Cilantro’s Mexican Cantina and Grill
This new location of an old favorite has taken a definite step up in new digs located on Bay Street between Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Five Guys Burgers & Fries. Bright, clean and professional looking, this new location of Cilantro’s offers many of the menu favorites as the former Garden City eatery – and adds an awesome new bar, complete with a refrigerated rail to keep your brews cold – and the tap stands are coated in chilly ice. I chose a lunch portion of chicken fajitas, electing corn over flour tortillas. As it turns out, the corn version is a bit too fragile to wrap around steaming hot chicken. Still, the tasty tortillas were just right for pushing around big chunks of quick seared and nicely seasoned chicken. Sautéed onions and green bell pepper added crunch and another layer of flavor. Accompanying re-fried beans were the all-to-usual brown lava pool: uninspiring and bland. Shredded lettuce, diced tomato, sour cream and a very well-made guacamole added freshness to the meal. The obligatory pre-meal salsa was some of the best I’ve tasted. Fresh cilantro chopped into the mildly spicy red sauce was a welcome treat, as were tiny pieces of finely diced onion.
135 W. Bay St./232-7070
Overlooked but not forgotten
I’ve been remiss not dining on your behalf at Cafe Zeum in the Jepson Center for the Arts. I popped in this week for a wine tasting and had a chance to scour the menu. I’ll be going soon and reporting back. My problem: Now that I’ve seen the menu, I can’t decide which of the little cafe’s fresh offerings to try.
McDonald’s hoopla
Maybe folks are still hung up in the divisiveness of the national health care debate, but when it comes to a McDonald‘s downtown, I think they are confusing characters – calling out The Grinch instead of Mayor McCheese. This is not the first national fast food burger chain to call downtown home. Krystal was there once; replaced by a sub shop. Dairy Queen had a downtown location. And for those anti-burger nerds, where were your Facebook groups and Twitter rants when locally owned B&D Burgers, locally franchised Fuddrucker‘s and Five Guys came downtown? I would rather see a locally owned franchise fill what has been an eyesore with a nicely built and sympathetically pleasing structure than to keep looking at those boarded-up windows. I welcome a low-cost, family-friendly eatery and place were the scores of hard working, low paid downtown service employees can get a nutritious salad for the price of a Big Mac value meal.
This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2010.
1. I remember Krystal-that was back before cows were being fed corn, which is a poison to cows. And it is not replaced by Subways, it was in the building in back of subways. There was also an IHOP, just east of Levy’s Dept. Store, which is now the SCAD Library. It is now a parking lot. There was a Woolworth’s with a lunch counter where my mother escorted black people in and bought them meals during Jim Crow. I am a sixth generation Savannaian and I have a clue as to what downtown has looked like.
2. B and D is locally owned, there are exactly 2 of them. Fuddruckers and Five Guys are corporate, yes, but they do not even compare to McDonalds-even you, who highly rates the poisonous EggRoll Palace in front of your office ought to know the difference between the two.
3. I eat Burgers all the time, I just make them myself from grassfed beef. They taste really good. Do you have any idea of the poison that goes into a McD meal, or what they are using in those cheap (and expensive) Chinese places? Go to Sam’s, spend a day, and watch them shop.
4. Have you taken a look at the state of the buildings that house Lenny’s and Subways? Do you really think the shine McD puts on that building is going to last? Are the landlord’s or the tenants responsible? Who makes them responsible? Corporate and/or individual freedom does not excuse people from their tenant or ownership responsibilities to tend to their property.
5. There is no restaurant, locally owned or franchised, that can compete with the McD federally subsidized corn/ammonia cheap meal. Not one. Do your homework. Read the Omnivore’s Dilemma. Just because something is cheap does not mean it should be eaten. You represent yourself as a food person yet you regularly overrate places you never should have stepped foot in. And I am not interested in your everyman, for the poor people as well comments. The chances are very good that they don’t read you, or that they read at all. Are you not aware that you get what you pay for?
6. Aren’t you the one, not so long ago, sarcastically lamenting that yet ANOTHER sandwich shop was going in on Johnson Square? How is that not OK and McD is?
7. Just because there was not a furor over “franchises” does not make opposition to McD a moot point. That is poor rhetoric. Once again, there is a difference, it is huge, and you really ought not take it so lightly. This is a bad step for downtown Savannah and one that it will come to regret, I promise.
8. Finally, you in your position are an arbiter of good taste, and tasting good. If you have any responsibility or good will toward your fellow human you you will start lecturing people just a little bit on how they might oughta give themselves a break from subsidized poisons and learn how to eat.
Jayce