Review: Pacifico, Brooklyn

I feel like I need to explain to you guys why we haven't been eating out as much lately. We got a puppy around the same time this blog started, and that dog SUCKS THE ENERGY OUT OF US. Everything pretty much revolves around the schedule of the dog, at least until she's slightly better trained. That said, I told Evan that we NEEDED to go out and have a Date Night. No worrying about the dog. No eating in the apt. So I scoured my usual review website (www.yelp.com) and found a Mexican place not too far from our apartment that had decent to good reviews, and most importantly, had outdoor seating. Evan approved, and last night we hopped on over to Pacifico.

Just like with BBQ, I am a snob about Mexican food. Specifically Tex-Mex. Cali-Mex, ehhh, it's ok, but some good Tex-Mex makes Spring a happy camper every time. So we get there and it's a fairly big place with lots of indoor seating a nice-sized patio. The hostess tells us it'll be an hour wait, so we're like, ok that's fine. We settle down on a bench for a bit with the intention to wind down out there for a half hour, and then move into the bar for the second half hour. About 20 minutes into our wait, the hostess says there's a table open in the front room by the big open windows that we could have right then. Even though the goal was to eat outside, this was close enough, so we took it. By the way, the hostess was great. Tons of people were waiting, and she was totally efficient. A+ for the hostess.

Right off the bat, there were a few small problems with the drinks. I wanted a frozen margarita with salt and Evan wanted some Belgian beer. No frozens, and they stopped carrying that beer. Ok, that's fine, so I got one on the rocks with salt, and Evan settled for another beer. His beer was fine, and my margarita was decent to good, but they were VERY stingy with the salt. Worst salting job on the rim ever, like a handful of the little grains. Oh well.

The menu was interesting. It was like they were trying too hard to be creative. We ordered a small guacamole with chips to start, and it was actually very good. For dinner, I ordered beef-olive (what? I'd never heard of this before either...) enchiladas with a side of rice and beans, and Evan stuck with the tried and true beef fajitas. I asked our flighty hipster waiter what sort of sauce was on the enchiladas and he said red sauce. Ok, fine by me. So the food comes out and here's the first things I noticed.

1) The rice and beans were white rice and black beans. It was like being at Chipotle. Not Tex-Mex, and quite honestly, they weren't even very good.

2) The enchilada sauce must have been on the same strike that the salt was, because there was BARELY any sauce. Those suckers were pretty dried out.

3) Evan didn't get a "junk plate" with his fajitas. You know, that plate that comes with the sour cream, cheese, and all the veggie fixins. Instead, it looked like they'd just dumped a bunch pico de gallo on top of the meat, and Evan had to flag down a busser for some sour cream. No clue where our waiter was.

The only thing I semi-liked about the food was that it was greasy. I hate when you go to a Mexican place and the food is all pristine and healthy looking. I'm in the the camp that Mexican food should be greasy and wonderful and total comfort food. This food wasn't wonderful or comfortable, but it definitely had the grease.

When we finally got our bill, we noticed that the waiter had taken some liberties with billing us on stuff. We'd asked for the small guac and chips, and had been charged for the large one. He'd also overcharged us for the drinks. All in all it came to about $47. We didn't argue it because that would have meant flagging down our smug waiter, and that would have been difficult to impossible. Evan and I both agreed that while we left full and everything was decent, it probably wasn't worth a return trip. Unless we were just sitting on the patio eating guac and drinking.

Here's what I think is the difference between Cali-Mex and Tex-Mex. Cali-Mex is heavy on the fresh veggies, not so greasy. Tex-Mex is heavy on the cheese and sauce, grease galore. This place was such a mess because there were no fresh veggies to be seen, no sauce, yet tons of grease. What would you call this genre of Mexican food, then? I'm going to go with NY-Mex, because this seems to be how ALL NYC Mexican food is: Sub-Standard. Please feel free to recommend a place to me and proves me wrong.

Evan and I decided that this place was going to be a 2.5 out of 4. However, the more I think about my dried out enchiladas and the overcharging and the lack of salt, I'm going with a 2 out of 4 stars. Sorry Pacifico.

Pacifico
269 Pacific Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
718.935.9090