ROCHESTER CITY NEWSPAPERS

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Blue Cactus Mexican Grille

By James Leach on Oct. 3rd, 2007

"What's a totopo?", whispered one of my companions looking up from Blue Cactus' menu. "Tortilla chips?" I ventured, as I struggled to remember what escabeche was. The menu at Blue Cactus Mexican Grille is replete with challenges to intuition and high school Spanish. As Blue Cactus owners Eduardo and Treena Moreno will tell you, this is not Mexican food as you've ever experienced it before. Eduardo was born and raised in the Mexican state of Chiapas and learned to cook in his father's cantina, where small dishes called "botanas" were offered free with drinks. These dishes were Eduardo's first education in food, and the source of his passion for the cuisine of Chiapas and the Yucatan peninsula. In 2006, the Morenos moved to the area to be closer to Treena's mother. All of the recipes are Eduardo's, but they emphasize that the restaurant is a collaborative and evolving effort to gradually introduce authentically Yucatan elements and dishes to a new audience here in Western New York. The goal: to bring Chiapas to Fairport one tasty dish at a time.

Sipping on a chelada ($6) - essentially a margarita made with beer rather than tequila - we munched on totopos (tortilla chips) and two salsas, a fresh-tasting salsa of pinto and black beans mixed with mild chiles, radish, lime juice and a bit of cilantro, and a thick, dark and intensely smoky paste of peppers that stands in for red salsa. While we ordered appetizers we tried to absorb just how far from Tex-Mex food we really were at Blue Cactus. The ensalada de jicama ($7) was a good clue that things are very different here. Served in an oversized margarita glass with a rim coated with coarse salt and chili powder, spears of snowy jicama alternate with pineapple, a pool of lime juice at the bottom of the glass. This hot-tangy sauce, the earthy crunch of jicama, and the acidic sweetness of the pineapple create a harmonious combination with a serious kick.

We also tried two of the soups: sopa de frijol ($5), and sopa de lima ($6). The black bean soup was dark brown, thick, and topped with a swirl of crema (a cross between sour cream and crème freche) and a dusting of cotija cheese (a semi-hard cheese similar to feta). The soup had a velvety texture, accompanied by a blast of black bean, and then a mouthful of dark, dark chocolate, and a subtle heat that built over time, bringing every tastebud to life. The chicken soup was another thing entirely. At first glance, and first smell, and first taste, I was prepared to ask our waiter for a matzoh ball. Instead of matzoh balls the slightly yellow and wonderfully rich broth was chock full of chicken, thin strips of tortilla, and cilantro. Garnished with avocado and a generous dose of lime juice, this was very good chicken soup and not at all something you'd expect from your local Mexican restaurant.

Entrees were familiar in name and appearance and radically different in flavor. Enchiladas verdes ($9) - chicken enchiladas with a green salsa - are a staple of Tex-Mex restaurants everywhere. The plate held three enchiladas, drizzled with green salsa and topped with cotija and crema. The salsa, though, got my undivided attention. In addition to the usual tomatillos (a green, distant relative of the tomato that has a lemony flavor), cilantro, and poblano peppers, this had a blast of pineapple to it that redefined a normally limey-smoky salsa into something fresh and lively that cut right through the sharp cheese and enlivened the chicken underneath it. Chiles rellenos ($14), poblano peppers stuffed with cheese or meat and then deep-fried in an egg batter, are also standard Tex-Mex fare. The chile rellenos that came to our table were bursting with a filling of ground beef enriched with nuts, raisins, chiles, and several spices including cinnamon that lingered agreeably on the tongue bite after each delicious bite.

The tacos (three for $12) were also given a bit of twist here, substituting different ingredients and techniques for the familiar. The rajas y cebolla filling (roasted poblano peppers and sweet onions) had a nice heat followed by smoke and brown sugar (from the onions) that wonderfully complemented the chicken, the pork, and the steak. Hongo was an aromatic mixture of mushrooms (likely porcinis given their assertive and almost wine-like flavor), roasted garlic, onions, and a slightly smoky heat provided by gaujillo peppers. The pork had been rubbed down with achiote (a paste of oregano, cumin, clove, cinnamon, allspice, pepper, garlic, and salt), wrapped in banana leaves and roasted over a slow fire. The resulting meat was fork tender, infused with spices and an intensely green flavor that was unusual but not at all disagreeable. With a tiny squeeze of lime, the pork lit up very nicely. The beef, though, stood out: flavorful skirt steak marinated in achiote paste and then grilled to a perfect medium rare, this was meat that needed no other condiment or complement - spicy, perfectly charred and incredibly beefy. To put salsa or guacamole on this would have been a grave insult.