Since I haven't been able to travel due to restrictions - especially into the Chicago area - I haven't been able to stop in at a Trader Joe's to pick up some of the things we like from there. Running low on some of our favorites from Trader Joe's, my wife and I recently drove over to their Coralville location since it's just an hour's drive from our house. We left after work that evening and I sort of wondered where we'd have dinner later that night. My wife had been raving about this restaurant that was near Trader Joe's that specialized in wood-fired Mexican cuisine. She and her sister had been there a little over a year ago and she wanted me to try the place. After stopping at Trader Joe's to stock up, we ventured down the hill to La Vecina.
La Vecina - which roughly translates into "the neighbor lady" - is owned by Hawkeye Hotels, a family-run hotel and restaurant management company that got their start in 1982 with the purchase of a small 18-room motel in Mena, Arkansas. Balvant "Bob" and Anjana "Angie" Patel had immigrated from India via Canada two years prior and bought a then-shuttered roadside motel that they rehabbed and ran by themselves. Bob managed the hotel and did maintenance work, while Angie did the books and cleaned the rooms.
The Patels eventually bought a hotel in Hannibal, MO, then made it to Iowa when they built a Comfort Inn hotel in Burlington in the late 80's. The Patel family grew their hotel empire to about a dozen properties when the Recession of 2008 hit. When other hotels were going out of business and banks were scared to lend money, the Patel's were able to grow their portfolio of hotels from 12 to 30 with cash reserves they had built up over time. Today, the Patel's - with sons Ravi and Raj, and daughter Sajni - own over 50 hotels in 17 states with another dozen or so in development. Their crown jewel will be the re-opening of the iconic Hotel Fort Des Moines later this year, a property the Patel's purchased in 2015 and made extensive renovations on the building turning it back into the most prestigious hotel in downtown Des Moines.
In 2016, the Patels hired Sam Hall as their corporate director for food and beverage. Hall had come from the Blackstone, a contemporary American restaurant in Iowa City, where he had been the general manager, then a managing partner in the eatery. In 2017, the Patel siblings and Hall purchased the Clinton Street Social Club, a popular gastropub and nighttime spot in Iowa City. Later that year, the Patel's and Hall started Marquee Pizzeria, a wood-fired pizza place in the Iowa River Landing multi-use complex in Coralville.
In 2018, the Patels and Hall came up with a new concept restaurant featuring wood-fired Mexican cuisine that was also going to be located in the Iowa River Landing complex. The group turned to James Beard Award-nominee Rene Ortiz, an Austin, TX-based chef known primarily for his work at La Condesa, a popular contemporary Mexican restaurant in that city. Hall and the Patel's consulted with Ortiz on the food menu, then moved Will Evans over from Marquee Pizzeria and made him executive chef. (Evans had previous experience working with Hall at both Blackstone and at Clinton Street Social Club.) With everything in place, La Vecina opened their doors in the early part of June in 2019.
Things went very well for La Vecina right off the bat. They quickly got a reputation for their food made with both locally-grown ingredients as well as ingredients that were imported from Mexico for authenticity. Their bar became a favorite with locals looking for eclectic cocktails in a contemporary setting. And the restaurant also garnered a following for their secret lounge called 400 Rabbits that sits in the back of the restaurant area behind a hidden door.
After pulling out of Trader Joe's, we took a left onto 9th St. in Coralville and headed down the hill toward the east. We drove by La Vecina, but their outside sign was not on and the place looked dark. However, my wife saw that there were people in the place and she decided to call them from the car just to make sure. "Yep, they're open," my wife said. We parked in a lot behind La Vecina and went around to the front door. (see map)
The entrance into La Vecina opens into a large floor plan with vaulted ceilings. The decor is decidedly contemporary industrial with brushed concrete floors and exposed metal beams and air ducts in the ceiling. There was an upstairs dining area for overflow dining or for large parties just over the front entrance.
The lighting in the restaurant was also subdued and it was definitely darker than most other restaurants. We had to use the flashlights on our phones to look at the menus that the hostess left with us when she seated us at a table along the wall. Little votive candles were lit on each table were a nice touch.
The kitchen area was on the side of the restaurant just to the left from where we came in. It featured wood-fired grills and smokers for the food they serve at La Vecina. Stacks of wood used for the cooking process lined the facade of the serving counter. We noticed a number of people coming in to get to-go orders from the kitchen when we were there. And they also had drive-up take-out service in the back alley behind the restaurant.
