Late Night at Caliente Cab

This evening after work I joined a colleague for a late dinner in Murray Hill at Caliente Cab Co., a Mexican cafe and bar on 3rd Avenue. We were wandering through the area at around 11:00 or so, and this place seemed fairly busy with lots of diners even at that hour (always a good sign -- much better than the intriguing open-but-deserted Tibetan place we passed by in the previous block).

The specialty there seemed to be the enormous frozen drinks served in tall parfait glasses. Accouterments including skewers of various fruits and other garnishes provided additional flair. Margaritas dominated the selections of course, but they had other tropical standbys like coladas and daiquiris as well. All the bounty that could spring from a bar-grade slushie machine.

Speaking for myself, the tall fruity drinks (and indeed they were tall) seemed geared more toward the Venus than Mars, and so although it shows a lack of imagination I stuck with the Dos Equis. My friend on the other hand went all out with the Pina Colada, which was such a generous quantity that he was able to continue drinking it through the entire meal, appetizer, entree, and dessert.

For the appetizer we had the fried onion rings, although they were called "Caliemarie" on the menu and were a bit more rubbery than usual. Still, they were competently fried in a spicy batter that had the desired effect of rendering the batter's underlying adherent irrelevant.

The garden burritos I had were not bad, filled simply with cheese and a variety of steamed vegetables.

The most disappointing thing was the basket of corn chips and salsa. Perhaps I have just dined at too many good Mexican places lately, but after the chips I have enjoyed at Dos Caminos and Zarela, just to name a couple, the generic foodservice-grade chips seem stale and tasteless, and the thin watery salsa didn't help things any.