Dan Bites

I had a discussion with a buddy of mine the other day regarding El Barco Mariscos, the Mexican fish house on 1035 N. Ashland. You see, I live about a half block down the street on Cortez from El Barco and, as such, I know the restaurant well. While the food has always tasted good my wife and I have stopped dining there and will probably never be back. My buddy thinks it’s the beans.

El Barco is one of the most fun dining experiences you can have at a restaurant. Sure, the top-40 Mexican hits being played on the TV monitors are pretty cheesy, but the rest of the atmosphere is fantastic. Built to look like a wooden boat, there are stuffed fish hanging from all over the ceiling. It’s open, bright, friendly, and loud, but not too loud. It’s like a fiesta. There are always families and large groups and the line to get in sometimes starts as early as 5pm, especially on summer weekends when they have the outdoor seating open.

Margarita pitchers always set the mood right. Along with tortillas, lime wedges, and three different salsas you can’t help but start to loosen up and take it easy.

The menu is huge. I mean that literally. It used to come out in an enormous laminate that must have been 1.5 x 3 feet! They’ve since folded them, but they’re still pretty large. Lots of selections as well. All sorts of apps such as different ceviche, seafood cocktails, salads, bacon wrapped cheese stuffed shrimp (also available as a dinner), and so on. There are different grilled items available, beef, chicken, seafood, mixed. Crab legs are always on hand. Numerous fish preparations are offered, the most popular being their snapper.

They serve their snapper deep fried and then propped up on its belly atop a bed of rice with grilled veggies (usually potatoes, carrots, broccoli, corn, and onions; comes will all dinners), guacamole, and refried beans (also comes with every meal). It comes out and you just pull the meat right off the bones. When the fish is fresh it’s absolutely delicious!

El Barco sounds great, right? So why won’t my wife or I go back? Very good question. The answer lies in the internal damage done shortly after ingesting a meal of El Barco. I can recall only one time when El Barco didn’t send me in a cheek-clenching, stiff-legged mad dash directly to the latrine (Yuki and  I only have one bathroom in our place, imagine the difficulty after we’ve both eaten El Barco!). That night we ate crab legs, for some reason they were very gentle on my stomach. Otherwise, I’m sure there’s been some irreparable damage done from about a dozen journeys to El Barco over the years. A hole burned somewhere along my entrails or something.

My buddy seems to think it’s the refried beans. Apparently he shares a similar history with El Barco except that the one night he was high and dry he claims to have passed over the beans. I ate beans the night we had crab legs, I know this for a fact. You mash that magical fruit with some lard and I’m in heaven! There’s no way I can pass a good refried bean. Eating the beans on top of everything else is more like throwing water on an oil fire. They don’t help matters, but they’re not the root cause. I think the answer is a short hop across Cortez.

On the south side of Cortez, next to their parking lot is a little run-down shack. I think that’s where El Barco keeps meat and other ingredients. I’m not 100% positive about this, but judging by the smells that come out of that place (especially in the hot and humid summer) and seeing the cooks going in and out, there’s meat kept at warmer than should be temperatures inside. Sometimes it smells so rotten I want to instantly heave all over the street. It has completely turned me off of ever going back. I, for one, prefer my food to be fresh as opposed to road kill left on the side of the road for a few days before making it my plate.

El Barco Mariscos ought to change their name to “Montezuma’s Revenge.”

(Snapper photo courtesy of Brady)