Restaurant field notes: Mariscos San Pedro

     The rain raised a question: should we stay home?
      Actually, it was my wife who posed it, as dinnertime approached Sunday night and the rain pelted down. She asked twice, in fact: once before we got in the car, a second time as we drove along Shermer, toward Dundee and the expressway, the wipers swishing furiously.
     Though I am a committed fan of staying home, I also like to get out, now and then. True, we'd met friends for dinner the night before, to soak up the St. Patrick's Day fun at Hackney's on Lake. 
      But our younger son and daughter-in-law had suggested dinner at a new seafood place, Mariscos San Pedro, 1227 W. 18th St., in Pilsen. New to us; they'd been there several times, always a good sign. The twin lure of their company, plus experiencing a new restaurant, drove me forward. Plus I really like to go to Pilsen, and pondered whether Panaderia Nuevo Leon might be open so late on a Sunday and, if so, could we make a pit stop to load up on ginger pigs.

     Well, all that, and not becoming the sort of old boot deterred by rain. "We'd love to actually do what we said we'd do, but it was wet out..." My wife had edited herself out of the equation. Had she asked, "Should we go?" I might have given it more careful consideration. "Do you feel up to it?" was a challenge, and must be answered with a Teddy Roosevelt like thump of the fist on the steering wheel. "By jove yes! Capital day! Onward into the maelstrom!" I have my pride.

     "If April showers bring May flowers," I asked, "what do March showers bring?" To which my wife answered something along the effect of, "March monsoons bring doom and gloom."
     Prior to the rain question, she had asked, "Do we need to dress up?" A charming thought that, now that I set it down, seems plucked from a fairy tale. I called up the Mariscos San Pedro web site on my phone and showed her a video of the place. A guy in a baseball cap and half-zip. 
     "You'll be fine," I said. "It's just expensive. Expensive doesn't mean 'fancy' anymore."
      What does "expensive" even signify nowadays, particularly in regard to restaurants? During the traditional scope-out-the-menu session we'd held earlier in the day — part of the fun of going out is strategizing dinner ahead of time — I'd settled on the "Whole Dorade with Red & Green Adobo" for $48, which is $31 more than I'd spent on my Hackney Burger with cheese the night before.

Ceviche and tuna tostadas.

      So out of the comfort zone. But I'm shifting from a careful-conservation-of-resources approach  toward a fuck-it-we're-all-gonna-die-someday attitude toward life, which, after all, is to be lived.
     Though like most well-laid plans, that got scrapped in the restaurant. My son and daughter-in-law have not only been to Mariscos San Pedro before, but honeymooned in Mexico City with the express purpose of chowing down at Michelin star restaurants on a budget. So they know.
     "We'll put ourselves in your hands," I told my son. Sharing adds to the fun. He ordered.
     We started off with a snapper ceviche, served on crispy rounds, and a pair of tuna tostadas that were bright and refreshing, the serviche sprinkled with toasted coconut, the tostadas emboldened by chunks of orange.

Duck confit tamales, and pan de elotes.

      The next round was a pair of duck confit tamales with mole — rich and tasty — and a pan de elotes, which my wife found far too sweet to consume. 
      For the main course, we dug into that whole dorade — Spanish for sea bream — piling it on small green tacos. I can't say I was bowled over by its complicated panoply of flavors; it was good, and I ate it.
     Service was brisk and efficient — not a lot of chit chat. I wash down dinner with a lot of water, and they kept it coming. I'd have plunged in and grabbed an NA margarita, but nobody else at the table was drinking, beyond my son's Topo Chico mineral water, and plain water worked fine.

     One doesn't usually notice the table at a restaurant, but this one had these deep grooves radiating out from a center circle, and I pointed this out as an obvious design flaw. "They can never get that clean," I said, and we fell to discussing various solutions. We saw they had tried. One of the grooves had been filled in, with a kind of clear resin, which looks hideous, and explained why the rest weren't attempted. Maybe the tables were acquired cheaply second-hand from Dusek's, a beloved gastro-pub that occupied the space previously. But my heart went out to the person who thought, "Hey, cool tables, I'll get them for my restaurant."

Dorado

     The room, located in Thalia Hall, was long and festive, with cartoony paintings of seafood, laid out like a long-ago bar retrofitted into a hip new restaurant, or maybe a pair of bars, as there is a long second room off to the side, for overflow. The place wasn't crowded, but then it was Sunday night in a downpour.
     What most impressed me — and I hope this isn't damning by faint praise — is the wallpaper in the bathroom. Really fun, with crawfish. Once when the waitress swept by, I opened my mouth, ready to say, "I love the wallpaper in your bathroom." But she was not the talkative sort, as I've mentioned, and I try to tamp down embarrassing my progeny when I can all avoid it, so said nothing, shutting up being an art form I struggle to master.
    They had some small dessert bites — a $4 macaron, a petite scoop of ice cream. I was seduced by a horchata tiramisu — I have a powerful love for horchata which was eaten by the table, though without particular enthusiasm. I considered taking a picture of the pastry, but it didn't strike me as worth the effort. We later decided it didn't taste very horchata-like.
     I thanked my son for the venue selection and told him I'd go back — the highest praise I could muster, not adding the implied "...with you." Left to my own devices in Pilsen, I'm still making a beeline for 5 Rabinitas. Grilled chicken in garlic honey marinade. Now that's something worth going out in a rainstorm for.