Mez

A couple of weeks ago, I met a bunch of friends at Mez, on Page Road, in Durham. It's owned by the Chapel Hill Restaurant Group, the same people that brought us 411 West and Squid's. It's basically an attempt at upscale Mexican. The interior is on the posh side, but the prices are quite reasonable. With taquerias on practically every street corner, I would expect even the fanciest Mexican restaurant to be somewhat less expensive. They have a wide variety of dishes on their menu and I chose a chile relleno as my main course. I'd actually never ordered one before, but I had a bite of my 2nd Most Faithful Reader's at ACME a few weeks before. I'm not exactly a big fan of any kind of peppers, by any means, but both of the ones I've tasted have had such a thin layer on the outside that they weren't objectionable at all. In fact, this Poblano pepper was delicious and was filled with rice, Chihuahua cheese, rasins and served with a slightly sweet almond cream sauce. It also came with a slaw that was very good.

For dessert, I ordered their tres leches cake. My Hippest Friend makes a tres leches (three milks) cake that is out of this world and I'm afraid it was impossble for Mez's version to live up to it. It didn't come close and yet it was still quite good. My general reaction is that it was not nearly as moist and didn't contain nearly as much, if any, alcohol. Those two observations may be related. It did come what tasted like sliced pistachioes, but the menu says it was supposed to have candied almonds. Whatever they were, I liked them.

I would definitely like to go back someday and try some of the other interesting looking things on their menu, including their aqua frescas.