Grand Azteca, January 20, 2015

Jeannene was supposed to be out of town this week, so I planned to go to dinner at a Mexican restaurant with one of my Meetup groups. I usually try to reserve evenings and weekends to spend with Jeannene, since we didn't find one another until I was already 30. I figure I want to spend all the time with her that I can. However, the trip was cancelled and she was actually able to come with me, which was terrific! She's never met these gals, although she hears me talk about them after I've been to lunch or the movies with them. We have not yet discovered our terrific Mexican place here---although, we've been to a couple not very good ones, one pretty good, and one that seems over-hyped to me. This one, in Sterling Heights, is a little bit of a haul for us, so we'll probably stick with our pretty good find, Casa Real, in Oxford. We don't go out for Mexican a whole lot, but the one time we went there, it was worth another trip back.

I would say Grand Azteca is another pretty good one, although not incredible, by any means. Their margaritas are certainly enormous & fairly tasty. Jeannene had a couple of soft tacos, no sides. The bite I had tasted pretty fresh and good. I ordered the chile verde, which is one of my favorites, when done well. This version was tender and quite yummy, but I felt the sauce needed a little something to brighten it a bit more---perhaps a wedge of lime served with it? The beans and rice were both flavorful, which is very often not the case, and the tortillas were good. The service was prompt, if not particularly friendly. The only issue we had, in terms of service, was due to the language barrier (I really should learn Spanish!)---Jeannene requested 2 more small, empty bowls to put some of the queso we already had at the table in for individuals (sharing one bowl was not practical, due to there being 8 of us) and our waiter quickly brought 2 large bowls of queso to the table (and, of course, charged us for it---it all got eaten, so it was just fine, really.) I would definitely go back, if I were in that neck of the woods, but I probably wouldn't make a special trip to eat there.