Pollo y Mole 10.95
Three corn tortillas with shredded chicken. Rolled, covered with homemade Mole sauce. Topped with sour cream, chopped onions, and Ahejo cheese.

My dish had a lot of cheese which was great. There was a very unique taste to their mole sauce; very strong cacao and spice. It took some getting use to, and the onion was overloaded, but that was easy to avoid. Overall, my dish packed a lot of flavor and maybe too much sauce, but the chicken enchilada was good. There was simply a lot of sauce left over.

The atmosphere was energetic due to the fact that this restaurant is located right in the Wrigley-Boystown area, and it was the weekend pre-Halloween. The crowd was good, and the waiters were attentive.

Best part: Since we were in “costume”, we each got a free shot of coffee liquor and Patron. ‘Twas good.

Lupe Tortilla’s

15801 Southwest Fwy., 77478,

On 9/16/07:

I have been wanting to try this restaurant for some time… and finally got the family to go with the flow, even though I was not particularly hungry this evening. The place is decorated accordingly, pretty festive and casual, reminded me of Chili’s. There was a big sandbox area outside with preschool plastic slides and houses for the kids to play in, it was quite a sight. The bar area is located inside but all the window/doors were opened so it was more like a patio.

As we sat down, the chips and salsa came. It was a tomato salsa, which was okay, more on the soupy diced tomato side then chunky blended. The other salsa was a bean salsa, could have fooled me for a bean soup instead of salsa. The chips are thin like Pappasitos, pretty good.

I’ve heard raves about the fajitas here at Lupe, so of course I must give it a shot. Its a lime marinated beef fajita, I ordered fajitas for 2. It came with what looked liked a big bowl of shredded cheese, guacamole, and tomato salsa, sour cream on the side. What looked like, meaning big at first, but not really that much when you actually dig in. Oh and rice and beans, dur. The tortillas were special, they were as big as the plate and very thin, hand made. Not at all like the thick flour tortillas you are used to getting, these were definitely tasty.

After adding all the necessary ingredients, my fajita looked like a big burrito. It was something, but I had 2 anyway. The beef fajita was indeed tasty, but a little more on the salty side than I would like. The pieces where cut right, but very thin, not thick. It has a nice smoke/grill flavor too it but not burnt. The rice was not good, the beans were eh. I just stuffed those two items in the tortilla as well.

The other dish was a lime jalapeño cilantro chicken dish. I ordered it because I knew my grandma could eat it if she didn’t want beef. Usually when I see chicken breast, I don’t order it… chicken breast is so easy to cook, especially with simple ingredients like a lime cilantro marinade… the chicken breast was moist, they topped two different kinds of peppers on it, a green and a red (both of which was not dreadfully hot like the way they looked) and on top of that, melted Monterey jack cheese… mmm, cheese. It was decent, but not something I would order, I would always pick beef over chicken though, but that’s just me.

Overall, its a good place to eat, with good tasting beef fajitas, would certainly go back… but its pricey. Fajitas for 2 is $30 with other dishes averaging $10, right up there with Pappasitos. But the service is where it was lacking. It was busy on a Sunday night, but not that busy… our server could have done a better job at making sure our drinks and chips was filled.

Cafe Red Onion

12440 NW Freeway, Houston, TX

No whining… no complaining… period. No babbler jabbler either… straight to buziness.

Okay, so I ate at this restaurant with my family a long long time ago, earlier this year perhaps… this is the second time I went. Honestly, taste-wise, its just like any other Mexican or New wave Mexican restaurant out there, nothing really special with the dishes, no taste to be lusting over. Basic.

The thing that brought me back was the atmosphere, because it was New wave Mexican. I thought that my family would want something refreshing and new… but being the way they are, the place could look like disaster, as long as the taste was good. So, needless to say, it did not fly over as well as I had hoped for. The presentation however, was great! I love the way they plate all the food. The thing I did like about the food was the pineapple salsa, that was good, never thought that I would like sweet stuff like that.

Okay, here we go, empanadas, dish one… chicken, beef, and guava. One of those was great… forgot which one…

Next we have the Churrasco Tegus, I’ve had this dish before and it’s decent. The flank steak was tender and tasty, but it reminded me too much of fajita meat… It’s like I’ve tasted it before… hmmm… grocery store brought fajita beef done right? But still grocery store taste.

Seafood Enchilada, it had plentiful seafood in it, was tasty, but nothing special. Very hot hot the ceramic be…

Chimichurri steak salad, nothing much more to say about this except that it looks nice…

Southwestern Snapper, really wasn’t all that…

The last dish I think was the Chicken Brazil. This was pretty good and it was different… something about the taste was different, so kinda refreshing I guess. Might have been the best dish out of the bunch. Again, plating won me over.
So overall, this restaurant is okay, the atmosphere and curiosity will satisfy you, but don’t hope for much more than that…