Restaurants can serve so many different purposes in our lives: a romantic date, a business lunch, a family reunion. But even on the most ordinary Tuesday night, a great restaurant meal is a voyage, an escape from everyday life, a faraway vacation that can be conveniently located only a few minutes from home.
There’s nothing truer to the wonder and escapism of eating out than going for Mexican, and there’s nobody I love going for Mexican with more than my sister Rosie. For both of us, Mexican dining is a festival that lasts the whole evening.
Even the simplest Mexican restaurant tends to have a magical atmosphere: bright primary colors on the walls, a friendly and unpretentious staff, sappy and brassy mariachi music piped in, baskets of chips and salsa on the tables, a tattered old photo of Pancho Villa tacked to a wall.
The fun all begins, of course, with margaritas. Tequila, cut by fresh-squeezed lime juice and mellowed in the sweetness of orange liqueur (ideally Cointreau, Grand Marnier, or triple sec), always seems to have a slightly different impact on the psyche than any other spirit. Begin the evening with a margarita, and it just can’t help but be a fun evening. Especially if Rosie’s there with me.
According to Nielsen, the margarita is now America’s most popular cocktail. Most cocktail historians agree that it was invented in the 1930s or 1940s, somewhere in the U.S.-Mexican borderlands. My favorite among the dozens of competing margarita-origin legends is set in 1948, at the Balinese Room of Galveston, Texas, where bartender Santos Cruz prepared the first-ever margarita for sultry singer Margaret “Peggy” Lee.
I was lucky enough to visit the Balinese Room once in 2007. It was a creaky wooden palace of yesteryear, an old hub of gambling and other seamy vices, precariously balanced along a narrow pier sticking way out into the Gulf of Mexico, with the muddy waters of Galveston bay lapping against the sea-logs that held up the rickety structure.
Sadly, a year after I skulked around there, the Balinese Room and its whole pier were ferociously wiped into the sea by Hurricane Ike, making things forever more difficult for the forensic margaritologists of the Americas.
In general, Rosie and I are split on our favorite margarita styles: she likes the red-fruit-flavored variants with a sugar rim, whereas I gravitate toward the more traditional lime and a salt rim. One thing we both agree on, in disagreement with many pompous mixologists, is that there’s no shame in ordering a frozen margarita: It’s a little longer-lasting, less immediately boozy, and more refreshing on a hot summer afternoon.
From the day Mama’s (the name by which we all know and love it) first opened on Main Street in 2007, it was a godsend: a Tex-Mex palace with just the right atmosphere, right downtown. From day one, the décor was beautiful. The muralled walls were transportive. The bar was perfectly laid out for socializing. The lighting was just right.
When Mama’s reopened in early 2022 after an excruciatingly long COVID closure, Rosie and I were so happy we were ready to throw a street party in their honor.
Strawberry or lime, rocks or frozen, salt or sugar rim, Rosie and I are in total agreement that Mama Iguana’s makes the best margaritas in Northampton, with super-fresh fruit juices and plenty of tequila — enough to really taste it. House, top-shelf, spicy, skinny, and mezcal versions are expertly made. The glass is on the smaller side, though, and can disappear dangerously fast.
Mama’s does a solid job with guacamole, fajitas and other Mexican standards. Wings are good too. An authentic new treat in town since the 2022 reopening are chicken empanadas and birria (slow-braised beef with baking spices, served either on nachos or in a taco). But the dark-horse winner on the menu is the world-class Caesar salad.
Little-known fact: Caesar salad is a Mexican dish, invented in Tijuana by a restaurateur named Caesar Cardini. I’m a purist and believe in Cardini’s original recipe: the leaves should be crunchy lettuce hearts (please, no soggy field greens!), fully coated with an emulsified dressing of oil, raw egg, lemon, and anchovies that creams every inch of leaf without a bit of gloop. Mama’s standard version is excellent, and their one creative innovation is a winner: a reddish, chile-laced spicy version.
