So I decided to expand my culinary horizons yesterday and try my first Mexican restaurant in Singapore. (Yes, I've eaten plenty of it elsewhere, just not here.) According to a quick poke on the Internet, Singapore has precisely three (3) Mexican restaurants, namely Cafe Iguana on Clarke Quay which got uniformly horrible reviews for food, Cha Cha Cha in Holland V which got mixed but mostly bad reviews, and Margarita's which got good-to-average reviews. So the choice was obvious.
First of all, this is in a seriously bizarre place in the depths of Clementi and, starting from Clementi MRT, it took half an hour in a cab to find it! Print out the map from here before you set out: http://web.singnet.com.sg/~mgarita/
The place was packed on a Saturday night, with a very expat-heavy crowd, we lucked out and got the last table in the place (and the next few drop-ins were turned away...). Without further ado, our order: guacamole, ceviche, beef fajitas, fish in achiote sauce plus capirotada for dessert. The guacamole was downright excellent and the ceviche was OK (the fish was cooked, not raw though!). The fajitas were good, but the beef was a bit overdone and stringy and there was very little in the way of condiments, just salsa and refried beans. (Although we did get sour cream on the request of my all-too-Americanized companion.) The baked fish was a bit of a disappointment, the achiote-bitter orange-tomato salsa ended up tasting like cheap orange juice... and the capirotada, basically Mexican bread pudding, was OK but I was a bit too stuffed to appreciate it, the portions are all fairly large. I was also quite disappointed to note that every jalapeno was straight out of a can.
All in all, not the best I've eaten in my life, but I could easily believe that this is the most authentic Mexican place in Sg. The downside is the price: with mains clocking in at $20-30 each and appetizers, desserts and drinks all in the $10 range, and even $4.50 for the nachos and salsa, the bill for two came to over $100, which is pretty steep by Singapore standards. Next time I think I'll just cook my own... or head over for lunch, as the $15 set meals sound like much better value.
