Azteca – Davenport, IA

Sometimes, when I head back into my hometown, I’ll round up the canoe trip crew and go out for Mexican food. We sometimes end up at Azteca, because it’s decent Mexican food and we can drink multiple pitchers of margaritas. And when we invite canoe people, we invite Mr. Burns, which also means I get to play with toys at the dinner table and act like a kid.

Azteca is a pretty large establishment. There’s three large dining rooms and a decent sized bar, so you can get a lot of people in here. We had a table for 10, so we had to wait ten minutes to get our table, but that’s understandable. SOME of us are patient. Normally this would have been fine, since one third of group is habitually late – but for some weird reason, everyone showed up a few minutes early for our gathering. Very peculiar.

They bring out small carafes of salsa and bowls with hot chips, so you can pretty much fill your own salsa bowl at your own pace. So of course we dove right in and ended up eating about 10 baskets of chips. Our group loves the chips. The menu at Azteca is pretty extensive – and it’s 95% Mexican food, so plan on spending some quality time looking at different house specialties and combinations of traditional items. I went with the Suprema Enchiladas Rancheras – 5 different enchiladas (beef, chicken, cheese, potato, and pork). Oh yeah, and we started with two pitchers of margaritas – wurd.

While we waited, Mr. Burns and I hung out and played with Bakugan toys. We were behaved this time and didn’t get shushed by his mom (like we sometimes do). Clearly, I’m not up on the lingo and the goings-on of the Bakugan world, but he brought me up to speed quickly. Everytime we’d have a break-down session of these toys, I would lose, but I think he had some secret kid toy knowledge that he wasn’t divulging.

The food came out after a short wait and we dove in. Things got really quiet as we all shoveled food in (and yes, ordered another pitcher of margaritas). My sister, NotMomsFavorite, bailed on us, so I had to drink her portion – cha-ching!

My food was really quite good. My favorite enchiladas were the cheese and also the chicken. Tons of flavor and they didn’t’ skimp on the filling. The enchilada sauce at some places is pretty weak, but the sauce here is just about right. Good flavor without being weak or overpowering. I’d recommend this enchilada dish if you can’t decide on or commit to one particular order of enchiladas.

Despite not being the best Mexican food in the Quad Cities, it’s still pretty good. I keep forgetting some of the more awesome Mexican restaurants in the area when I set up these get togethers. Next time, remind me, people!

Top 5 things about Azteca
1. Chicken enchilada
2. Cheese enhilada
3. Margaritas
4. I got to play with toys at the dinner table – thanks, Mr. Burns!
5. I continue to amaze myself with how awesome my friends are (I know they were only there for the food, but still…)

Bottom 5 things
1. Gerd loved hanging out with all of these people. We’d gone with big groups to Azteca before and we always had a blast
2. We waited a while to get seated (but I understand with a 10-person group)
3. Almost too many choices on the menu – it’s very difficult to decide
4. It can get really loud inside with all the dining rooms full
5. I’m the worst Bakugan player ever