Cimera
There are probably five people in the world that I can go to dinner with where the entire menu is available and the ordering process is almost poetic. I had dinner with two of those five here.
Should we get the guac?
Might as well
Esquites definitely
OK
Tuna tiradito
Al pastor tacos
Empanadas
Mhm
Carne asada?
Yeah
And the chicken?
Or the shank
Let's ask
Both then
Yeah
Dessert?
Pineapple looks good
And the apple one
Of course, the beauty in this comes through most at family style restaurants, but what restaurant isn't now? It is amazing and horrible how many restaurants preface their menu in this way. It is quite obviously a function of increasing profits and margins for these places, as customers have a less direct understanding of their personal cost for a 28 USD shared plate, they inherently order more food, and the restaurant controls portion sizing based on dish type. Alongside I am sure a bevy of other factors.
It works swimmingly with the right group - especially so for people who actually prefer a bit of everything, like me - but it can become a disaster quickly.
I hate corn
Same
OK we can share that amongst us three
I would eat the carne asada but not the tacos
Fair enough
I don't really fuck with fish
Would you guys do the tuna?
Yeah
Should you and I just split this?
And then the empanadas for the table?
It comes with two
So two orders and ask to add one more?
Sure
I kind of just want the chicken
Should we get two and you can just have your own?
And then us four will split the rest?
Whatever
I don't want the apple thing but order it if you guys do
Now you have got eight dishes for five people, and everyone is eating some random permutation of those eight. Multiple someones are getting fucked. And I feel for the picky folks. They just want the vodka rigatoni, and they might end up with three bites of it and a bunch of nibbles of shit they don't care about. It's not all roses and sunshine for the adults either. Nobody is dying to go to dinner with a group of friends knowing that some number of them may leave relatively unsatisfied by design.
Do you suggest off the bat that the group just all go their own way? Maybe then someone doesn't get a few things they might have otherwise. Do you back off and just name the one or two things that you absolutely want? Maybe then someone else feels a large burden for making the group happy or you end up with less of what you wanted most and more of what you felt impartial about.
Oh, and god forbid someone has a fucking food allergy at the table. /s
The Rating
There isn't too much color to add to this one. For the vibe, the space is nice, and the large windows and table alignment present a fine view of a couple parking lots and the city. This clearly works better with the patio open on a nice day, but it creates a good enough vibe in general.
The staff were cool. The kind of place where a waiter might say "dope, I got you" after you order. Which, yeah, genuinely neither here nor there. The aggressively-not-pretentious angle can work, though not sure it mattered much either way in this situation.
As for the food, easiest to do a quick blitz:
- Guacamole: One of those situations where there are 20 ingredients and you can't taste any of them individually anymore.
- Empandas: Interesting and quite enjoyable to me. Some fun bites of pancetta in there and a hard-boiled egg???
- Tuna: Meh. Leche de tigre sauce was solid.
- Esquites:1 Very good.
- Tacos: Good, not great.
- Carne Asada: My favorite bites. Chimichurri had a little kick to it.
- Pork Shank: Good, not great.
- Chicken:2 Some bites were excellent, some a little less so. Impressed by the internal temperature consistency.
- Pineapple: Solid dessert, ripe pineapples.
- Apple: Loved this, tasty.
They describe themselves as pan-latin, but the closest reference point for me was Peruvian food. My general benchmark for that is a restaurant in Chicago called Tanta (), and for similarly priced food, Tanta has a few more memorable dishes on the menu.3
Bonus Rating
Odie B's ()
This doesn't need to stand on its own, it was just a little breakfast and brunch sandwich place we popped into before the football game, but I enjoyed my smothered burrito. Some really strong bites early with the tater tots in it that seemed fewer and further between by the end. They have this mixed fries bag that is fantastic for people who panic to figure out which type of fry they want at a place that has many. Should I go healthy with the sweet potato? I do love a good waffle fry. Usually can't go wrong with the traditional. Fuck it, a little of each?
Footnotes
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I have still never had better than my first exposure to this in a random Mexican grocery store in Des Plaines, Illinois that I went to with a lifelong friend's family when I was like 14, served in a styrofoam cup. ↩
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This chicken was the last dish we were served, and the consumption flow was hilarious. I don't think any of us said a word, but we had this perfect rotation of one grabs chicken, one grabs fries, one eats. No two people grabbing at the same time, the chicken free for a slice after every handful of fries. I remember thinking it felt like one of those silent observation scenes in a movie or TV show. ↩
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On my first trip to Tanta, the waitress described Peruvian food as a mix of Japanese and Spanish because of the presence and influence of the Japanese in Peru. Which was news to me, but apparently they were the first Latin American country to establish diplomatic relations with Japan. It made some sense, though. Start googling "some peruvians look..." and read the first few suggested searches. A lot of people have already gotten there using first principles. ↩