With dozens of good to great places to have Mexican food in and around the Quad Cities, there's three or four that have become our favorites that we put into a rotation when we have a hankering. However, one that opened near our home in early 2023 has risen to the top of our No.1 go-to for Mexican food - El Compita. We had been to El Compita a handful of times before I decided to do a Road Tips entry on the place.
In early 2021, my wife had been hearing from friends who lived out in the Blue Grass/Buffalo area just west of Davenport that a Mexican restaurant had opened in September of 2020 in a spot on a frontage road along Highway 61 near West Lake Park. (see map) My wife had suggested going out there a couple three times, but we just never did. When El Compita (loosely, a Mexican phrase for "buddy") opened along E. Kimberly Road in early 2023, it took us a while before we figured out that it was the second location of the same restaurant we had discussed driving out west to try at some point. Driving three minutes to get Mexican food was much better than driving 20 minutes.
The El Compita location at Eastern and Kimberly (see map) has been a number of different things since I first moved to the area in 1991. There were four businesses in the complex including a Kwik Shop, an audio/video store, an optometrist, and Dudley's Pizza Works. Full disclosure - I moved to the Quad Cities to be the general manager of the audio/video store and most Monday nights after we would close at 9 p.m., I ended up at the bar at Dudley's conversing with the owner Dudley Burback on a number of occasions about a number of different topics. Dudley was this bombastic guy, kind of a braggart, but still a likable guy. He told me that he used to play basketball with legendary college basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian at California State - Fresno (now Fresno State) back in the 50's. And the first few times he'd drop Tarkanian's name when talking about sports, I figured he was full of shit.
But it turned out that Dudley DID play with Tarkanian for a couple years in college and they WERE still friends who would converse during Tarkanian's years at Nevada-Las Vegas. Once I found out that Dudley was telling the truth the whole time, the grain of salt that I had to take when talking to him went away. Well, plus the fact that his deep-dish pizza - $1.00 slices at the bar on Monday nights - was pretty damned good.
Dudley sold his share in the restaurant sometime in the mid-1990's - after I had moved on from working at the audio store - and it was still a pizza place called Davenport Pizza Works. But that didn't last long and the owner turned it into Montana Jack's Steakhouse. After putting in a second location over in Moline near the airport, the Davenport Montana Jack's closed down around the turn of the 21st century.
Since then, the spot has been a number of restaurants or bars. An Italian place had opened up in there, but it didn't last long. It's also been a chicken place, another Mexican restaurant, a couple bars, and a couple other concept restaurants. A buddy of mine from Iowa City had purchased the building a few years prior and there were two or three times when he would call me up and ask me to go down and check on the property to see if the restaurant or bar was open or looked to still be in business. It was just a bad location for a restaurant.
So, when we saw that El Compita was going into the space in late 2022, we were weary that another restaurant would work in that building. But we also didn't know that it was the same El Compita on the far west side of Davenport that was getting rave reviews. A buddy of mine who lived out west of Buffalo, IA told me one day last year that the El Compita out on the far west side of Davenport and the one that opened up at Kimberly and Eastern in Davenport were the same people. And with that information, we decided to give the place a try last summer. We liked it and went back again. Suddenly El Compita rose to the top of our list - not only because it was close to our house, but because the food was good and the service was fast and friendly.
It was about 7:30 p.m. on a Saturday night when we walked into El Compita. We've been in there enough times over a period of time that we instantly get recognized as returning guests. This time we were seated in the larger of the two dining areas at El Compita. This room has a number of high-backed booth with thick pleather backs and seats. The dining areas at El Compita are well-lit - almost TOO well-lit as it always seems to be overly bright in there from the light fixtures with LED bulbs.
The smaller of the two dining area features about six booths and a number of tables. The high-backed chairs at the tables have the El Compita logo on the back. We had normally sat in the smaller of the two dining rooms on our previous visits.
The bar area is up front just as you come in. It was similar, yet very different to the bar that I used to belly up to on Monday nights after work so many years ago. Three flat-screen televisions hung on the wall behind the bar with accent lighting under the stone-top bar.
After we sat down, a basket of their complimentary chips and salsa were dropped off. They have excellent chips and salsa at El Compita, but they also have a killer tomatillo green salsa there. I always ask for a bowl of that. It's not too spicy and give the food a different dimension of taste when I use it.
Our server that night was someone new who we had not seen in there, a lovely lady by the name of Sarahy. She told us that she was relatively new and was still trying to pick up on the system they had. She got me a Sol beer in the bottle while my wife just went with water as she'd had a couple drinks at our neighborhood bar previously. It was our guess that even though Sarahy was a rookie at El Compita, it was evident that she'd had experience as a server before.
Since we had eaten there a handful of times, we were pretty well-versed in what El Compita had to offer. I will say that their carnitas platter is outstanding. I've also gotten al pastor tacos in the past and they are also very good. The green chile enchiladas with a choice of ground beef, chicken or cheese (I get the ground beef) have also proved to be very delicious. And the braised pork chili verde is - I think - the best of its kind in the Quad Cities.
This visit to El Compita, I tried something that I had seen on the menu, but had never tried before - the fish tacos. I had been kind of eating on the light side trying to lose more weight and these turned out to be the perfect choice. The tacos featured grilled tilapia topped with fresh cilantro, chopped onions and a house-made pico de gallo. They were served in street-style small corn tacos with limes, a side of the tomatillo sauce and a spicy pepper salsa that has a bit more of a bite than I usually like, but is still pretty good.
The grilled tilapia tacos were fresh and not fishy in taste with that wonderful grilled butter taste you get from good Mexican restaurants. It was just as good as any meal I've had at El Compita in the past. They were truly delicious and a very nice light meal.
My wife also went with something that she had never had before - the chile relleno. They had a choice of one or two on the menu and knowing the size of the chile rellenos at other restaurants in the Quad Cities (not big), I figured that my wife would want two. I tried to talk her into getting two and that's what she ended up ordering. However, Sarahy came back after we had ordered and said that they only had one chile relleno left. Since it came with refried beans and rice, my wife thought it would be fine for her.
When Sarahy brought the plates out, my wife's eyes almost jumped out of her head. "Oh, my GOD," she exclaimed when the were put down in front of her. "I wouldn't have been able to eat TWO!" The Poblano pepper they used was very large and filled with cheese. It was covered with a red sauce and a blend of Mexican cheese was melted on top. There was more than enough food for two people to eat. Since I ate light, I did have a couple bites of her chile relleno. The cheese-stuffed relleno was very good and their red enchilada/relleno sauce was a great complimentary flavor.
There's little to nothing not to like about the Davenport location for El Compita. We've not been to the one just west of Davenport, but it's a good guess that it's just as good as the one not far from our house. Every time we've been there the food has been excellent, as has the service we've had from the friendly and efficient staff there. Sarahy - who was a newby for the business, but was probably a seasoned restaurant server - was fun and on top of things. We love the fact that El Compita is so close to our house and given the track record of restaurants/bars that have gone in and out of that location over the years, we can only hope that El Compita sticks around for a long, long time.
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