I started moving yesterday so the huge portion of my cortex that is usually devoted to thinking about food is now fretting about moving, not having any furniture to fill my new place, and cursing my sore back. I did have time to peruse last week's news and review however and I have a couple of thoughts:
1)this thing on sampinos is interesting and informative. I loved reading it.
2) The new city manager is a total douche. Hope that doesn't make anyone mad, I don't know the guy, of course. Want to know the first problem with this douche trying to run our city? OK, actually I have two major problems and one katrillion minor ones. Here are the major ones
a) his motto is: get the customer to success
b) his family has not even moved here. why are we letting someone move here and make important decisions for our city when he is not even invested enough to really live here?
I'm trying to reign in my sarcasm here because I'd like to see what others thought of this article and this guy. I'll just blurt this out really quick and then I'll be done
DOUCHEDOUCHEDOUCHEDOUCHE
there I feel better, ok two more things, that anecdote about the chick with tattoos changing his vision of the city is infuriating and he praises San Diego.
I also just read on yelp that on weekend the wait at Ernestos is over an hour. I'm sure the wait at Chevys is similar, which of course is a much lamer place than Ernestos, but it's still dumb to wait in line to eat subpar, overpriced Mexican food when there are a million other places you can eat. I don't get it. I liked this review of Pattaya
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20 comments:
i agree with you on ernesto's. the only thing good that happened to me there recently was getting that maraca/beer opener thing on cinco de mayo from a truck full of flare parked in front of the business while i was waiting in line for an hour.
I really don't understand all the hating on the Ernestos/Zocalo empire. I really think it's the best Mexican food in town. But then, I'm no fan of the La Fiesta/La Favorita empire. I'd eat at Ernestos any day over La Fiesta, whichj in my opinion is subpar on a good day and kinda nasty every other day.
Please explain the Ernestos hate. Their chile verde is the best I've had here or in the Bay Area.
My wife had a similar impression (bad) of our lovely city manager. She mentioned making some use of Sacramento's existing history and regional character in all this downtown place-making, and he looked at her as though she wasn't speaking English. It just seems like he doesn't know anything about Sacramento, and has no intention of trying to find anything out about Sacramento anytime soon. I'm torn between going to the NAG meeting at the Hart Center tonight (he will be there addressing the NAG group) and staying home playing videogames because I know that the NAG meeting will put me in a bad mood.
"Please explain the Ernesto's hate."
Umm, OK. Ernesto's is Mexican food for people who are too skeeeeered to venture into a real Mexican food joint? Or, it's to Mexican food what, oh, Olive Garden is to Italian cuisine? No offense, pal, but it just isn't up to par with what else the Valley has to offer. And if you're hitting Mex joints in the Bay Area for comparison, you're looking in the wrong place.
i'm scratching my head over the ernesto's thing too. i ate there recently for the first time in a long time because a friend from out of town wanted to go there and remembered it being really good. since i hadn't been there in a long time i figured what the heck it might be better than i remember. things have not changed. ernesto's does three things that i find unforgiveable;
1. the food is always served lukewarm to tepid so after it's in front of you for more than a minute it's cold
2. their bean dip and salsa are bland as are most of their sauces. i'm not complaining about a lack of heat it can be mild as long as it tastes like something.
3. their produce always seems undercooked and the couple times i've gotten their enchiladas it's like they were wrapped in cardboard
beyond this there was something else that i hadn't noticed about the place before and that is that they don't really have a hot a salsa which i think is weird for a mexican restaurant.
in short i agree that the place is pretty disappointing for how popular it is.
-liv
But those AWESOME diego rivera prints!!!
!!!
!!
I'm sure glad I'm not the only one who thinks "Get the customer to success" is lame. Try working at City Hall 40 hours a week, that's all you hear anymore these days. Whatever happened to making Sacramento a great city? Instead we have to deal with this corporate mantra being shoved down our throats. wburg, your wife's experience is similar to many who work for the City.
Kerridge is actually a very nice guy in person. When he first came here, I got the chance to talk with him a few times. He is indeed much better than the old CM at supporting the decision-makers and creating consensus, rather than butting heads with em. Everyone loves him at the moment because he's reinventing government and making the city "easier to do business with". I wonder how long it will last....
I've only eaten at 'nestos once, so I can't give a thorough opinion except that I think it's just one of those places that's overated because lots of pretty people go there. At least that's what it seems like when I bike/drive by. I remember the food being decent, but not up to par with being a "hot spot." Where's Ele's opinion on this??
