I tried out a new Mexican restaurant last week. It was a location compromise between me and my friends from my ex-employer (in south Austin) and based solely on good Yelp reviews.
http://www.consueloskitchen.com/
I feel the need to place this warning up front: The place is incredibly small. The interior can seat 10 people and 10 more can be seated on their covered (read: no sun on a chilly day) patio. It is right next door to Upper Crust bakery, so if you go here and there is no hope of getting a table, you can always hop into Upper Crust for a sandwich. Or cake. No laws against eating cake for lunch.
Lets get to the food! I had really wanted Mediterranean food that day but given that 80% of the lunch attendees were vegetarian, I got vetoed and we went Mexican. The last minute change threw off my palate and I was all "I don't want to eat no frickin refried beans" as I drove over. But hey! I didn't have to! They have a bunch of non-regular (not irregular) sides like Fideo (vermicellil), cactus salad & a mango and jicama salad.
I had beef fajita tacos. Yummy beef meat, LOTS of meat and no rice or beans in there. Excellent! I couldn't have planned this better. I skipped the regular spanish rice and beans side. Instead I got fideo and cactus salad based on yelp. Yelp was right, of course. It had rated the Fideo as somewhat neutral, and all of us Indians at the table agreed it tasted like Maggi noodles, with a pinch less Maggi Tastemaker masala than we would have added. Moving on.
The cactus salad side was different & very nice. Visually unstriking, it managed to hit a very calm and refrshing note on the palate. Nicely balanced with some feta-esque cheese (i'm sure it was some nice Mexican cheese that I don't know the name of) and pieces of avocado on top. Its funny - the mango and jicama salad was really calling out to me and I would have ordered it except for all the yelp reviews about cactus salad. Well, it was nice and very balanced. No "punch" to it, but nice.
The chips and salsa are what I filled up on. Salsa that makes your nose run - it was awesome. I just needed a potent margarita to round it out, but alas. Work beckoned.
My friends tried the potato enchilada and the spinach-mushroom enchilada, and gave them rave reviews. In all, a nice little place to visit.
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