I field more complaints about our lack of good Mexican food than any others, but things are definitely looking up. Isla and Diego are just two of the better new imports on the Strip and a pair of new Mexican restaurants, in opposite corners of the city, is also piquing interest.
Quinta Belina is the more modest of the two, a real family affair operated by the Garcias. Quinta, literally "fifth," is a land-grant term that has come to mean someone's place or spread in colloquial Mexican Spanish. Belina is the chef-owner's name, and she prepares a litany of rustic dishes not usually encountered in cookie-cutter Mexican joints.
This is your basic storefront, a narrow room filled with tables covered in lacy oilcloths, and the kitchen partially obscured behind a high counter. As soon as you are seated, a waitress, or Sr. Garcia himself, will come by with a basket of hot, salty tortilla chips and two delicious salsas, one green and mild, the other rose-pink and fiery hot. After my third basket, I threw in the towel.
Don't overdose on the chips, though, or you'll miss out on all the good food such as squash blossom quesadillas, chipotle meatballs, homemade enchiladas or birria: rich, spicy, red lamb stew that is terrific on a fat, steamy corn tortilla.
The quesadillas are unusual. They resemble empanadas—Latino turnovers—bursting at the seams with cheese laced with the tasty, almost medicinal flor de calabasas. The meatballs are dense and come blanketed with cheese, giving them an almost Italian cast. I wouldn't mind if Belina added more chipotle, anyway.
One day there were chicken tamales, fashioned out of a slightly sweet, soft masa and a mild shredded chicken filling. Another day there was that rich, spicy birria, which the family made with goat when the restaurant first opened, substituting it for lamb when customers complained they found goat meat too funky. (In East LA, it's goat all the way.)
For dessert, there are churros, made even more sinful by a creamy filling. To drink, there is green lemonade, freshly made, I suspect, with limes. Sides like Mexican-style rice and refried beans are beyond reproach, and with some entrées you get sopa de fideo, a comforting noodle soup.
Over in Henderson, you'll find El Jefe, a stylish, modern place that looks on the inside like a giant adobe hut redone by a decorative artist. A pair of dynamic water sculptures graces the bar, and there are glass shapes in a riot of colors suspended from the ceiling.
Dishes are hit and miss, and the feeling is that the restaurant might better succeed if it didn't try to put such an odd spin on things. Fried rock shrimp are delicious, cooked like tempura and served with a chipotle-sour cream mayo. Ditto for carne asada skewers: nice hunks of grilled skirt steak paired with an interesting jicama salad.
But the tortilla soup is acrid and unpleasant, lacking the taste of fresh chicken broth that makes this dish so appealing, and the tuna crisp, a nice idea that combines a tostada with tuna carpaccio, is unappealingly sour.
Ropa vieja, traditionally Cuban and made there from shredded beef, is roasted pork stew here, perfectly tasty but oddly soupy, and served without any side dishes other than flour tortillas. Fish tacos are made with battered orange roughy, but with so much other stuff filling out the taco that you can barely find, much less taste, the fish.
Tortas, basically fat Mexican sandwiches, are served at lunch, and you can't miss here. Either chicken or beef come on toasted bolillo bread with a raft of toppings, black beans, guacamole, tomatoes, melted Jack cheese, shredded lettuce and chipotle mayo—and they are real tummy stuffers.
Desserts are another bright spot; a delicious cinnamon chocolate cheesecake, warm chocolate cake, and once more with feeling, top-notch churros (without the creamy filling you get at Quinta Belina which is, I'm sad to admit, almost pure overkill). Aficionados of Mexican cuisine in Vegas no longer have to run to the border for a fix, thank goodness.