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Jalisco's delicious homemade Mexican fare thoroughly satisfies

Walking into Jalisco in Gurnee is like stepping into the Mexican state of the same name - lively music, lots of colors and a distinct western theme. It's sure to cheer you up on a down day, with both the atmosphere and the food.

The restaurant, which opened in September, serves all three meals with no time restrictions, so their menu is massive. Take your time reading it; chips and three types of salsa come out when you sit down, so you'll have a snack to tide you over. You could also get a drink from the full bar, but beware - the drinks are big. A table near ours ordered a margarita, and the sizes ranged from huge to extra huge to humongous. There's a selection of fiesta drinks for anyone who wants to get in the mood of the restaurant.

For appetizers, we ordered the queso fundido with chorizo and the pozole soup. The queso fundido came with a stack of flour tortillas. It was a mix of stringy cheese, salsa and chorizo, though I thought it was lacking a bit on the chorizo front. A little more would have been perfect. For the pozole, we ordered a small, and I recommend you do the same. It is not an appetizer soup - it's an entire meal and very filling on its own. The soup itself is a savory pork soup with hominy, and a dish on the side has cabbage, radish slices and limes to throw in, much like the additions you get when ordering pho. Overall it was great, meaty with a tomato zing and lots of chunkiness from the pork and vegetables; my only issue was the meat had a bit too much fat on it.

  Queso fundido, a mix of stringy cheese, salsa and chorizo, is a hearty starter at Jalisco in Gurnee. Gilbert R. Boucher II/gboucher@dailyherald.com

Our dinners spanned a large selection of the restaurant's huge menu. We got the enchilada dinner with mole sauce, a taco al pastor, a nopales guisados taco (stuffed cactus), and the #12 combination: a taco, an enchilada and a flauta, all ground beef.

The enchilada dinner comes with your choice of one, two or three enchiladas; stuffed with cheese, chicken, ground beef, barbecue pork or steak; covered in ranchero, green chile, red chile or mole sauce. On top of that, the enchiladas are covered in cheese and served with refried beans and rice. We opted for three with ground beef and mole sauce. They were quite good - cooked and seasoned well, not soggy, and with a smokiness from the mole that rounded out the dish. The beans were relatively standard, and the rice had corn, carrots and peas mixed in. My husband loved it.

  The taco al pastor was seasoned nicely with the traditional onion and cilantro topping at Jalisco in Gurnee. Gilbert R. Boucher II/gboucher@dailyherald.com

The taco al pastor, or as they call it on the menu, the barbecue pork taco, seemed to be more of a regional specialty than one you'd find in a place like Mexico City. It didn't really have any pineapple flavor, the hallmark of an al pastor taco. But it was good all the same - seasoned nicely with the traditional onion and cilantro topping. The nopales guisados taco was, for me, the star of the meal. It was a mixture of smoky cactus, hot peppers, onions and cilantro, and it was pretty spicy. Too spicy for me to finish, actually, and I sadly pushed the other half to my husband. I will definitely go back for this taco, though; it was delicious.

Our combination plate had pretty standard examples of a ground beef taco, an enchilada with ranchero sauce and a flauta. Everything was cooked exceedingly well and tasted great. I particularly liked the flauta - it was much bigger than I expected and wasn't so crispy that it shattered when I tried to eat it, but still had a good crunch.

  Jalisco's smooth and caramely flan is a satisfying way to end a meal. Gilbert R. Boucher II/gboucher@dailyherald.com

For dessert, I had the flan, a smooth and caramely traditional version. You can't go wrong with flan.

Overall, our meal was delicious and satisfying, but Jalisco needs to work on service. Our waitress wasn't unfriendly - all the employees were very friendly - but the timing was off and service was slow. Our food came at once, even the appetizers, and we had to pay at the front counter because our waitress never came back to the table. A few tweaks here and there, though, and the experience would have been perfect.

<i>Restaurant reviews are based on one anonymous visit. The Daily Herald does not publish reviews of restaurants it cannot recommend.</i>

Jalisco

4949 Grand Ave., Gurnee, (224) 637-8616,

eatjalisco.com/

Cuisine: Mexican; breakfast, lunch and dinner

Setting: Casual and lively

Entrees: $7-$29

Hours: 9 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday; 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday

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