Reviews

To kick off my birthday week, we took a trip over to St. Louis’ Central West End to visit an old favorite of ours, The Wild Flower Restaurant. We’ve eaten here many times before, as it has excellent food and nice outdoor dining (as well as indoor dining). I recalled that they had a specialty Margarita so it should be no surprise that I ordered one!

The Wild Orchid Margarita, besides tequila, includes a house made sweet and sour plus raspberry liqueur. It was voted “best signature drink” by AOL according to the restaurant’s menu. The raspberry liqueur gives the drink a lot more fruit flavor than a standard Margarita. The tequila flavor comes out nicely. It isn’t overpowering.

To some Margarita “purists”, this drink might taste too much like a fruit punch. I won’t argue with them, but I do like the drink. It is an especially refreshing taste on a hot day. I give it a 7.5, with the caveat that for some people this might stray too far from a standard Margarita for their liking.

A friend had a surprise birthday party thrown at the Bossanova Restaurant & Lounge in Alton, IL. The party was in a private room upstairs from the main restaurant area. This party room had a little bar built-in, so I figured let’s give the Margarita a try!

Simply put, the Margarita had a decent enough flavor and balance. It was nice to drink, but it did have a bit of a pre-made mix taste. I prefer more natural tasting Margaritas personally. So nothing special here, just a 6.5 on my scale.

I don’t believe that this is necessarily representative of the main Bossanova bar down in the restaurant. The restaurant generally has very good reviews, so at some point in the future I will return to give their Margarita another try.

My wife suggested we go to the West End Grill & Pub in St. Louis on this Friday afternoon. I had never been there, so of course I had to ask if they had a good Margarita. Our server, Janine, who is extremely knowledgeable about all the food and drinks there, said “of course!” So I took her on her word and ordered one. I’m glad I did!

First off, for a “grill & pub”, the food at West End Grill & Pub is amazing. This isn’t your standard bar food. Janine explained all the details of the ingredients and food preparation and I was pleasantly surprised how good our meals were. So if you’re in the area, this is a bit of hidden gem in St. Louis. Make sure to stop by.

Our server Janine also made my Margarita (and my wife’s Old Fashioned, which she liked so much she ordered 2). It was very nicely balanced, with a good taste of tequila and citrus and a hint of sweetness. Janine explained that they make their own “secret” mix and she simply used their standard tequila in what she served me (Dorado Gold, I believe she said). She said I might have noticed the difference if she had used a premium tequila. I guess I’ll need to go back sometime and test that out! Regardless, it was an excellent margarita, flavorful and well balanced. An 8 out of 10 for me.

For Cinco de Mayo, I wanted to visit a place we hadn’t been in probably 2 years. Canyon Cafe is a Southwest-themed restaurant with top-notch food and tasty Margaritas. I remembered that they had a great house Margarita they called the “Grand Canyon”. So we ordered a pitcher this afternoon.

Incidentally, Canyon Cafe claims they have the best Margaritas in St. Louis. Our waitress claimed that they actually won some contests with their speciality Margaritas. Plus they have many more house Margaritas. So I’ll be back to sample another one of Canyon Cafe’s Margaritas soon enough.

The Grand Canyon Margarita is made with cranberry, lime, and orange juice for the tart/citrus flavors plus Prickly Pear Cactus Juice to add sweetness. I could tell the cranberry juice adds some extra tartness, which I really like. The Prickly Pear Cactus Juice adds a particular sweetness that is unique to any Margarita I’ve ever tasted. Overall, the flavors are well balanced and the Margarita is very easy and pleasant to drink. My only nitpick is that there isn’t much of a tequila flavor in this Margarita, but it’s only a slight detraction. I give it an 8 out of 10.

Like I said, I’ll be back. There are too many other Margaritas to ignore at Canyon Cafe!

I seek out Margaritas everywhere I go, so it should not be surprising at this point that most of my reviews have been from non-Mexican restaurants. But a Margarita at an Asian restaurant? Yes, it exists!

Wang Gang Asian Eats in Edwardsville, IL is not your normal Asian restaurant. Both the decor and food are distinctly upscale, but it is not pretentious by any means. The restaurant encourages a casual atmosphere even though the food is far and above among the best Asian I’ve ever tasted. The owners are extremely creative and have developed a unique drink menu that includes an Asian-themed Margarita, the YumYum BoomBoom. Japanese Sour Apple Schnapps takes the place of the usual citrus flavors, adding just the right amount of tartness that the citrus usually handles. All the flavors are well-balanced and it is definitely a premium-quality Margarita. Even though it is not a traditional Margarita, I still give it 8.5 out of 10.

After our evening at Five Bistro, my wife and I visited a friend who was hanging out at the Thurman Grill. So of course I had to try yet another Margarita that night!

