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Appreciating What I Don’t Really Like: Amelia’s Mexican Grill

Amelia’s Mexican Grill offers minor miracles of food science: south of the border chow that tastes almost like nothing. Watching The Wife eat her mole the other night, her eyes drift off as though trying to pick out the notes of a melody she can barely hear. The food is fresh but seems to lack just about everything I like about Mexican cuisine: in- your-face flavors, deft balancing of powerful spices, and chili heat that flashes across the tongue and then swiftly recedes, like the feeling of opening the oven door and then closing it very quickly.

Fresh is obviously of major importance with any food, and we’re impressed with the tilapia Mazatlan, which is one of the most flavorful renditions of this mild whitefish we’ve ever had.

I’m awe-struck, however, by the transcendently sensation-free salsas. I’m bummed by the Disney-version of mole negro – tasting as though squeezed from a bottle of Bosco. I take a scoop of beans but can barely believe it: there’s weight on my tongue, I feel it, I know there’s something there and yet…there’s just about no flavor, there’s barely even a hint of grease, there’s no there there.

Nonetheless, this place is packed on a weeknight, with happy young people enjoying their food, which seems, nine times out of ten, to be fajitas (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

So I decided to appreciate this place for what it is: Mexican food roughly translated into Gringo, a feasible dining option suitable for those occasions when I’m escorting my virgin auntie or taking the Girl Scouts on a field trip, but not any place I’d recommend to anyone reading this post…unless you pick your Mex joints based on their margaritas, which I’m told are quite good.

Amelia's Mexican Grill
1235 W Grand
312-421-2000

I pass by this place fairly often and for a time I wondered whether there was any chance it was less of gringuería than it seemed to be but then I saw they were advertising on t.v. (not an encouraging sign) and then I heard a few reports.

There is, of course, a place in the world for such restaurants (people should be able to get what they want) but on the other hand, they do, I think, give an odd impression of what Mexican food is like and perhaps also a bad name to norteño cooking to the more sophisticated of palate, much as Americanised Italian restaurants gave and still give a caricatured and not at all interesting view of Southern Italian food to lots of people.

I have mentioned in passing before a place that was very similar to how you describe Amelia's, namely, the old Lindas Margaritas that stood in the space the Bar Louie now occupies in Dearborn Station. There must be skill involved -- albeit in my view a skill of questionable value -- to be able to remove most of the flavour and all of the interest from such an inherently flavourful and interesting cuisine.

Antonius

I went to Amelia's once, not too much after they opened. My experience roughly mimiced yours, but for one thing, one thing they did really well (and oddly enough), mac 'n cheese. It was worth going back for that big block of macaroni con queso, but I guess not that worth it given the rest of the food.

Interesting. We have a bunch of norteño cookbooks from Mexico and a lot of them include recipes which are variants of basic old macaroni and cheese (not surprising given the appreciation of dairy products in the northern states of Mexico and the occupied territories north of the border (:wink: ). But I thought I heard the folks at Amelia's claimn on their t.v. commercial that they specialise in the cuisine of one of the more central states... perhaps Jalisco... Well, maybe they like m&c there too...

Antonius

Amelia'sgot pretty well blasted in an earlier thread on Grand Avenue Upheaval. Sounds like nothing has changed since last fall.

SteveZ called my attention to that thread earlier today -- I'm sorry I didn't read it before I went (I actually had to send a dish back -- wrong order -- and, careless me, forgot to check to see if they'd billed me for it).

About service, though, I was impressed that the server advised The Wife against getting a higher-end tequila in her margarita -- he said that, with all the lime juice, better tequilas are wasted in a margarita, which seems obviously true, though refreshingly honest.

Hammond

Thanks, I was just going to point to this thread... then I saw you did already

Amelias is EASILY the worst dining experience I've ever had in Chicago... ignoring if the food is good or bad, the service was horrid for me... hopefully things have improved slightly since when I went, though I have a feeling the manager who was a dimwit was probably Amelia, so it probably hasn't changed much...

Antonius, Hammond,

Add Wholly Frijoles, on Touhy in Lincolnwood, to the list. Slightly dumbed down Mexican that looks as it should be popping with flavor, but isn't. Also the pick of one of the most annoying Check Please guests ever, and that is saying quite a bit, Double Yum.

Enjoy,
Gary

A,

I can't say I noticed any Jalisco style offerings at Amelia's, though that certainly could have been the claim made on the commercial. I did have the bistek Oaxaca, but aside from the melted cheese on top (which I guess could have been queso Oaxaca), there was nothing to suggest that specific provenance. I had three moles there, but they were indistiguishable from most salsas.

Hammond

All I can say is I met that reviewer in the real world and she was definately not putting on an act. Unfortuantely thats just the way she is.

Nolan

The trick at Wholly Frijoles is not to order the authentic Mexican dishes, which are often, as you say, slightly dumbed down, but go with the chef's more creative efforts. That said, I had a wonderful braised lamb in chipotle sauce there.

As for Check Please, well, would you like everybody to judge Little Three Happiness by what they think of men who dress in all black?

LAZ,

Your point would be apt, but for the fact I've eaten at Wholly Frijoles 3-4 times and am not judging the restaurant, not even one tiny bit, on Double Yum and her astounding Check Please performance.

Anyway, Black is the new Pink, which was the new little black dress and 'Little' Three Happiness is the new Café Boulud, which was the old St. John in London.

Enjoy,
Gary

And one other kind of off-putting aspect of dining at Ameila's: the enchiladas were decorated with pencil-sized squiggles of crema, kind of like the icing on Pastry Strudels.

Okay, I'm done. It's no secret. I didn't like this place.

Hammond

DH,

I've come across that sort of quasi-fancy application to applying crema and such and I must confess that, like you, I find it somehow disconcerting.

A