10 Bates Hill
Ph. 576-6399
The last time I was inside the building that houses Zapata’s Restaurante Mexicano was over a decade ago when you could still find a piano bar upstairs called Schroeder’s - named for the little piano virtuoso in the Peanuts comic strip. It was quite the spot; with a collection of characters that someone like novelist Ed Riche would have a field day writing about.
One night, the late actress, Flo Patterson was visiting
and the “crowd” coaxed her into doing an impromptu set of show tunes. On any
given evening, as one approached 10 Bates Hill you could look up to that second
story bay window and see 6 or 8 people standing around the piano as
It’s a lot different now. There’s still a small bar to sit at but it’s there to accommodate anyone waiting for a table. I suppose the place has its regulars looking for their chimichangas and guacamole but everyone seems to keep to themselves, which, after all, is the way people usually behave in restaurants. Pity.
Zapata’s was the second Mexican restaurant to open in St.
John’s twenty something years ago. They obviously are doing something right for
many people. It has a cozy atmosphere both upstairs and down. The lighting is
low with lots of tea lights spread throughout. The chairs are chrome and
glitter as the light from the candles bounces off them. The tabletops are shiny
and reflective as well. They feature carefully laid glossy ceramic tiles of
many different colours: red, blue, yellow and so on. The same colour scheme is
carried throughout the restaurant - on the walls, doors, counters, etcetera.
You’ll see terra cotta, navy, and deep, rich yellows, blues and earth tones.
Next to my table hung a bright abstract painting similarly coloured.
The room was quite busy on the night I visited with my guest. The server, Tammy, could have been run off her feet but managed to maintain an air of poise, much like a good flight attendant on a bumpy approach over Torbay. Neither of us was much in the mood for burritos, fajitas or the like. I wanted something “different” and so did my guest.
We began with a couple of shared appetizers. Zapata’s
stuffed mushroom caps were filled with a mix of seafood according to the
description - “our own seafood medley of Newfoundland shrimp, cod fillet and
clams topped with jalapenos and jack cheese” - but all I could taste was
something that had the mouth feel of moist but overdone cod. And clams? I
didn’t recognize any. The mushrooms were quite soggy. Apart from tasting
unpleasantly wet, they needed salt. There was, however, more than an ample
amount of red pepper in them and cheese over them. If the spice had been kicked
a notch higher the roof of my mouth would have peeled entirely, or, at least
flaked heavily.
Another appetizer we were eager to try was called Mexican spring rolls. They came with an odd- looking sauce decoratively squirted in a zigzag pattern on top. It was medium brown in colour and tasted predominantly of liquid smoke. It was a good condiment enhancer for the rolls. They were dominated by the taste, thickness and texture of the flour tortilla that was bound around a filling of fresh vegetables - crisp sweet green pepper, green onions and so on. I liked Zapata’s Mexican spring rolls but I did feel that perhaps the tortilla shell dominated the filling of fresh vegetables too much. Despite being deep-fried they tasted baked to me and were not at all greasy.
Entrees included more fish. I had the Pescado a la Vera Cruz - cod. Again the fillets were very moist but not overcooked. I suspect the fish had been poached or steamed. The plate, apart from the cod, consisted of cheddar cheese, Mexican rice, a green salad, stuffed green olives, tomatoes, celery, onions, peppers and fresh lemon. It was as if the dish didn’t know what it wanted to be. Was it Spanish? Was it Portuguese? Was it Mexican? There was a real clash of flavours in this one. The Mexican rice seemed to be seasoned with too many powdered herbs and spices, to the point where my mouth actually felt like it had a powdery coating. By the way, where was the fresh lime, the fresh jalapenos and fresh cilantro that evening?
There’s a restaurant in Houston called La Velerosa that serves a dish called snapper Veracruzana. It’s basically fish fillets marinated in: limejuice, garlic, bay and oregano, baked with a few spoonfuls of spicy tomato sauce and served with white rice and more tomato sauce. That’s a recipe that would work equally well with cod.
Incidentally, I didn’t much care for the plates our main courses were served on. They were the insulated stainless steel platters that some restaurants use for serving steaks. Esthetically, I had a problem with them. They reminded me of the times I would stare down into a mostly empty stainless steel mixing bowl and scrape out the last delicious bits of my mother’s chocolate pudding. It’s the kind of material you expect to see behind the scenes in the kitchen, not out front in the dining room. They were piping hot and I swear my cod kept cooking and changing texture during the time I was eating it.
My guest went with the brochetta de Camaron. This shrimp dish consisted of fairly large gulf shrimp and came with a pineapple sauce that I thought worked really well with the shellfish. Onions, mushrooms, peppers, and tomato also came with the dish, all served over a bed of rice. The shrimp, like my cod, tasted as if they’d been steamed or cooked in water. It was a simple dish but very effective and, I believe, the best dish of the evening.
My guest did not want a dessert and did not want to share
one. So, I ended up with a very large fresh fruit crepe that I was forced to
devour all by myself. - I know. I know. Poor me. - The crepe, which itself
tasted a tiny bit stodgy, was filled with vanilla ice cream, bananas, and
cantaloupe. On top of the crepe sat a sheen of chocolate sauce and freshly
whipped cream. It was all good of course. Not haute cuisine but good. The menu
mentioned that almonds would come with the dessert but I saw none. There was,
you’ll be happy to know, a maraschino cherry on top of the dessert along with
plenty of the whipped cream. A blurb on the menu talks about Zapata’s featuring
“the authentic taste of Mexican cuisine;” I wonder how the restaurant’s
namesake, Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata would have felt about the
maraschino and the whipped cream?
Best Points:
Very good service. Attentive and pleasant.
Areas for Improvement:
Pay attention to the way you season.
Ratings Category:
Zapata’s Restaurante Mexicano gets 7.5 points out of 10.