The Guava Tree…
Not sure how that name applies to the third (?) restaurant in “Charlie’s
Diner” down toward Ridge on Three Notch Road (more colorful than State Route
235). Anyway, their “Coming Soon” sign
has been replaced by a real one
The other night MFO and I attended an excellent lecture by
Dr. Terry Brock (another Sparty!) at Historic St. Mary’s City about the slave “landscape”
(his term) in early Southern Maryland. On
the way home, instead of our usual dialog as we pass a restaurant of interest,
of “we gotta stop there sometime”......we
DID!.
We went in, were greeted immediately and offered (and took)
a booth (which always seems cramped to me, but didn’t object) and sat down with
menus, and looked around. Previous
patrons of the other incarnations of the place wouldn’t recognize any physical
changes, the bar is where the bar was, the dining space is still to the right, and I think
there may be another room behind said bar.
Tables and booths remain pretty much as they were.
The décor, however has changed to suit the current folks
with several wall mounted sequined and flamboyant sombreros, and those hokey plastic scenes attempting to look like tiles of happy
people in a plaza dancing and carrying on.
All part of the experience. The usual basket of tortilla chips and
sauce(s) were dropped, and we were asked about drinks, and after finding the
beer selections on a card separate from the menu, I got one of those dollar off
Mexican Bottled beer advertised outside.
Due to the later than usual time of dining, we got down to
business with the menus. The in house
menu was a plastic comb bound affair, but I’ll offer a couple of pictures of
the carry out variety
I include them not to try to have you read them, but just to
show the stunning amount of choices (20 seafood, 14 chicken and beef, 14 “Especialdidaes”,
innumerable Appetizers, etc.). Hate to
generalize, but seems to be a trait of restaurant menus for other cuisines, not
only “Mexican/Tex Mex”, but Chinese, Thai, Japanese and so forth. Some of the latter (helpfully) attach numbers
to eliminate poor Americans embarrassing themselves trying to pronounce foreign
names of dishes and generally resorting to pointing.
Most of the choices were common with other “Mexican”
restaurants around here:
Los Guayabos: Enchiladas: Suizas; La Banderita; Rancheras;
Pollo Asado
Plaza Azteca: Enchiladas: Suizas; Bandera; Rancheras; Pollo
Sonora
Plaza Tolteca: Enchiladas: Suizas; La Banderita; Rancheras;
Pollo Amigo
And of course there are various other beef and seafood and
chicken dishes, but a lot of them have the same description. I zeroed in on a common favorite:
Now, this is a bit of exaggeration, but sometimes I wonder
if there is a giant Mexican Cocina someplace that a lot of these things are
made and are distributed to where ever they are ordered..
Here are my Enchiladas La Banderita:
I’ve had this dish at all three above, and this picture
could have come from any of them.
As to the food itself it was good, pretty much just as expected. Lettuce was fresh and crunchy (not too
common), the rice was orangeish instead of yellow as is more often the case. One thing (which I somehow don’t care for) is
the beef in this edition was ground, not shredded
Which is a bit closer to my Enchilada than you probably care
for, so I won’t show the chicken which was also pretty finely shredded, not chunks as you find at the other outlets. I did find the tortilla wraps had some
texture and flavor, not just mush. MFO
had her go to (I can use the rest for lunch tomorrow) Mushroom Quesadilla which
looked kind of lonesome on the plate.
(Hey KWW, no comments about the WB please.. I know! - inside joke)
Fortunately for the Feeder’s somewhat delicate digestive system, nothing
was overly spicy, although the little caddy on the table was there in case it
wasn’t hot enough for
Service was okay, with “is everything okay here?” inquiries
just short of annoying.. I’m sure it was done out of enthusiasm however.. One
thing that I found unpleasant (and MFO disagreed) was due to the fact that
Mexican food tends to have a lot of “stuff” on the plate, quite regularly there
is an escapee bit that hits the floor. Well,
as soon as this was noticed by staff, out came somebody with one of those pans
on a stick with a broom and the bit of “extra” food was brushed up. You know the feeling you get when you’re
eating and somebody comes out with a mop?
That kind of thing. As I said,
MFO thought it was just being tidy and fastidious.
I have a friend who really likes La Guay.. to the point that
it stands out above all our other options.
I’m not sure at this point I would drive the extra miles (the perennial
problem with the “Charlies” site) for what I had. Now, my disclaimer is that I never stray far
from the Enchilada portion of the menu, some of the other dishes may be nicely
done (Grilled Mango Salmon, Steak a la Mexicana, etc.)
Anyway, if you’re down that way around lunch or dinner time,
try it out. I hope the location doesn’t
claim another victim. While open daily
for lunch, the Gate Three situation, unless it has changed, makes that tough..
and, whenever, from what we saw, not much call to
DFD
oh, whatever Spanish is for Lagniappe, a one thing i noticed about the menus, Chile Rellenos no longer appears it used to be fairly common
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