| El Take It Easy (located at 3926 30th St, right off of University in North Park) isn't open to the public yet, but tonight Jay was kind enough to invite me to a "friends and family" night there - a dress rehearsal of sorts. The restaurant still does not have a sign outside, nor is there a menu posted up front, but inside the ambiance is already wonderful. It's a relaxing, comfortable space with soft, dim lighting that makes it feel instantly intimate. The simple decor comes off as chic instead of plain. And the wait staff is among the friendliest and most helpful I've ever encountered.
That said, even more so than The Linkery, El Take It Easy isn't a place to take your vegetarian girlfriend on a date. The menu, which is impressively authentic Mexican, reads like an anatomy lesson. Diners can choose between beef cheeks, chicken necks, or pork bellies, among other items. This is a throwback to an earlier time when meat actually came from animals, not factories, and when chefs had to use the entire animal, not a few prime cuts of it. Instead of selling the most valuable cuts and grinding the rest into hotdogs and Spam as we do now, chefs found ways to make the various body parts of each animal into gourmet creations, such that someone would actually order a chicken neck on purpose as a delicacy instead of merely saying "I don't want to know what's in that McNugget" like Americans do today.
Thus, at El Take It Easy, meat lovers can enjoy the following:
Chicken spleens
Pork belly & quail egg terrine
Sweet & Sour chicken heads
Pork belly tacos
Grilled beef cheek
Kentucky Fried buches (chicken necks)
For the less adventurous carnivore, there are plenty of options like the pork cazuela or the mole chicken. And even vegetarians like myself aren't left out in the cold. The wait staff all noted their favorite was the mulberries with chili and lime. I ordered that but was sorry I didn't get the grilled asparagus that my friend got. The mulberries were great but the chili and lime flavor gets old for me fast. And the chef did beautiful and brilliant things to that asparagus.
As a second course (the plates are small), my friend got the pork cazuela, which he LOVED, and I got the mixed vegetable tostada. When I ordered that, the waiter tried to sway me towards the greens with vegetables, but I wasn't in the mood for a salad. The tostada was good, but I have a hunch that those who have tasted the entire menu prefer the asparagus or the greens with vegetables to it as a vegetarian option. (I should also note that the "goat torta sliders" caught my eye, until I realized it referred to goat meat not goat cheese.) The pork cazuela was a mix of braised and grilled pork in a green tomatillo sauce that my friend said "was like nothing he'd ever eaten before" (in a good way).
The beer selection was fantastic, although I would have expected no less from Jay Porter. Both of us got the Lagunitas Pils, which was one of the four beers on tap (along with a wheat beer, a pale ale, and a dark beer). I enjoyed my pils but I was also pleased that they chose four such diverse beers as their tap beers so that nearly all beer drinkers would find something to drink.
Last, we got dessert - churros and chocolate. The chocolate was a little bit too dark for my taste and I found it to be bitter, but the churros were excellent. After we finished, our waiter came by to ask what we thought of the meal, and he was truly interested in our feedback. I have a hunch the menu will undergo some changes before the restaurant opens in a few weeks.
Part of my faith in El Take It Easy comes from my love of Jay's other restaurant, The Linkery, which I hold in such high regard that I chose to celebrate my last birthday there. It's quite remarkable that even as a vegetarian at a sausage restaurant, I find excellent choices on the menu and even have a hard time selecting what to order. When I ate at The Linkery this past week, my boyfriend and I split an order of green beans sauteed in a ginger-soy sauce, a portobello mushroom flatbread, and the best pasta I've eaten in decades - tagliatelle with asparagus and a creamy, delicious macadamia nut pesto. Thus, I trust that Jay will continue to perfect the menu at El Take It Easy by trying new dishes and keeping what works.
The only part of either restaurant that is a bit hard to swallow is the price tag. This is partially because real food costs money (something we've forgotten in this country), but it's even more because the food is so dang good that you can't help but order appetizers, drinks, and dessert along with your entree and that makes the bill add up. Too bad there's no such thing as a free sustainable lunch. |
