Casa Enrique – Mexican stardust

The selection of Mexican restaurants are fairly limited around where I live so I haven’t got a lot of experience with Mexican food – with the exception of a couple of trips to Mexico. So when we went to New York I thought going to a good Mexican restaurant would be an excellent choice. I managed to find Casa Enrique in Queens which had good reviews in addition it is the only Mexican restaurant in New York which actually got one of the coveted Michelin stars and the only restaurant in Queens with a star. So when we went to the restaurant it was higher expectation than I had ever had for Mexican food ever before.

 

We arrived at the restaurant which was pretty busy and the tables were pretty close to each other so there was a bit of noise inside the restaurant. We quickly got the menu and the waiter came and asked for drinks. Before the start of the meal we got a small snack of popped corn which was very nice.

We decided to go for a couple of starters for share – we went for a traditional guacamole which was very nice and clearly homemade. Unlike what you might get at other restaurants which is often based on what comes in big plastic bags. We kept eating away on the guacamole for a while it was actually a fairly big serving.

The second starter was tortillas with spicy peppers and cheese. I wasn’t sure just exactly what spicy would mean at a southern Mexican restaurant but it was terribly hot so I did enjoy the food.

The mains arrived we had a carne asada which was a skirt steak marinated in tequila with beans, more peppers served with tortillas. The steak was cooked excellently and tasted very nice.

The other main was a pollo con mole de piaxtla which was a chicken breast rolled in a corn tortilla with mole sauce and beans. The serving was surprisingly large and it was definitely a good Mexican dish.

We finished up the meal with a dessert – we didn’t have high expectations of Mexican desserts since we had no idea what it would be like and we had doubts that a Mexican restaurant would be able to make a good dessert. I think the dessert we went for was called the Mexican hot pot and it was a very good surprise. It was delicious and we didn’t leave anything bit for the waiter to take away for the kitchen.

The meal was clearly the best Mexican meal I have ever had – ok that isn’t saying much – and it was also a great meal overall. The restaurant is in Queens but it is close to the Vernon-Jackson stop on the 7 subway line so it is pretty easy to get here from either Queens or Manhattan. I think the total price for the meal and drinks including taxes came to around 140 USD which I thought was fairly priced for what we got. You can check out the restaurant here: https://henrinyc.com/casa-enrique/