2008 Woodie Awards
Mexican food is awesome
Reviewing three Mexican restaurants
Elizabeth McCrocklin
Issue date: 8/28/02 Section: Arts and Entertainment
Café Citron is a restaurant with a dual personality. On first glance, it is an elegant, dimly lit Latin restaurant and bar where immaculately groomed 20-somethings crowd the bar and sip the latest fashionable Brazilian drinks. But on closer inspection, the posh veneer gives way to a more eclectic feel. Once you move past the high ceilings and imposing mirrors, you notice that the flowers on the table are not only glass but also arranged in an Absolut bottle. The menu tucks intriguing specialties such as Jamaican Curried Goat and Bolivian Chicken Stew among the Mexican standbys of fajitas and taquitos, all within the nine to fourteen dollar range. The majority of the food ordered was met with unanimous approval, especially the ceviche (a sort of seafood salsa, with generous amounts of lime and chips for dipping) and the shrimp soup. The best bet would be to stick with the more unusual dishes and house specialties, seafood in particular, as the rolled tacos and nachos were underwhelming.
Though it's not a free basket of chips at your table kind of place, both appetizers and meals are served in generous portions, which makes happy hour an appealing option. Monday through Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m., drinks and a selected list of appetizers hover around four to eight dollars, several of which are large enough for a light meal. Neither are they stingy with drinks, and they offer both an interesting selection of imported beers (each identified with its country of origin) and some of the more popular drinks of the Latin world, caiparinhas and sangria among them. Unlike the crowd, the food is refined but not at all pretentious, though it does not exactly fly out of the kitchen. This became more understandable as the night grew later and the music progressively louder, until Café Citron was only peripherally a restaurant and the crowd migrated to the restaurant's other levels to dance.
The downstairs is ostensibly a bar as well, but the low plastic stools did little to impair the unfinished college basement we're-going-to-throw-a-wild-party feel, topped off by a cheesy plastic disco ball. Throw in sticks of incense burning behind the bar, a massive air-conditioning system and pounding salsa rhythms, and it quickly lived up to its atmosphere. The noise level didn't exactly encourage conversation, either in the restaurant or the dance floor, but the salsa dancers didn't seem to mind, nor did the queue that formed outside the minute they started carding at the door. If you are looking for unusual food, good drinks and an unabashedly Latin atmosphere, Café Citron is the place to spend a Saturday night.
Though it's not a free basket of chips at your table kind of place, both appetizers and meals are served in generous portions, which makes happy hour an appealing option. Monday through Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m., drinks and a selected list of appetizers hover around four to eight dollars, several of which are large enough for a light meal. Neither are they stingy with drinks, and they offer both an interesting selection of imported beers (each identified with its country of origin) and some of the more popular drinks of the Latin world, caiparinhas and sangria among them. Unlike the crowd, the food is refined but not at all pretentious, though it does not exactly fly out of the kitchen. This became more understandable as the night grew later and the music progressively louder, until Café Citron was only peripherally a restaurant and the crowd migrated to the restaurant's other levels to dance.
The downstairs is ostensibly a bar as well, but the low plastic stools did little to impair the unfinished college basement we're-going-to-throw-a-wild-party feel, topped off by a cheesy plastic disco ball. Throw in sticks of incense burning behind the bar, a massive air-conditioning system and pounding salsa rhythms, and it quickly lived up to its atmosphere. The noise level didn't exactly encourage conversation, either in the restaurant or the dance floor, but the salsa dancers didn't seem to mind, nor did the queue that formed outside the minute they started carding at the door. If you are looking for unusual food, good drinks and an unabashedly Latin atmosphere, Café Citron is the place to spend a Saturday night.