Cinco de Mago

Jim and Nancy do not disclose the fact that they will review a restaurant before they attend, ensuring their reviews are unbiased and uninfluenced by their position with the Sun Day.

As the Dining Duo, we have a responsibility to the good citizens of Del Webb to ensure that our articles are in sync with current celebrations. Keeping that in mind, we realized that Cinco de Mayo is right around the corner. We put on our thinking sombreros and we decided to hop in our Mini “low rider” and venture to the Mago Grill and Cantina in South Barrington.

Your GPS will be doing a Mexican hat dance as you try to maneuver the parking lot in the South Barrington Arboretum. All the aisles in the parking lot are one way only and they seem to be going the opposite way that you would like to go, so let us make this easy for you. The cantina is located diagonally from the iPic Movie Theaters.

This restaurant is modern and elegantly decorated with wood and Mexican tile accents throughout. One illuminated wall is decorated with Mexican wrestling masks and another illuminated wall going to the restrooms is covered with “The Day of the Dead” Mexican skulls.

To begin our Mexican fiesta, the waitress brought over a basket of tortilla chips and a flight of three salsas. One was Habanero pepper, the second was a tomatillo and avocado, and last was a roasted tomato salsa. Nancy fell in love with the tomatillo avocado salsa (and she doesn’t even like avocado). My favorite was the roasted tomato salsa. The Habanero salsa was good, just a wee bit hot.

Jim and I wanted an appetizer this evening, so we went with the Tequila Shrimp Empanadas (2) for $5. This was a huge Mexican deep fried Pierogi, which contained jumbo shrimp and was delicious.

Nancy wanted to try something new and exciting, so she ordered the Arroz con Pollo ($17). This was a shredded chicken breast, Mexican rice, bell peppers, onions, ranchero sauce, and Chihuahua cheese baked with a puff pastry topping. This Mexican “Chicken Pot Pie” was really big and unbelievably tasty. It was something out of the ordinary.

Jim was also in the mood to try something he never had before, so he went with a Molé dish. To those of you who are unfamiliar with what a Molé sauce is, it is a sauce containing 20 to 30 ingredients and because it takes a long time to prepare, it is saved for celebrations. He decided on the Molé Pistache, which contained Poblano chiles, jalapeno peppers, avocado leaves and pistachios. He chose to have this served over Arrachera, which is a grilled marinated skirt steak ($22). It came with a side of Mexican rice and black beans. This won’t be the last time he has a Molé dinner since he enjoyed it tremendously.

A fiesta would not be complete without a dessert. We just had to try the Fried Ice Cream ($8). This was a trio of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream scoops coated with a cinnamon coconut breading and deep-fried to a crispy golden brown. You should have seen the dueling spoons as we fought over our favorite flavor.

If you are a guacamole lover, there is a very nice lady who comes to your table with a cart and prepares it table side. You can’t get any fresher than that and it only costs $10! She was a very busy senorita that night.

FYI: Handicap accessible and reservations are a must. We went on a Sunday evening and it was jammed. Dining Duo Tip: the waitstaff seemed to be really quick with their table turnovers, so make sure to take your time ordering.

For out of the ordinary Mexican food, and we don’t mean Chalupas, this is the place for you. From start to finish, the food didn’t disappoint us. Everything we ate was out of this world.

The cuesta for our Cinco de Mayo celebration was $63.83, or in pesos, $1,120.46. Olé!

Jim’s take: I really liked everything I ate there. I wish they would bottle their salsas, they were that good.

Nancy’s take: I took a big leap of faith ordering my entree, and I loved it. I also adored the Empanadas. What’s not to like about a shrimp filled Pierogi?

Have comments or restaurant suggestions for the Dining Duo? Send them an email at thediningduo@gmail.com.

---