The bar area featured a large rectangular bar with metal shelves holding various bottles of tequila along the top railing of two sides of the bar. Without restrictions in place, the bar could have comfortably seated probably 18 to 20 people.
They were playing contemporary Latino music through the restaurant's sound system. Some of it was rather catchy in nature and I found myself checking out the Soundhound app on my phone to find out what the songs were. They played music from Natalia Lafourcade, La Gusana Ciega, and Los Romániticos de Zacatecas in addition to a number of other interesting musical numbers.
My wife was looking through the menu and she remarked that it was lacking some of the entrees that had been on the menu pre-pandemic. In fact, the menu featured primarily tacos, but there were nachos, a quesadilla, and ceviche for appetizers or shareable plates. As we were talking about the menu, our server for the evening, Diego, came over to greet us. He heard my wife talking about the menu and he said, "Well, I was going to ask if you guys had been here before, but obviously you have if you're familiar with our old menu."
My wife explained that she had been to La Vecina with her sister before the pandemic hit. "Oh, yeah," Diego said. "We shut down for a few months (La Vecina was closed from March into October of last year) and decided to just focus on tacos until things get back to normal. We're hoping that's sooner than later."
The first thing we had to do is order up drinks. My wife said that she had the Paloma there before, but La Vecina makes theirs a little more snappy by adding Ancho Reyes, a spicy liqueur, to the traditional tequila, lime juice and grapefruit juice. I ended up getting the house margarita - tequila, Curacao, and lime juice, just the way I like my margaritas. Both drinks were served in short glasses and the house margarita was so good that I polished my first one off rather quickly.
My wife had remembered getting the guacamole on her first visit over a year ago. We ordered up some of the guac that came with fresh warm chips. The guacamole was very good with hints of onion, garlic and cilantro in each bite with chopped tomatoes mixed in. We plowed through the bowl of guacamole and Diego said that we could get a refill for 3 bucks. Couldn't beat that price, so we signed up for another one. What we didn't each on chips, we put onto our tacos.
There were six different types of tacos on the menu - achiote pork tacos, sweet and spicy shrimp tacos, chicken thigh-confit tacos, chipotle chicken tacos, carne asada tacos and fish tacos featuring mahi-mahi. Two tacos came with an order and I asked Diego how big they were and he said they were a little bigger than street tacos.
I wanted to try two of the tacos - the carne asada and the fish tacos - while my wife was going to get the Chicken Tinga tacos with the chipotle chicken. The chicken tacos and the carne asada tacos came out first. We had our choice between flour or corn taco shells and my wife explained that they made their corn tacos in-house with ground masa they import from Mexico. So I went that route. I was sort of surprised that they had just one corn taco shell per taco, usually you'll get two because the corn tortillas don't hold together as well as the flour ones do.
The carne asada tacos came with a chile salsa and pico de gallo. I don't know if that was for my tacos or for both our tacos, but I used some of the green salsa and guacamole on my tacos. The steak was smoky in flavor, very tender, and the onion and cilantro mixed in was a great complement to beef.
The fish tacos were brought out and the corn shells were a little different from the ones that came with our carne asada and chicken tacos. They were darker in color and a little more flimsy. Flimsy in that they literally exploded on the metal holder when we picked them up to eat. But they had a lot going on with the lightly-grilled mahi mahi, two different types of salsa - a red and a green salsa - with a chipotle slaw added along with crispy chunks of garlic. When Diego came back to check on us, I showed him the mess the exploding fish tacos made. I suggested using two tortillas with the fish tacos because they were pretty juicy to begin with and it just soaked the tortilla.
We sort of did the tacos "family-style" with us sharing across the table. I tried some of the chipotle chicken tacos and while I normally don't care for chicken in Mexican food, I will say that the Chicken Tinga taco I had was very good. It was topped with a slice of avocado, cilantro, onions, a red salsa, and a combination of cream and fresh cheese. To say there were a lot of taste sensations going on with each bite is an understatement.
While my wife was upset that they didn't have their full menu, I thought the tacos that we got at La Vecina were very good. Well, other than the mahi mahi tacos falling apart when we picked them up. The margaritas I had (3 of them) were also very good, and we both liked the fresh guacamole and chips very much. The ambiance of the place was a little sterile, but the music they played featured some interesting Latino numbers. Finally, I have to say the service was exemplary as Diego took prompt care of any request we had and he displayed a great attitude all evening long. Even though I didn't get to see the secret bar they have in back, I have a feeling that once the pandemic has subsided and they go back to a full menu that we'll be back to check the place out again.
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