Interestingly, the bartender at Thurman Grill is named Michael Jackson. Yes, that’s his name. I’m sure he’s heard every joke under the sun, so don’t go in there thinking you’re going you’re going to be all funny. But back to the Margarita. It had a good lemon-lime flavor, which I appreciated. However, it didn’t really have much in the way of sweetness and therefore it almost tasted weak. So overall, even though it had good citrus flavor, without the sweetness to balance, it just wasn’t a great Margarita. 6.5 out of 10 for me. But if you’re in the area, The Thurman Grill is a nice little neighborhood bar and grill, even if the Margarita wasn’t a “Thriller”. Sorry, had to do it!

Five Bistro is an amazing little restaurant located on “The Hill” area in St. Louis. If you are familiar with The Hill, you think of Italian food. However, Five Bistro is not an Italian restaurant. It is fine dining featuring a tasting menu. My wife and I love tasting menus and we are always on the lookout for a restaurant with a good tasting menu.

Of course, I needed to try the Margarita here, as I do with all new restaurants. Unfortunately for me, this was another example of a tequila-heavy Margarita. While it was a very good tequila, I’m just not a fan of a Margarita with strong tequila flavor. So the Margarita I had this night was only a 6 out of 10 for me. As always, if you are a fan of tequila you may rate this higher.

But in the grand scheme of things, Five Bistro is so good that I would recommend going even if the Margarita isn’t the best.

My family continued our weekend visit to the Chicago area by revisiting a restaurant we had just eaten at in November. While on a business trip/family getaway to downtown Chicago a few months back, the hotel concierge recommended we try the restaurant Vermilion. We were so happy we did, because we loved everything about the restaurant from the food to the decor to the service. As they describe it, Vermilion is a “global melding of Indian and Latin American cuisines”. My family loves both Indian and Latin American cuisine along with fine dining, so we were definitely going to come back to Vermilion when we returned to the Chicago area. This time I was going to try a Margarita as well.

The only Margarita they had on their menu was called “Lime Ginger Margarita”. For such an interesting name, it was a fairly plain tasting Margarita. I would classify this drink more as a tequila with Margarita flavor. However the tequila was good and not too overpowering, so it wasn’t bad to drink. But overall, this just wasn’t in line with what I expect a good Margarita to be, so I only give it a 6 out of 10.

However, if you are in Chicago I highly recommend you visit Vermilion anyway as the food is simply outstanding. And if you do try the Lime Ginger Margarita, let me know how you like it. Maybe I just had one on an off-night.

My family took a short trip to the Chicago area to visit my sister. While there, we decided to stop by a nice little restaurant we had eaten at previously. Of course I wanted to try their Margarita, but I wasn’t expecting much, as this wasn’t a Mexican restaurant nor did I have any reason to believe that this place had a good Margarita. I’m happy to report that I was very pleasantly surprised!

The Bank restaurant is located in Wheaton, IL, the small Chicago suburb where my sister lives. As I mentioned, we had visited this restaurant on a previous trip a few years ago. We liked it enough to try it again this time around. What we didn’t know was that the original executive chef, Patrick Cassata, had returned. For those of you who don’t know (and I didn’t until this night), Chef Cassata is pretty well-known and actually appeared on a season of Hell’s Kitchen with Gordon Ramsay. The last time we visited, we had lunch. This time, we were there for dinner. While we liked it last time, the restaurant seemed to be on a higher level this time – everything from service to food quality. The Margarita was on another level as well.

Our server, Matt, was exceptional all around. Make sure to ask for him if you go to The Bank. He was the one who made the Margarita for me. I usually don’t get surprised when I first taste a Margarita, but this was a very unique drink to be sure. It had an remarkably smooth flavor with a nice tequila finish. It’s hard to describe, but it had a “soft” feel when it first hit your mouth, followed by nice full flavors of sweetness, citrus, and tequila. I could tell that this Margarita didn’t skimp on the tequila, but it was blended so well that it didn’t overpower the other flavors (be careful – the tequila will sneak up on you!). In fact, none of the flavors overpowered. It was exceedingly well-balanced. The Margarita was so unique, that I asked about the recipe. Matt explained that the restaurant makes their own sour mix. I wasn’t getting the recipe that night! I give The Bank’s Margarita an 8.5 out of 10. I would have given it a 9 if it only had a little more citrus flavor – because that’s the way I like it. Otherwise, it was a very unique, excellent Margarita and I recommend it to everyone that can visit the Wheaton area.

One would not normally think that a good Margarita could be found in an Italian pizzeria, much less one in Maryville, IL. However, Alfonzo’s Pizzeria is actually known in my area for having very good Margaritas. I’ve had the pleasure of sampling them a few times in the past. And on this particular Sunday, I had another opportunity to do so.

Since I was with a big party, we ordered a couple of pitchers. The Margaritas here are very well balanced and have a great overall flavor. Again, one would not expect such a good Margarita from an pizza place, but I can definitely say Alfonzo’s serves a very good Margarita. My only nitpick is that they are slightly on the sweet side. I’d prefer they were just a little less sweet so to not mask the citrus and tequila flavors. But it’s a small issue. Overall I give Alfonzo’s Margarita a 7 out of 10. Plus I like to say where else can one get a Margarita with a Margherita pizza?