For many years, the Surf restaurant was a stodgy presence on Glanzman Road, mixing American steaks and chops with Chinese egg foo yung and garlic chicken, all served by veteran waitresses who knew more than the customers and weren't afraid of telling them so.
The Surf is gone now, replaced by Mi Hacienda, a Tex-Mex restaurant that's as far from stodgy as you can get.
From its inviting stucco, brick, and tiled-roof exterior to an interior that evokes thoughts of a fiesta or an ornate Mexican marketplace, Mi Hacienda is, at the least, cheerful and welcoming. On busy weekend nights, it's lively and entertaining, especially when Mariachi singers stroll from table to table, inviting requests. Our server told us the singers play twice a month; interested listeners can call for a schedule.
The food ranges from good, basic Tex-Mex - tacos, enchiladas, and the like - to some creative specialties, such as pescado Mi Hacienda, which is tilapia fish fried with lemon, and cazuelon, featuring chicken breast and ribeye steak cooked with onions and tomatoes.
On several visits, we've enjoyed various combination dinners that range in price from $6.95 to $7.99 and include such possibilities as tacos, enchiladas, chile rellenos, chile con queso, tamale, chalupas, burritos, chimichangas, and tostadas.
This may sound like a lot of choices, but a careful study of the descriptions of dishes, helpfully included on the menu, shows that although the names are different, the ingredients aren't. A chalupa, for example, features a fried corn tortilla topped with refried beans, cheese, lettuce, and guacamole. A tostada features a fried corn tortilla topped with beans, meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomato. A taco is a folded fried corn tortilla with beans, meat, or chicken, cheese, and lettuce.
OK: same ingredients, different forms. It's not a whole lot different from Chinese food, which uses many of the same ingredients in a lot of dishes.
For the most part, the dishes are just what you'd expect: the tortillas crispy, the lettuce fresh, and the guacamole (avocado salad) some of the best in Toledo. Two caveats: The nachos are served with a cheese sauce, not melted cheese, and the ground beef in one taco (out of several) was a bit dry.
Mi Hacienda shifts away from the norm on two pages of chicken and steak dinners and specialities of the house, which adds sauces and higher-end cuts of meat or seafood to the meals. One favorite is enchiladas verdes ($6.99), which offers two chicken enchiladas topped with tomatillo sauce. (According to my dictionary, a tomatillo is a Mexican ground cherry that resembles a small tomato.) Fajitas Texanas ($11.99) combine grilled shrimp, chicken, and steak with bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes on a sizzling platter. They're served with cheese, lettuce, guacamole, and soft tortillas in which to wrap all the goodies.
A friend swears by camarones a la diabla ($11.29), which is shrimp cooked in a hot sauce, but I'm not fond of spicy foods, so I avoid the dishes that are clearly marked as such. Mi Hacienda's dishes are generally mild; there are bottles of pepper sauce on the table to raise the temperature.
A special lunch menu is available from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. daily, but it's pretty much a pared-down version of some of the combination plates.
The restaurant, which is not part of a chain, has a full bar - two of them, in fact. It added a special area for smokers before the extended smoking ban took place. Now that area, off to one side, has several televisions with sports channels running most of the time. It's little used, unless the main area is filled, because the main area is just too inviting. The dcor echoes the exterior, with tiled roofs over the booths around the perimeter, tiled floors, faux-painted walls and murals. The fancifully carved and painted tables and chairs imported from Guadalajara, Mexico, are enough to make anyone smile.
The food at Mi Hacienda is ample and delicious, but Toledo and environs have several Tex-Mex restaurants that can make the same claim. What sets this south-end restaurant apart is the service.
Meals appear on tables quickly, generally within 15 minutes of ordering, so if you want to linger over drinks and appetizers, you might want to delay ordering the entre. (The food, however, doesn't have the tired taste of sitting on steam tables, so I don't know how the kitchen does it.)
And if there were a contest for the biggest smiles in Toledo, the staff of Mi Hacienda would take the prize without argument.
Contact Bill of Fare at: fare@theblade.com.
First Published January 4, 2007, 11:44 a.m.
