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Friday, July 21, 2000
Chile relleno plate is highlight at Yolanda's
But in a city where good taquerias aren't hard to find, downtown eatery is off to slow start
With a taqueria on just about every corner in Corpus Christi, it's not hard to find a good place to find carne guisada or a chorizo and egg breakfast.
Most of the places offer plenty of food for not much money. Some have a specific draw, such as gigantic breakfast tacos or the best tortillas in town. Whatever the appeal, you've got to have a draw to stay afloat.
At Yolanda's, that draw is the $3.99 chile relleno lunch plate. The delicious, simple plate consists of a pablano pepper stuffed with either ground beef or cheese, lightly battered and deep fried. Smother that with a ranchero sauce, serve it with rice and dark, oily and delicious refried beans and you've got a bargain of a meal. Plus, they throw in an iced tea to sweeten the deal.
But that's one of the few highlights we found at Yolanda's, which recently opened in the same downtown building that was occupied for many years by Coney Island, a Mexican restaurant that stood out from the crowd with above-average food quality and low prices in a no-frills atmosphere.
Working out the kinks
At Yolanda's, they still seem to be working out some of the kinks that come with a new restaurant.
Little has been done to the interior of this old building on Antelope Street. Inside, the brick walls are painted a dusty rose, and the same hard, laminate booths and tables that have always been there remain, as does the mural of a Mexican village along one wall. Orange vinyl stools still line the counter. The tables, however, have been covered with lace and vinyl coverings.
An old, noisy air-conditioner rattles away in the corner and in another corner, a 3-foot tall statute of a peasant woman carrying a basket on her head stands, with the word 'Yolanda' painted on her thigh, revealed by the high split in her skirt.
On our recent lunch visit, the kitchen staff was busy with a large take-out order and the lone waitress working the floor was not overwhelmed, but stretched pretty thin. After finding our seat we were, oddly enough, brought salads with ranch dressing instead of the usual chips and salsa. The salads were OK - iceberg lettuce chopped up with some carrot shreds - but I kind of like munching on chips and salsa and have come to expect it at a Mexican restaurant.
Fantastic chile relleno
The waitress did, however, offer another man some chips and salsa after he sat down. Seeing this, my dining companion asked for some. What she got was disappointing. The chips were not fresh fried, but had been kept warm in a convenience store-style chip warmer behind the counter, and they were stale.
For lunch we sampled the chile relleno and the Mexican plate, which came with a crispy taco, bean chalupa, a cheese enchilada and beans and rice. The chile relleno was the highlight of the meal, mild and flavorful and filling. It was fantastic.
The Mexican plate was unremarkable, but filling for $5. The taco was a typical taco, consisting of a fried corn tortilla filled with greasy ground beef, some lettuce and tomato. The cheese enchilada and bean chalupa were both similarly typical examples of their sort, though the gravy on the enchilada was somewhat bland.
Good potential
Having heard that Yolanda's breakfast was better, we returned. It wasn't. The migas were mostly chips with some eggs scrambled in, rather than visa-versa. Eating them was like munching forkfuls of soggy chips. The nopalitos and eggs were also so-so, with canned nopalitos adding a soggy consistency to the dish. The tortillas, however, were hot and fresh.
On both visits, the service was spotty, but the lone waitress sure tried, rushing from table to table and taking a steady stream of to-go orders.
Judging from the chile relleno, Yolanda's has potential to be a good, no-frills Mexican dining alternative for the downtown lunch crowd, filling in a gap that has been sorely vacant since Coney Island closed down. We hope they make it.
Yolanda's
- 1017 antelope st.
- 888-6465
- hours:
- 6 am-3 pm mon-tues
- 6 am-6 pm wed-fri
- 6 am-2 pm sat
- entrees: $3.50-$6.50
- checks: yes
- credit cards: all major
- alcohol: no
- wheelchair accessible
- food 1 star
- service 1 star
- atmosphere 1 star
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