Lit up like a giant circus festival with it’s colorful exterior and flashing neon lights, Mercado’s Mexico Restaurant somehow manages to draw a crowd each and every night. It even seems as though each time we have out-of-town guests come visit, their first request is Mercado’s. Personally, I just don’t get it.
Mercado’s, and its sister Tyler restaurant Posados, serve ‘Mexican’ food, and are both extremely popular. However, in my opinion, Mercado’s and Posados are both struggling to make the leap from just decent to good. The food is decent, the service is decent, the atmosphere is decent-ish… It’s everything you would expect from a Tex-Mex chain and nothing more. The food is traditional Tex-Mex that will somehow leave you with an aching, heavy stomach even if you just order the lunch chicken salad.
I’m not sure the best way for me to describe exactly what my problem with Mercado’s is. I guess I just feel like an enchilada here is exactly like an enchilada at any other Tex-Mex restaurant anywhere else. It has a highly generic feel to me. It’s ok food heaped with cheese and grease to make it taste good. And I don’t deny that I do like some of their stuff… For example, I like a crispy chicken taco with black beans and rice, but it has taken me years to find the one thing on their menu that my stomach can tolerate. I love quesadillas, but the cheese is so rubbery and greasy at Mercado’s that I can hardly stand to eat theirs.
Maybe I’m missing something. If someone can clue me in on what I’m not seeing in Mercado’s and Posados please let me know. It would make my life much more tolerable, because so many people I know like to eat at Mercado’s and Posados so often. To me, it just seems that we have such a wonderful selection of fresh, delicious, authentic Mexican food around here, there is no reason to settle for an impostor – especially if it’s an impostor that will give you a stomach ache.
