Cantina Laredo

If you're going to open a Mexican restaurant in Austin, it had better be good. And if you're going to label it gourmet, it had better be superior.

With so many outstanding examples of the form ¿ from neighborhood Tex-Mex spots to one of the country's most respected interior Mexican restaurants (Fonda San Miguel) ¿ Austin knows its Mexican food. To compete here, you have to pile on th.... More

If you're going to open a Mexican restaurant in Austin, it had better be good. And if you're going to label it gourmet, it had better be superior.

With so many outstanding examples of the form ¿ from neighborhood Tex-Mex spots to one of the country's most respected interior Mexican restaurants (Fonda San Miguel) ¿ Austin knows its Mexican food. To compete here, you have to pile on the flavor.

Cantina Laredo, an upscale Mexican chain with nearly a dozen locations in Texas, opened its first Austin site three months ago in the new Second Street shopping and entertainment district on the ground floor of the AMLI building. The place has two things going for it: a location in a vibrant area and a sleek, stylish dining room that has the feel of a hip, urban environment.

That's good, because the one thing it doesn't have is food worth going there for.

The one exception was the first dish: "top shelf" guacamole ($6.99) made tableside.

With an entertaining monologue and armed with two forks, our server deftly blended avocado, seasonings and fresh-squeezed lime juice. He added cilantro, onions, serranos and tomatoes, mixing just enough to keep things wonderfully chunky. (If only the guacamole hadn't been served with chips so overly salted that the granules clung to the fingers.)

Our server deserved credit for managing ¿ under crowded conditions ¿ to make the guacamole where we could watch every move. His routine, however, was marred when another server stuck a margarita under his nose and asked him to give it to a large party nearby (instead of walking the long way around as he could have done). How rude. Perhaps the manager needs to give his staff a lesson in manners.

The botanas platter ($10.99) delivered mixed results. Acceptable items included the grilled chunks of fajita and chicken and two shrimp. The chicken quesadilla was lackluster. A small, bowl-shaped chip held about a tablespoon of chile con queso, and the guacamole paled in comparison to the tableside version. Two stuffed jalapeños were covered in a mealy, unappealing cracker-cereal coating, and the two tacos al pastor were filled with excessively dry pork.

The Durango platter ($12.99) featured a mole chicken enchilada void of vibrancy, a bland spinach enchilada and a cheese chile relleno. Our server offered to substitute a more flavorful beef picadillo relleno, which turned out to be a good choice.

In the camarones escondidos ($16.99), a chicken breast was split and a shrimp was inserted, sandwich-like, in each side (not exactly my idea of stuffed chicken breasts, particularly when compared with other Mexican restaurants in town). It was topped with spinach and a spicy chipotle-wine sauce and served with rice and sautéed vegetables.

For dessert, there was serviceable apple pie ($4.49) and apple-filled crepes ($4.99), both topped with ice cream.

The ambience was shattered by five flat-screen televisions placed high on the walls in the bar area. When the Miami-Dallas basketball championship game came on, someone cranked up the volume, and the restaurant became a sports bar ¿ not my idea of fine dining. Upscale restaurants are no place for blaring televisions. If I've said it once, I've said it a dozen times: If I wanted a TV dinner, I'd stay home.

After that disappointing experience, I returned a few days later with another companion for a second meal.

The restaurant fared better with two dishes this time around: the queso Laredo ($7.99) mixed with taco meat and pico de gallo, and the achiote-roasted pork quesadillas ($11.99).

However, the carne asada ($16.49) was tough, and the dessert removed any doubts about the place.

The slice of flan ($4.29) had been cut with a knife that had just sliced raw onions, leaving onion juice along both sides of the custard ¿ hardly an indication of a highly competent kitchen.

Cantina Laredo has a lot of work to do. On average, the food there is merely acceptable, which merits neither a star nor a recommendation to drive across town to eat there.

Brief