I love little hole-in-the-wall Mexican joints but there are times when I want more of a fine dining experience. So with the help of the Yelp Mobile App I aimed myself at Vida.
When it comes to Mexican my standards are very high. That's because I live in the Philadelphia area and that's Jose Garces country. If you are a foodie you know that he is a very well-known and successful chef and also holds an Iron Chef title. He really knows how to do Mexican and Mexican-fusion! I've visited his restaurants many times and he was on my mind when I walked into Vida.
If you enjoy modern décor and atmosphere you will like the look and feel here. The place is huge and is on two floors in addition to outside patio seating. I sat at the downstairs bar. The day of this visit it was brutally hot outside and delightfully cool inside.
My bartender was Chelsea and she was beautiful and a great conversationalist when you could get her attention. Unfortunately that was a bit of a challenge and the bar was only half full. So my service wasn't bad but just OK.
As many others have said the margaritas here are excellent! They are made from scratch without using the typical bottled sour mix that lesser places use.
There is something else here that is excellent and that is the guacamole. It is OMG fresh and tasty and is paired with excellent tortilla chips. The small size goes for $8.99 and is worth every penny. If you stopped in for a guac and marg meal you would say five stars for sure.
I think every Mexican restaurant in the word has combination plates. The one that I ordered had the incredibly imaginative name of COMBO 1 ($13.99). It included a chicken taco, carne asada taco, and a green chili pork and avacado enchilada. It arrived quickly and was plated beautifully. In a weird way I am both sad and pleased to say it was just fine. Sad because I was hoping for more. Pleased because there was nothing wrong with any component of my plate. Everything was tasty but nothing was great. I've had similar combo plates in dozens of places.
My fellow Yelpers as a group give these folks three and one half stars. In my view that is absolutely correct. With my admittedly high standards I'm going to give them three.