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| - I don't mind fusion food - Vietnamese fajitas rock - but sometimes it just doesn't work. I'm used to the Mexican-infused Italian restaurants of the Southwest, which has made its way to Pittsburgh through a few chains, and I avoid them like the plague. The salsa-like stuff they call sauce just doesn't do it for me. But Mad Mex is the first Italian-infused Mexican I've ever tried. And it doesn't work either.
Add some olive oil to the 'salsa' that comes along with the chips, and you've got a jalapeno brushetta. Without the oil, as they make it here, it's nothing more than a dry clump of tasteless diced tomatoes, made hot by jalapenos. And the chips were stale. Following Chili's lead, the chips and salsa are considered an appetizer, and must be ordered.
I thought I was pretty safe ordering chicken fajitas. The chicken was doused in pesto. A very strong basil pesto. Considering that basil is the prime flavor of most Italian food, and cilantro plays basil's role with Mexican food, and the two herbs have very distinctive and strong flavors, this just didn't work. At all. If they were going for an Italian-infused Mexican, they could have at least tried something that might have worked, like, say, a cilantro-based pesto. And the flour tortillas were gooey and thick, like the kind you find at the grocery store, not the delicate, airy, crisp, light, thin fajitas worked between the hands of an old Mexican woman. A little bit on the pita-side.
I didn't order desert. Didn't even ask about it. I was afraid there might be tres lechesmasu...
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