Jed
all my favourite co-workers out to dis the ernezocatortumas empire! nice.
for the record, the place sucks.
Last time I went to Ernestos (like two years ago) I liked the super loud mariachi music and the people singing along with it. However, Vallejo's has mariachi, too, right? and the food is much better.
>Please explain the Ernestos hate. Their >chile verde is the best I've had here or >in the Bay Area.
Most of the Bay Area Mexican food I've had seemed to be on the bland side, especially in SF (I think they have something against real lard and salt in SF). You really can't beat the Valley for great Mexican! My current fave is Rosalinda's on Florin and S. Land Park...
Pres,
SASSF
Now, now, now, you can't just make a blanket statement about ALL Mexican food in the Bay Area sucking. There are tons of good places to eat, both because they're cheap and tasty or because they're higher end and use really great produce.
Ernesto's is the worst and their worst crime is that crap they pass off as enchilada sauce. It looks and tastes like tomato sauce and white gravy. Someone once told me that this sauce was authentic. Well, someone's grandma passed down one truly shitty recipe.
Tres Hermanas, Vallejo's and the La Fiesta/Favoritas are a billion times better than Ernesto's.
>Now, now, now, you can't just make a
>blanket statement about ALL Mexican food
>in the Bay Area sucking
Just a generalization but the joints run by those who originally came from areas of Mexico closer to Central America tend to have food that's on the blander side (not that I've sampled a lot of regional Mexican cooking though) versus the folks who came from the Mexican states closer to Texas/Arizona/California. What's that style called--Sonoran? It's what we in the Central Valley are most used to eating versus the more Central American influenced Mexican cooking. That's the kind of Mexican I dig most--the stuff cooked by thems that come from the states bordering Texas/Arizona/California...
Pres,
SASSF
Beans from a can. That says it all.
Yuck.
Sonoran? Never heard that before. I like Tex-Mex and New Mexican-Mexican.
a
worm here
"ernestos" roughly translates from spanish to english tooooo:
food for assholes,
or "ernesto's":
could also be interpreted as food of the ass
as in
shit.
i ate there for the first time in many years just yesterday. the staff was mexican. very very mexican, but the food was very very very "el gringo".
worst mexican food next to panchos on broadway.
Hi, I'm the the anon poster who originally asked about the Ernestos hate. I also polled a local food forum on whether or not folks like Ernestos. The consensus there was that no, it's not "authentic," but it's still pretty damn good. There seems to be a certain Sac snobbiness about "authentic" Mexican food. Sac-mites seem to think authentic is the only thing that equals good. No, you won't find brains and tripe there, but what you will find is decent food.
If you people don't like Ernestos, what do you like?
>Sonoran? Never heard that before. I like >Tex-Mex and New Mexican-Mexican.
>
>a
Si, Sonoran-Chihuahan style Mexican cooking. From the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuaha. It's also referred to as "Tex-Mex" and "Cal-Mex" but I think New Mexican is altogether different. They all share common elements though...
Pres,
SASSF
Fucking A, I wrote a long comment and it went away.
sachater-I followed a link on sacrag yesterday (cool dmz wrote something funny about the railyard clean up) and ended up at the sac food forums and saw your comment in which you disparaged me for being too in love with sac, which I thought was funny because I live in sac and plan to stay so of course I love it. Why else would I live here? I am not by any means an authentic Mexican "snob" I love 524, which is not very spicy but is super cheap and homey, and I even like Panchos (aka Luis') and wrote it up in Midtown Monthly. The reason Ernestos and Zocalo bug is that they are mediocre and overpriced but more importantly that they are supercrowded despite this. Everyone likes to root for the underdog, right? Well they are the overdogs. It's frustrating to see people waiting in line to eat at these kinds of restaurants (I'll throw in Mikuni and PF Changs, and Paesanos too) when better and cheaper places sometimes languish without business. Please don't be so quick to throw the "snob" hat into the ring when we disagree. I'm not a snob and the people who read and comment aren't snobs. Some of us are just passionate about food and our city so we use strong language when talking about it. And pretty please don't ever use the term sac-mites again unless you are talking about some sort of scrotal parasite.
Last time I was at Ernesto's, I had frozen veggies in my entree. That was afew years ago, so who knows now? I've never been since.
It's one thing to use frozen vegetables rather than fresh. Its a whole different story when the cooks don't even completely thaw the veggies.
Ernesto's can kiss my butt.
C-LO
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