San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
A Mexican food forgery
At least the margaritas are good — you’ll need them to get through a meal here
I’m getting tired of Frida Kahlo.
No, not the painter, not the eyebrows, not the feminine empowerment she embodied. I’m getting tired of Frida glaring down at me from the walls of every business co-opting her image to sell their version of eclectic Mexican style, whether it’s clothes, jewelry, artwork or food — but especially food.
And especially Frida Mexican Restaurant & Bar, the upscale Stone Oak venture that opened last year in the revolving-door space that over the years has been home to Reggiano’s, Watermark Grill, Drew’s American
Grill, CoCo Bongo and others.
I have to imagine that Frida herself would raise that unibrow at Frida’s bougie cruise-ship decor, aristocratic high prices and sloppy execution. And then she’d file a cease-and-desist.
Frida (the restaurant) had a strong start, propelled by better food and the charisma of coowner Fernando Davil, a regular piano player at some of the city’s best restaurants. Davil left Frida, and the early promise left with him.
The majestic blue grand piano in the towering central atrium that was once Davil’s vehicle for show tunes, dance classics and singalong jingles has faded into just a whisper of background piano tinkling played by someone else. It’s still so much better than the overly loud pop remixes rattling through a bad PA system the rest of the time.
Frida’s food has followed the same downward trajectory, a fall exemplified by the “taco tasting menu” of five street tacos, each in its own style. More than just a plate of tacos, it served as a metaphor for the Frida experience: ambitious, showy, overpriced — and bad.
Slopped onto tiny corn tortillas, all five tacos were shadows of the styles they claimed to represent: gummy pork al pastor, hard chunks of cheese-crusted rib-eye, tired cochinita pibil and desiccated pork carnitas that were indistinguishable from the dried fibers of beef suadero on the taco next to it. Five mini-tacos cost a head-shaking $27. Must have been the microgreens.
But they weren’t Frida’s worst tacos. That honor belonged to rock-hard short-rib tacos served on an unlit tabletop grill for show. They weren’t even warm when they hit the table, and the cheese congealed quickly around tiny bits of meat, creating tacos that had to be sawed with a steak knife.
Frida missed on other basics as well. Although the crispy sails of cheese stuck in it were nice touches, Frida’s guacamole amounted to barely mashed avocados with chopped tomatoes on the side. Tortilla soup was designed to be finished at the table by pouring hot chile-spiked broth over a bowl of tortilla strips, cheese, dried beef and chicharrón. I expect certain things from tortilla soup: comfort, richness, and meat that doesn’t chew like bubble gum. Frida met none of those expectations.
With the basics so thoroughly botched, the more adventurous plates didn’t stand a chance. Something called Oysters Oaxacafeller
took the noble tradition of broiled oysters and smothered it with greasy chorizo. A leaning tower of tuna ceviche sat sweaty and brown on half an avocado, the fish turned mealy by an overdose of citric acid. Quesadillas made with smoked marlin lay like yesterday’s catch on the plate, hard and rubbery and a little off.
And please unfriend and block whomever inspired the kitchen to stuff enchiladas with a chile-ennogada-style mix of beef, fruits and nuts, and then drown them with bitter mole.
You’d think roasted meats would be a safer haven, because a good piece of meat speaks for itself. Not so at Frida.
A $65 beef rib was both confusing
and disappointing. The long rib bone at the center of the plate suggested the grand symphony of fat and lean you’d normally get from a beef rib, but the leathery slab of beef lying on top behaved more like overcooked brisket, or even chuck steak, more gristled than marbled, covered in a black spice rub that tasted like scorched prairie.
Even worse was a roasted salmon whose bad aroma arrived at the table before the fish itself did, a plank cooked as hard and splintery as salmon jerky. That’s about the time the table ordered another round of drinks, taking solace in the fact that Frida at least knows its way around tequila for a refreshing and strong house margarita and a paloma with a floater of mezcal to take the edge off.
The one decent dish from the kitchen came as a pair of duck flautas, fried to an amber crunch with a balanced, well-spiced filling and finished with slaw and tangy avocado-habanero mousse. But that’s a lot of frogs to kiss for one mediocre prince.
Finally, as much as the “taco tasting” was a metaphor for the overpriced, underwhelming Frida experience, the churro cart rolled over whatever was left of my goodwill for its early days. Built by hand, each little churro cart looks like a miniature street vendor’s wagon, carrying a bucket of fried churros and a quartet of dipping sauces.
But like so much of the art and artifice of a place named for an artist who’d be appalled by what’s being done in her name, Frida couldn’t even get churros right, the cinnamon sugar only a sprinkle of hope over the hard, dry reality.
If Frida insists on channeling Frida, let me suggest hanging her bedridden lament called “Without Hope,” with its handwritten inscription on the back: “Not the least hope remains to me. Everything moves in time with what the belly dictates.”