Guadalajara Grill--All That Crossed the Border Was the Name

I don’t suppose that anyone will confuse me with Marcel Proust, but I am going to indulge in a remembrance of things past as a way of illustrating how aggravating it can be when others, in this case the people who feed us, assume we are less sophisticated and adventuresome than we actually are.

I remember standing in an open field under a glaring, enervating sun, the same sun that every June made Illinois classrooms so breathless and made summer vacation seem nearly as far off as Christmas. It was the day of the class picnic, held at a farm belonging to a classmate’s family, and about 150 fifth-graders, along with a handful of teachers and room mothers, were rather impatiently awaiting the buses that would cart us back to town.

As always, the room mothers had planned ahead and were about to mix a large vat of lemonade for everyone to drink aboard the bus. I liked lemonade; it is hard to imagine a Midwestern child in the early 1960s who did not.

But the moment of supreme satisfaction promised by that icy vat was snatched away by a mother who loudly and absurdly told the others: “Children don’t like straight lemonade. It’s too tart for them. We’ll mix up some orange juice and add one can of lemonade to it.”

The stuff was not at all refreshing, and it tasted awful--but this misguided woman’s children probably liked it, just as they probably grew up to think that boxed mashed potatoes are superior to those made from fresh, real spuds. I was quite offended at being told the real thing was not as good as a substitute, a proposition that seemed as unlikely and ridiculous then as it does today.

Offshoot of Tijuana Eatery

This brings us to the new Guadalajara Grill, an Old Town restaurant that is an offshoot of the bizarre, but fun, Guadalajara Grill in Tijuana’s upscale Rio District. Unfortunately for us, about all that crossed the border intact was the name.

The Tijuana establishment actually serves quite good food, because much of its clientele is local and knows real Mexican cooking from ersatz trumpery. The menu at the Old Town place is just a shadow of the Tijuana original, and, while it offers some of the same dishes, it also makes much of American-style Mexican food. The idea seems to be to serve the familiar rather than the authentic and to substitute the second-rate for the real thing, with the understanding that the clientele won’t know what it is missing anyway.

Some of the cooking at this new restaurant is quite tasty, although much is not. The first glaring clue that all is not as it should be arrives with the margaritas, which the staff pushes rather furiously and which, except for their dosage of alcohol, are indistinguishable from those slushy, crushed-ice concoctions sold at amusement parks. In Mexico, these are the kind of margaritas they make for American tourists; for themselves and for visitors in the know, they make the genuine shaken-and-strained variety that is so much more flavorful and enjoyable.

Goes in for Cuteness

The menu is cutely printed on brown paper bags--Guadalajara Grill goes in for cuteness in a big way--but its selection of dishes is on the whole rather staid. Fajitas, currently all the rage, are offered in some variety and are in fact quite well-prepared here. But the pages and pages of specialties offered at the Tijuana restaurant are replaced by a tired, familiar list of enchiladas, burritos, chiles rellenos and quesadillas. The menu goes a bit further afield with such dishes as chicken mole ; pork loin covered with cheese sauce; chicken cacahuate (in a nut sauce); and cochinita pibil , a stewed pork dish advertised as the house specialty.

The appetizer list, which in Tijuana goes to appetizing lengths, here seems to be guided by the assumption that Americans can’t get enough of the ceviche, guacamole and deep-fried cheese snacks available at other American and American-Mexican restaurants. The dish called queso cuitlacoche sounds promising because it includes the savory corn fungus ( cuitlacoche ) that some regard as a Mexican truffle, and of which the Tijuana restaurant makes an extraordinary cream soup. But the dish that arrives is nothing more than fingers of mild cheese, lightly coated, crisply fried and drenched with a mild green sauce. The cuitlacoche flavor is absent, and the dish is unsettlingly reminiscent of the fried mozzarella fingers served in bars.

The appetizer of melted cheese (the menu’s term for queso fundido ) is slightly more appealing. Lightly toasted from the heating process, the cheese can be eaten as is, or piled into tortillas along with the rajas (strips of mild green chiles) served on the side.

Menu Suggestion

Of the cochinita pibil , the menu says, “Don’t leave the place without tasting it,” a suggestion perhaps better applied to the fajitas . The pibil served in Tijuana is excellent, and the dish here is not bad, although it seemed a bit greasy and could have been a little spicier. This specialty of the Yucatan Peninsula consists of pork slowly stewed in orange juice and a complicated seasoning mix, and, at its best, it is a preparation of superb subtlety.

A serving of carne asada --thinly sliced, marinated, grilled steak--was tough and virtually flavorless, while the sabana invierno , or thin steak spread with green sauce and melted cheese, was quite good. Both dishes appeared to use the same cut of meat, so it seemed that the luck of the draw determined which guest got the tough steak and which the tender.

The restaurant offers single servings of beef, chicken or shrimp fajitas in iron skillets, but sends out servings for two or more on small metal grills placed on the tables. The latter seems to be the way to go, and the best way to order the fajitas is in the combo that offers tastes of all three. Each is delicious, its flavor made more intense by the seasoning--especially the shrimp, which, though succulent, can be rather bland. A basket of tortillas and bowls of soupy beans, rather than frijoles refritos , accompany the dish.

The dessert list is perfunctory, the most interesting choice the crepas de cajeta , or thin pancakes doused with thick caramel sauce.

An effort has been made to re-create the lively festival atmosphere that reigns at the Tijuana restaurant, but, given the relatively confined premises, the success is limited. One wall is decorated with a cheerful frieze of dancing and bicycling skeletons, and the waiters frequently congregate near it to play guitars and sing loudly. It can get quite noisy.

The drawback of enlisting the waiters to double as entertainers is that the service suffers. It was slow, awkward and generally unsatisfactory on both visits, and a bad tone was set the moment the guests walked through the door, because no one was on hand to greet them. On both occasions, guests had to wait several minutes before a waiter offered to lead them to a table.

Judged strictly on its own merits, the Old Town Guadalajara Grill would seem merely run-of-the-mill. It becomes less than that when weighed against its Tijuana parent, which troubled to export a name and an atmosphere but decided that a second-rate menu and cooking would be more than good enough for a San Diego clientele.

GUADALAJARA GRILL

4105 Taylor St.

295-5111

Lunch and dinner daily.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $30 to $45.