Best Mexican (or any ethnic for that matter) food in Connecticut

Baja's Authentic Mexican Restaurant
63 Boston Post Rd
Orange, CT 06477

This place is a huge surprise in the vast landscape of rural suburbia that is the whole CT state. Mr Z and I happened upon it when I first moved to CT for the summer and we were looking for a place to change the car oil. It was mid-day Sunday, hot and humid and I had had nothing to eat all day taking me to the dangerous point of grumpiness. We found a place in Orange Town and then decided to walk to whatever was closest to eat. That happened to be Baja’s – it looked so terrible from the outside that I almost refused to go in. We only went because I was so terribly hungry and we were stuck car-less for 45 min. What a spectacular surprise that was – this place has top-grade, delicious, well-cooked, well-spiced fresh food and a delectable salsa bar serving various very unboring kinds. Mr. Z and I have since turned the place into a sort of weekend brunch ritual. We have gotten many dishes over the course of the summer, all very pleasing to our palate. The ceviche appetizer is to-die for. Mr. Z declared he hadn’t had such tasty ceviche since South America. We usually don’t do dessert (too full usually and a last attempt to avoid pigging out) but we made an exception at Baja’s – and what a fabuuulous detour that was – the Banana Flautas are rum-doused bananas * chocolate chips wrapped in tortillas and deep fried, served up with orange ice-cream and chocolate syrup. Absolutely AMAZING!

Pros: great salsa bar, amazing seafood, carne asada, quesadilla, low prices, friendly & unpretentious service, Banana Flautas, amazing find in CT (given 99% of places serve either/or American, Italian)

Cons: the ambiance, the ambiance, the ambiance. It’s run-down, classless, charmless, with extremely cheap furniture and decorations and to boot, it gives the impression it is not the cleanest of places either. I have no idea why the owners don’t renovate this place – it seems the business has been there for a while, it always has a buzzing inflow of customers, the place even got a shout-out in the New York Times a couple years ago, as a newspaper clip on the wall attests. If one pays attention, a lot of customers just come to pick up the food to go – well no wonder, since the place looks so abysmally dingy. The fellow crowd doesn’t help much either. A lot of “local” folk add to the low-class atmosphere.

Sushi in the Boonies

Ichiro Hibachi & Sushi
West Hartford, CT

Intro
OK, so being stuck in CT for the summer is NO piece of cake. I may just have a bad case of the East Coast allergy - because pretty much everything about my life in Boston and CT over the last 12 months - stinks, but I digress. Last weekend, Mr Z and I were in desperate search for a place to eat in jam-packed, manic-driving, dreary CT suburbia. Good luck finding a place open for lunch on a Saturday off of 84 circa Danbury. We finally found a dingy Greek place, had a salad and rushed off to finish some assignments. Come evening, I was dyiiing – I could have eaten a whole roasted cow. This is when we got a very unexpected pleasant surprise:

Ichiro Hibachi & Sushi
West Hartfort, CT

Overall: 4.0/5

The Good
The food - Was delectable and very reasonably priced. We got a prix fixe menu and an Ocean Roll to share between Mr Z and I and even though we had hardly eaten all day, we got super full and happy with our sushi meal. The fish was fresh and tasty, the miso soup delicious, and the service polite and quick (that’s the way I like them!). We got the Sashimi deluxe with our prix fixe and that came with a garnish of white radish sitting atop a flashing kiddie silicone ring. Ok, it’s silly but it got me super giddy to have my meal flashing (no, I am not 6 years old) AND I got to put the ring on and keep it. Yes, sometime simple things make me happy  Mr Z liked that the check came with packets of fruity bubble gum as opposed to the usual, cheap, boring striped candy. Sounds like we’re a little hung-up on details? We’re really not, but we really noticed the nice touches this go-around.

The atmosphere: Nice-casual – it is not upscale, but neither is it pretentious. It seems clean and casual with nice warm lighting and bamboo/asian decorations yet not casual to the point of being off-putting for dinner.

The Bad
The cocktails. Got a Pama Rita – this was supposed to be a martini yet it came as a very sugary, red syrupy drink with hardly any alcohol in it. Bleah! Pantera likes herself a well made drink with a good punch and just enough mixer to make it pop – not drawn/or get a sugar coma from it.

The Ugly
Well, I guess it goes with the area…did I mention I am not exactly crazy about CT?? But about half the clientele seemed to be late teens/early twenties out cruising at the mall or something – nothing wrong with that per se but mix that with some drinks and they turn a nice dinner place into a white trash display. The hibachi area definitely seemed more rowdy than the dining area (for sushi). I won’t elaborate much further on this point, as I wouldn’t want to come off as TOO mean on my first review  but suffice to say the more secluded from the main dining area, the better (we were rather lucky).

Hello World!

This is the inauguration of my rants - in blog format. As I love eating out and trying out new places - restaurants, lounges, bars, cafes - (i'd call myself an amateur foodie and "winey") - i'll focus on providing a fully critical :-) review of locales I visit & i might possibly expand to rants of other nature sometime in the future.

I have moved from Seattle to Boston almost a year ago with my boyfriend, Mr. Z, in order for me to attend a certain local business school. The experience proved much less enchanting than either one of us expected and we are now waxing nostalgic after our West Coast days. Part of the East Coast dissapointment comes from the lack of diversity and often quality in eat-out places in Boston & surroundings. Also, I have often been asked for recommendations on places to go to, in Seattle or Boston - so from now on I can maybe point folks to my blog to pick and choose from my reviews :-)

and with that I will start a little retroactive review from the productive last 2 weeks!
To be continued!