Angels & Mariachis

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MealSchpeal com

Joined 4 years ago

No, we don’t have any ketchup. “No, we don’t have any ketchup” said the waitress and with it kicked off one of the most bizarre dining experiences ever recorded in the cumulative 130 years that any of her 4 patrons have been eating solid food.

Before the bad, we discuss the wonderful: The Bloody Maries. They are excellent. Spicy, not too thick (Twisted Spoke), not too watered (Wishbone) but just right. Perfect if you like seizure-inducing spice but supposedly available with a more palatable quantity of capsaicin. The salsa with the complementary chips is similarly grand (and hot) and the guacamole is pretty decent although doesn’t hold a scent-free candle to the likes of Adobo’s. But today, no quantity of good could diffuse the strange. It was as though somewhere in the kitchen-to-the-customer supply chain was a drug-induced short circuit that sparked and burned and fused some information bits together.

In David Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly, a scientist’s teleportation vessel can’t figure out what to do with two separate organisms in the chamber and decides to splice the two of them together. Something similar happened today at Angels and Mariachis when someone on the staff fused orders for a veggie omelet and a breakfast burrito without meat and decided to make a veggie omelet and put it inside a tortilla. However, whereas the former was exhibit A in logical efficiency, the latter was exhibit A through Z against a day of food-serving while wasted off one’s buttocks. Luckily for the guilty party, the diners were equally hung-over and made no great effort to underline the gaffe.

Table after table sat in receipt of food and drink while we sat with glazing eyes and watering mouths waiting for correction. In a rare display of chivalry, your author ate not a single mouthful during the entire process. Then, without warning, all staff vanished. Into their breach came the famous cute blonde girl with crack-smoke mom in tow selling Aldi candy packs at 8,000,000% mark-up. One party member who has more cash than comprehension of extinction on behavior immediately offered to buy 2 packs for a total mark-up too large for alcoholic brains. Where was the staff? Were they in on it? Seems so. If their cut is a few million percentage points of mark-up it might be worth it but I doubt it. A restaurant should take care not to let their temporary monopoly on their patron’s wallets open up to street competition no matter how cute the sales agent or how high her mom.

In any case, in the half-hour following order-fusion, one of the diners changed her order to a cheese quesadilla. Thought it might be easier. It was. After it and the corrected veggie omelet arrived and all sat happily working down the hangover, another quesadilla was delivered to the table! Perhaps the kitchen decided to rectify the earlier case of fusion with one of fission! Shoot a neutron into a veggie omelet tortilla and you get TWO cheese quesadillas people! Surely there is science to prove it. Maybe the Large Hadron Collider is being tested out right here in the kitchen of meek and mild-mannered Angels & Mariachis! Go there and find out for yourselves.

P.S.: The waitress did say she would discount the food. She did to the tune of a whopping $4.80. Considering that the fused then fissile meal cost $67.20 (before tax and tip), the discount was a very gracious 7.14%. Gotta love a place that loses whole bytes of information but can still do floating-point multiplication. Drink up!

Love,

Mealschpeal

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RocknRollMandy

Joined 3 years ago

Fun Bar with good food.. Hands down, best place to go for a fun dinner in wicker park. Day of the Dead theme and rock music. Love It. It's hard to find a bar atmosphere without fried bar food. They had a good selection, I had the steak mariachi fajitas, and they were satisfying.

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wackyjack

Joined 5 years ago

great food & great atmosphere. Angels and Mariachis is a great addition to Division Street. We needed a good fun Mexican restaurant and we got one!! The food is great and you can tell its fresh. Guacamole is made to order (you can make it spicy and take out cilantro!) There are over 5 different types of salsa and the queso funditio is out of this world. The bar itself is amazing. It?s got a ton of character but far from cheesy. There is a space to move around, good drinks, great music and it draws in a good crowd of people. There is also outdoor patio. Highly recommend it!

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Fred Schlatter

Joined 9 years ago

Tacos, tequila and Tecate from Eat Well. Drink Better.. A carefully weathered sign featuring a skull and six-shooters announces the cantina--a very Disney scene when viewed in the greater context of thriving Division. Clapboard siding, rusticated wood and aged tin ceilings all add to the roadhouse look, but handsomely upholstered benches and a hard-hitting soundtrack of pop and rock dismiss the illusion. As does the fancified Mexican food, like steak fajitas that arrive sizzling with tortillas, rice and beans. Mexican beers rule the bar, but decent margaritas and a good tequila list get fair play, too.