The two branches of El Comalito, in Easthampton and Amherst, might be the most authentic sit-down Mexican restaurants in the Pioneer Valley — and, better yet, they’re also authentically Salvadoran. I love the Easthampton branch, right on Route 10; it has an unpretentious room with each wall panel painted in vibrant shades of pinks, purples and blues. Harmonious archways above the booths divide up the space elegantly, and cheery music lifts your spirits.
El Comalito’s margaritas are amply sized and well balanced. On our last visit, Rosie’s bright red hibiscus margarita was a marriage between margarita and the traditional Mexican agua de jamaica. My house margarita was medium-sweet, but like my personality, it wasn’t quite as sweet as Rosie’s.
On the expansive menu, highlights include a lovely starter of shrimp ceviche, which comes in an elegant 1950s cocktail glass bursting with vegetal freshness from cilantro, tomato, raw onion and fresh lime juice, with the classic accompaniment of saltines.
Among mains, you can’t go wrong with chicken enchiladas suizas, smothered in a rich sauce that blends the tomatillo acidity of salsa verde with sour cream and melted cheese. Slightly soupy, amber-colored refried beans and yellow rice are done just right.
El Comalito’s tender, well-seasoned carne asada is the favorite of Rosie and her partner EJ, who are both carne asada aficionados. An interesting “plato pobre” pairs the steak with Salvadoran sides including thick slices of caramel-crusted, soft-bellied sweet plantain.
I’ve been going to La Veracruzana since I was a little kid. It’s an airy, bustling counter-service Mexican restaurant with high ceilings in downtown Northampton that has since expanded its mini-empire to Easthampton and Amherst.
Margaritas don’t come cheap these days — it’s hard to find one for less than $10 — and La Veracruzana’s house margarita takes the prize for best value in town: $7 for a fully loaded pint glass. This one is on the very sweet end of the local spectrum, more like a tequila sour than a classic margarita. My favorite place to sip it is at the sidewalk tables of Main Street, where you can sit in the sun, lick your salt rim, and enjoy the bustle of downtown.
Foodwise, what’s most impressive about La Veracruzana is its rare mixture of legit south-of-the-border authenticity and delicious vegetarian options. My go-to is the chile relleno — a stuffed poblano pepper coated with an ethereally fluffy egg batter that’s equally satisfying in non-veg (beef and cheese) and veg (cheese-only) versions.
Other vegetarian winners include the hefty, diversely textured potato and carrot burritos; right-on-the-money cheese quesadillas, made with nothing but corn tortillas and cheese, like the real ones in Mexico; and enchiladas de domingo, stuffed with cheese, drowned in beer salsa and taken to the next level with a sprinkle of raw onions on top.
Maybe best of all are enfrijoladas, a smooth-meets-crispy plate of deep-fried corn tortillas with a black-bean purée and cheese, smothered in sour cream. This Oaxacan regional specialty is hard to find in most parts of Mexico, never mind Massachusetts.
Mission Cantina, the most atmospheric Mexican haunt in the Valley, is so popular that it’s become famous for long waits. Luckily, while you’re waiting, you can order margaritas on the patio from the (sometimes) circulating staff. You might even get through two of them before you’re seated, because they’re not hugely alcoholic; but they’re very well made, not too sweet, with a crisp acidic bite. My favorite order here is the smoky mezcal margarita. The skinny margarita, made without any sweetener, is bracingly tart; and it’s a great option for low-carb dieters and sugar-phobes.
A newer Easthampton branch (“Mission Taco”) now has a pleasant patio too, and waits can be shorter. But I’m still partial to the original location in Amherst, where the vibe is warmer and more intimate. Amherst has also recently added a Texas-style BBQ program, Saturdays and Sundays only, from noon till whenever they run out.
Whoever invented the margarita, and wherever they did it, they’d be happy to see the tradition carried on so proudly across the Pioneer Valley — and everywhere else in America. A Mexican meal is a feast for the senses, even more so with a margarita. Bottoms up.
Robin Goldstein is the author of “The Menu: Restaurant Guide to Northampton, Amherst, and the Five-College Area.” He serves remotely on the agricultural economics faculty of the University of California, Davis. He can be reached at rgoldstein@ucdavis.edu.