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Go to Casa de Reyes with a significant other, a date, or your parents
By Larry Knowles
October 10, 2005
San Diego--There are some restaurants that, if you’re a guy, you go to with your guy friends, and if you’re a woman, go to with your female friends. Then there are the restaurants that you go to with either your significant other, a date, or your parents.
Both types of restaurants are great. Nothing wrong with either of them. But, there is that designation. You tend to go to the former a lot more often and have a more relaxing time. The conversation rolls along smoothly and the drinks flow.
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Plaza Del Pasado, Old Town |
You tend to go to the latter far less often—when you and your significant other have something to celebrate, you have a legitimate date, or your parents are in town—and have a less relaxing time. The conversation usually hits some chop, suffers some lulls, and has the potential to throw you into the ground like a bad shore break. |
To avoid the lulls and tumult common in the latter type of restaurant--call it a special restaurant--identify the characteristics common to these establishments, then use the features to your advantage.
A proper special restaurant will invariably have three or more of the following characteristics:
- It’ll be expensive. Open the menu and you’ll know right away. The appetizers will have double digits before the decimal point.
- The wait staff will be in costume or formal attire. Any time a waiter wears a sash, or a waitress wears a bowtie, you could be in trouble.
- There won’t be a bar. It’s just not a place for drinks and banter. That would be the first type of restaurant.
- It will have live, ambient music. Not rock, and not recorded. If there’s an upright bass or a mariachi band around, again, you could be in trouble.
- It’ll have a large, heavy menu. Restaurant Marketing 101: a wooden menu gives a restaurant gravitas.
- It’ll be in a restored or historic section of town. You’ll see brass plaques on cornerstones as you walk to and from the restaurant.
Once you’ve identified a special restaurant, you can then work with what you have in order to make the dining experience enjoyable.
Take Casa de Reyes, for example. It’s a classic special restaurant. Located in the quaint Plaza Del Pasado in Old Town, the Mexican restaurant possesses all six of the characteristics listed above.
I went there last Saturday with either a girlfriend, date, or my parents—hey, I don’t feel like saying which—and can report that, thanks to the ambience and service, there was no tumult, few lulls in the conversation, and an enjoyable time had by all.
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Casa de Reyes in Old Town |
Was it expensive? Yes. A medium margarita is twelve dollars, and the guacamole dip came in at $6.95. That’s the dip—the chips come free at every table. The guacamole gave us something to snicker about. No lulls in the conversation here. These days, you can really bond talking about the price of gasoline…and guacamole. |
(The guacamole was great, by the way. Very smooth and creamy. Made with Serrano chili, onions, and cilantro.)
Was the wait staff in costume? Yeah. According to info in the menu, the wait staff was wearing attire from the period of Mexican independence between 1821 and 1846. The women wore colorful dresses and white blouses. The men wore dark pants, red sashes, and white blouses. We spent a good five minutes commenting on the attire. What, for example, do you call the loose blouses? “Pirate shirts”? No way to argue when no one knows much about 19th century Mexican attire.
Was there really no bar? Nope. A Mexican restaurant with no bar—it’s a rare thing. But, that works in your favor. If it had had a bar, would you really want to be looking out of the corner of your eye at the attractive, single women or guys over there and how much fun they were having? Probably not.
What kind of music was there? Well, Casa de Reyes didn’t actually have any music. But, the Plaza Del Pasado did. A mariachi band played on a stage atop the grassy center of the plaza, making for an enchanting dining experience.
Ambient music is a double-edged sword, by the way. On the one hand, you can chew up minutes of time listening to the music in silence. On the other hand, if listened to with a glass of wine, you or your dinner partner could find yourselves wondering why your existence wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as that of the musicians on stage. And you’d bum each other out. The solution: Don’t drink wine at a Mexican restaurant. Drink tequila, instead. It worked for us.
What were the menus like? Hey, the menus were great, really. They included a brief history of the Plaza Del Pasado and the restaurant. Lots to comment on when looking over the menu.
Is Casa De Reyes actually in a historic area? Are you kidding? The Plaza Del Pasado sits in the northeast section of Old Town proper. The restaurant owners where savvy enough to set up a rustic pillar and open air décor, which means there are great lines of sight to just about anywhere in the plaza. You can spend stretches of time looking out at plaza instead of staring at your plate or looking at a wall behind your companion.
The food was very good. I sampled the Tacos al Carbon ($8.95) and the Enchiladas Suiza with chicken ($9.95). The entrees were easy to eat (little spilling) and had ample portions. Both, however, were just a bit bland. The taco beef was billed as being in a marinade, but I tasted no evidence of that.
Our server was very friendly and our food came out lightning fast—in about five minutes—so there wasn’t a lot of sitting around and trying to stretch conversation to fit the wait time.
In summary, the Casa De Reyes is one of those places you go to on a special occasion. Unlike other restaurants, where that special occasion could be tedious and tense, the Casa De Reyes has the elements to make sure it’s low-key and highly enjoyable.
Casa De Reyes
Plaza Del Pasado
Old Town
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