There are several reasons Rojo Mexican Grill is worth a visit. I'm sorry to say that eating isn't near the top of the list.
Let's review the pluses, shall we? They start at the bar, which stocks the kind of impressive tequila inventory normally associated with hot spots bearing downtown addresses. More than 75 labels are sold in both single pours and three-shot flights as well as stirred into a bevy of cocktails, including margaritas. Make that jumbo margaritas. They're 16-ounce Big Gulp-ers, and they more than hit the spot.
The youthful service staff is another asset. They've got hustle and they've obviously been trained. On one visit I found myself on the receiving end of an enthusiastic, if skin-deep, tequila tutorial, and darned if I wasn't upsold -- happily, I might add -- into a premium añejo.
Then there's the setting, a prime people-watching platform. With its timbered rafters and wide-open floor plan, it looks like a cross between a honky-tonk and the kind of barn that spunky thespians once regularly enlisted when spontaneously staging a show.
Oh, and prices don't break the bank. Very few dishes tiptoe north of $12.50, and portions are uniformly huge.
So far, so good. Which is why it's such a letdown when the vast majority of the food is so indifferent, so inert, so dated. What it reminded me of is Chi-Chi's, which makes sense, as Rojo co-owner Michael McDermott is the son of Chi-Chi's founder Marno McDermott.
OK, before I'm knee-deep in hate mail, let me say this: If you were a Chi-Chi's fan, good for you. Have at it. I was all over it in the late 1970s, too. But in the intervening decades, Minnesota's south-of-the-border tastes have evolved beyond the mystery-meat chimichanga, and Rojo doesn't seem to have followed suit. The menu is a pastiche of what most Americans used to think of as Mexican but in reality is more mainstream Tex-Mex and Southwestern.
Tacos, nachos, enchiladas, quesadillas, all had a rote quality -- and none of the joy and the endless variety that is contemporary Mexican cuisine. Another staple, guacamole, also was a letdown. On more than one occasion it had a strange afterburn, as if it had been fermenting for hours, yet simultaneously devoid of the brightness that comes with salt, onions, cilantro and lime.
