As I've said on a couple of occasions when writing in "Road Tips", the Quad City area is blessed with an abundance of authentic Mexican food restaurants. One place that just opened recently is La Primavera in downtown Moline (see map). Actually, La Primavera is also the name of the grocery store run by Yolanda and Angel Vargas just down the street from the restaurant. They had a little 20 seat restaurant in the back of the store where they served tacos and tortas. They became so popular that they opened up a full service restaurant a few doors to the west. (Photos courtesy of the Quad City Times)
As a little girl, Yolanda Vargas sold chickens from a road side stand in her native Mexico. She immigrated to the U.S. in the 80's and settled in Chicago. She eventually made it to Davenport to work in a friend's Mexican grocery. In 1989, Yolanda opened her first small store in Moline. Within three years, business was so good that she moved to a larger location. In 1999, the business expanded again and moved to its present day location on 6th Ave. in Moline (see map). Actually, the second location for the store was right next to where La Primavera restaurant is today.
Not only does Yolanda Vargas have a wide variety of Mexican foods in her grocery store, she also sells items such as clothing, Mexican-made goods and magazines. She also has a thriving distribution business for her fresh produce that she delivers to other stores and restaurants around the Quad City area. We go over there from time to time to get tortillas, authentic cuts of Mexican meats, limes and fresh produce when we're going to have a good homemade Mexican dinner.
La Primavera restaurant is run by Yolanda's and Angel's daughter, Claudia, and their son, Erick. It's housed in an old corner building that was once the very popular Glenn Moore's supper club years ago. Most recently, it was a Mexican restaurant called Chino's. I didn't care for the place all that much, but Cindy seemed to like it. She always wanted to go there, but I always balked at going back. Eventually, it went out of business a couple years ago.
The Vargas family came in and renovated the interior of the restaurant and painted the walls in festive colors. A huge old picture of the corner of 15th St. and 6th Ave. showing the building is on the wall. They replaced the spartan and shabby tables and chairs that were in Chino's with new booths and sturdy tables and heavy chairs. There's a small bar area toward the back of the restaurant.
We took a seat in one of the booths and the menus were on the table. The lighting is somewhat subdued in the place and I didn't have my glasses with me. I could hardly read the menu. The print was small and it was a red colored font against an orange background. I told Cindy, "I can't read this." My eyes finally focused enough that I was able to make out some of the things on the menu. Cindy, who wears contacts, wasn't having any problem reading the menu.
A waiter brought a basket of chips while we waited. Another waiter, who we figured to be Erick Vargas, came over to take our drink order. I got a Sol beer while he coerced Cindy into one of their special margaritas. "It's not overly sweet like other places," he said. "We don't use all that syrup in our margaritas."
It must have been a made from scratch margarita because it took quite a while for him to bring Cindy's to the table. By the time he got back with it, we were ready to order our food. Cindy ordered the steak especial, a thin slice of grilled beef steak with sides of grilled veggies, Mexican rice and refried beans. Cindy also has a soft spot for chile rellenos and she asked our waiter if she could get one ala carte. He said it was no problem.
I ordered the combination - a taco with your choice of meat, an enchilada and a tostada. I also ordered one "perna" taco - perna (Pee-air-na) is a type of pork that is marinated and cooked in mild juices and spices. I had to give that a try. For my taco with the combination, I ordered carne asada.
I will say that Cindy's margarita was worth the wait. It wasn't as sweet and syrupy as you find at other Mexican restaurants. It had a refreshing tart taste and had a generous amount of tequila. I sort of wondered what their special margaritas were like considering this one was pretty damn good.
We had finished our basket of chips and another waiter came over to see if we wanted any more. I hesitated, knowing that we'd be having a lot of food coming out in a short bit. But Cindy said, "Yes." He brought more chips and a second bottle of salsa. He told us, "You look like people who enjoy the hotter stuff. This is a little more spicy than the first bottle."
I wouldn't say it was overly more spicy than the first bottle, but it did have a little zip with a spicy aftertaste. I liked it immediately.
Not long after that, our waiter brought out Cindy's chile relleno. He explained that it was an authentic chile relleno from an old family recipe they got from relatives in Guadalajara. It was adorned with an avacado slice on top. Now, I forgot to bring in my new camera phone so I could get a picture of it, but it was worthy of a pic. Cindy used to chastise me for bringing my old Blackberry into restaurants, so it was by force of habit that I didn't bring my phone in with me that evening.
I will say that Cindy's chile relleno was very good. Cindy went so far as to call it "the best chile relleno I've ever had." It was a hefty poblano pepper with a very good brown sauce on top. I had a couple bites and it was very good.
Actually, I'm glad that we had the second basket of chips and that I had a couple bites of Cindy's chile relleno because it was quite some time before the rest of our food showed up at the table. Business was steady at the restaurant, but it wasn't overly busy. From the time we initially ordered our food, a couple came in, sat down, ordered, ate their food and left all before our main order showed up. I thought it to be a little strange that they brought out the chile relleno well in advance of the rest of the order. But quite honestly, we were in no hurry. It was a pretty relaxing environment.
When our food finally did show up, well there was a lot of it. Cindy's steak was pretty good sized, not all that thick, but it covered a large portion of her plate with the grilled onions and peppers on top. She said, "My God, I'm not going to be able to eat all this!"
The waiter had forgotten my carne asada taco and he went back to get one for me. In the meantime, I had the perna taco. Their version of tacos come with the meat, chopped onions and chopped cilantro on a couple small soft corn tortillas. No cheese. It was pretty good - a little dry, but still OK. The carne asada taco, after he brought it out, was similar. It wasn't bad, but I can't call it the best I've had.
My enchilada was a rather pedestrian cheese enchilada and the tostada was topped with refried beans and white cheese. Once again, it was OK, nothing special. I determined that if we went back, I wouldn't order the combination again.
Cindy's steak, on the other hand, was flavorful and tender. One thing that I liked about the waiter is that he would explain some of the dishes to the customers. He told us the steak is marinated in juices and spices (sort of like the "perna" pork) before grilling. Cindy thought the steak was just wonderful. But as she said it was way too much food - especially after a chile relleno and a couple baskets of chips. She didn't touch her rice or refried beans and hardly touched her grilled onions and peppers. And she wasn't able to finish the whole steak.
While our waiter was a nice guy, service was pretty slow. We were finished for quite some time before we were able to get his attention to get us our bill. He said, "Ah! We have it up front." I also thought that to be sort of weird as he was giving checks to other tables. OK, that's fine.
For all we got, including three beers and an a margarita, the bill came to just over $40 bucks. I thought that to be rather high for a Mexican restaurant. At first I thought they'd miscalculated, but after further review the bill was correct. Cindy's steak was $11.99 and her ala carte chile relleno was $4.50. My combination was $6.95 and my ala carte taco was $2.50. I guess it adds up fast when you order a lot of food to try.
All in all, La Primavera was good, but not outstanding in my book. Cindy, however, loved the food, loved our waiter, and loved the decor. We'll go back again and I'll have something different the next time around. Hopefully, it will be better than what I had on my first visit.
(Update - We noticed that they have shut down this location during a trip over to Moline late in 2011. However, they are still preparing food in their little restaurant in the La Primavera store just down the street on 6th Ave. We've eaten there once. Tacos are OK, but the menu is limited.)
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