Output Stream of Consciousness

Link: http://www.juliosbarrio.com/

We don't have a lot of Mexican restaurants in Calgary - if you don't count Taco Bell, anyhow. Salt 'n' Pepper and the Tecate Grill... there may be a few more. Julio's Barrio is a Mexican restaurant that is in the old location of Red Robin's in Kensington.

It's a pretty restaurant. A lot of Aztec-themed painting and a few cacti around. The seating is... varied. There are some comfy seats and tables, but the majority of the seats are high, hard-to-move, slightly tippy seats. Those would be the worst part of the experience, really.

You get served some tortillas and salsa before the meal. The salsa is interesting - it tingles with heat on direct contact with your mouth, and nowhere else (you can almost draw a map of heat in your mouth if you try). They have virgin margueritas in numerous flavours (I don't drink, so I loves the mock-tails) - from strawberry and lime to peach, strawberry-banana and piña colada. One little bizarre thing they do that amused me: they have three colours of maraschino cherries with slightly different flavours.

It took a long time for the meal to arrive, but I can chalk that up to chefs on holiday. The meal tasted excellent, and was, judging by ours stomachs, larger than they appeared. The quesadillas tasted good, but they were softer than many, and thus a little hard to cut without making a mess. They came with refried beans, Mexican rice and corn salad (pretty good). Dena had the quesadilla, I had Julio's Platter - both nice. The menu is good, but fairly limited in variety. Interestingly, they will substitute veggie ground round for meat in many dishes.

Tasty, all in all. I'd recommend it if not for the seating.