Tampico Mexican Grill is a vaguely upscale Mexican place with a very spacious though rarely filled bar and an open line where you can see some of the cooks. This is a good restaurant on pretty much all counts. The staff is relaxed, has a sense of humor and knows the menu.
The drinks menu is sizable and wildly varied. It's a mystery why the bar isn't occupied more -- the place is lovely and stocks something like nine kinds of Cuervo tequila. Tampico also boasts a good wine list and a nice range of pseudo-margaritas.
Mexican food in America, personified by places such as Taco Bell and Chipotle, undermine the true flavor of Mexican cuisine. The general conception of Mexican food in America is a combination of tortillas, cheese, chicken or beef, salsa, sour cream and black beans. You can pair any one of those ingredients together and still come out with some form of Mexican food; however, there is much more to Mexican food than your stereotypical fajita.
Most restaurants in America aren't challenged to be better, because no one knows what the hell they're eating. Tampico attempts to provide the option of authentic Mexican cuisine, while still making sure to comfort customers with the usual Mexican stereotypes. Of the mainstream Mexican, the enchilada is the best, which really doesn't say much. Instead of the usual Mexican restaurant C/C-, Tampico serves up a consistent B+ on this part of the menu.
Once you've gotten past the predictable menu items, there are a few real gems. They are almost crowded off the menu, but they're there.
It's worth mentioning that there isn't anything on the menu that will scare you off. Bearing that in mind, you should order dishes you haven't heard of. The descriptions are next to the item, so if the ingredients seem palatable, try it. Change it up from your typical enchilada. The carnitas are a good example of a new type of dish -- marinated pork that comes cubed with folded tortillas and a pool of salsa verde. The flavor is quite good and not too spicy. The texture is amazing and the meat is profoundly tender.
The ceviche proved to be mediocre. Ceviche, bits of fish marinated in citrus juice, and not cooked, served with bits of chopped vegetables in a martini glass. This is unsurprising, since there isn't exactly a fish presence on the menu worth mentioning.
Chances are, they make one batch a week of the stuff and park it in the fridge. It's not exactly something you'd expect Baltimoreans to go for. Given that, they do a nice job providing different kinds of fish with a nice citrus flavor. In a worldwide ceviche contest this would lose; in a Baltimore-wide ceviche contest, it would make a good showing.
Desserts: surprising. There are the basic mound-o-chocolate and flan desserts, but the flan has flavoring, and there's this fried tortilla cheesecake type thing that I still want to try. Instead I had the roasted butternut squash with caramel sauce and ice cream. The squash turned out to be pur??ed and piped onto the plate in little rosettes around a big mound of ice cream. I was about to be impressed, but the flavor turned out to be almost the same thing as Indian pudding. Its basic spices include milk and corn meal stirred up and baked forever. It tastes awesome, and so does this squash, but Indian pudding's a lot easier to make.
They should have roasted the squash with brown sugar sprinkled on it, let the squash cool because you can't roast a dessert to order, and then get hot cajeta (Mexican goat's milk caramel sauce) and ice cream to go on top of it.
Overall, try this place. Not amazing, but a big step up from Chipotle. ?Buena suerte!
