Although it doesn't really fit in with how I was raised, I'm not sure it would take too much to convince me that reincarnation is actually a thing. I've already written a post before about how in another life I must have been a teenage girl given my affinity for angsty female pop music. Likewise I'm also pretty sure at some point in another life I must have had some Latino in my blood.
There's something about Mexican and Latin culture that I find fascinating. The history, the focus on the family unit, the music, and the food, oh the food!
Of course I know that American Mexican food is only remotely close to what they actually serve down there, but I still find it absolutely amazing. @mrsbozz and I could eat Mexican food pretty much every night of the week and we wouldn't miss the other stuff or feel bad about it. In fact, we usually have about two or three Mexican/Southwest inspired meals per week on a regular basis.
When @diamonddave and his wife wanted to get together for lunch a couple of Saturday's ago and they offered Krazy Juan: Mexican Steakhouse as one of the options, I was more than eager to check it out. This location actually used to be a Brazilian Steakhouse, but sadly, I never got the chance to check it out when it was still open.
From what I hear, it was good, but it was rather expensive and I am guessing they just weren't getting the foot traffic they needed to keep in operation. With the rising cost of meat, I can imagine it wasn't cheap to offer folks all you care to eat options.
As I said, I didn't visit when they were a Brazilian Steakhouse, so I can't really speak to how much the decor has changed since they switched over to Krazy Juans. It's actually the same owners, just a different concept I guess. Probably as I said before, one with a lot less overhead cost wise. The location is in a part of town in Bay City, MI (home of Madonna) along the river that they are trying to revitalize with new and trendy restaurants, stores, and townhomes. It has become pretty popular much in part to a fancy seafood restaurant called "Real Seafood" that I have never visited.
I mention that because although this is mainly a taco joint, they also try to make it upscale with the whole steakhouse vibe, premium cocktails, and other trendy offerings.
It has beautiful views of the riverfront and if you squint really hard, you can probably see some ice shanties out on the frozen river. We visited after they had only been open for about an hour on a Saturday afternoon. Just a quick update on @diamonddave, he is doing much better now, the major health scare he had almost six months ago is hopefully a not so fond memory now. He is still in physical therapy, he can finally work on getting strength and mobility back and he is able to eat like a regular person again.
He is always going to have medical issues, but it is nice to see him getting back to a somewhat normal life. For a while there we weren't even sure that was going to be a possibility. It doesn't seem unreasonable that I will have my camping buddy back with me the coming summer.
One of the things that Krazy Juan specializes in is a salsa flight. You get unlimited chips and the ability to choose three different salsas from their menu. For a little bit more money you can make it five salsas or you can choose the dip flight. @mrsbozz and I stuck with the signature three and we got the salsa verde, the smoked salsa, and the pico.
They were all absolutely delicious, but my personal favorite was the salsa verde. It was a little thicker than I expected and almost had the texture of a whipped avocado spread. My wife's favorite was the smoked salsa, but quite honestly, they were all really good. I could have jumped into a vat of each of them and just swam around for a while. They were that good. We were already through about half a basket of chips when our friends arrived.
They decided to go with the dip flight trio and they are used to eating out with us and traveling with me, so they were more than happy to allow me to take some photos before they started digging in.
They went with the street corn dip, the guacamole, and the queso. They thought they were good, but they felt the street corn dip was a bit more runny than they expected it to be. Personally, the guac looks good, but I am glad we stuck with the salsa flight that we got.
As I said before, since it is a Mexican Steakhouse, they have many offerings in that vein like a carne asada steak you can order and things like that, but for my friend and I the tacos were calling our names.
I went with the pork al pastor tacos that you see in the photos above. It was slow roasted pork with grilled onions, grilled peppers, cilantro, and pineapple. All three of them came on a blue corn tortilla. The pork actually didn't have the flavor I expected it would. I might have preferred a little more pork and a little less pineapple, but I understand why they did it the way they did. Pineapple is less expensive than pork! The flavors were good, but I found putting some of the leftover salsa verde on it made it even better.
I'm not sure I would get this dish again if I were to come back here.
@diamonddave went with the chicken tacos. Similar to what I got, but his came with a choice of either tinga chicken or adobo chicken. He went with the adobo chicken and I think he liked them because he ate all of them. As you can see from the photos, it really doesn't look like anything you couldn't be able to make yourself at home. I think the addition of a signature sauce or something like that would have made them stand out a bit more.
I've been to a lot of taco places lately as they seem to be one of the popular new fads, plus there are a ton of them out in Colorado where I just visited this past summer. Pretty much all of them have signature sauces that give their tacos that extra kick that makes you remember them and keeps you coming back.
@mrsbozz got the chicken adobo bowl and she said it was really good. She said it wasn't much different from something we could make at home, but the queso that they had drizzled over it kicked it up a notch. See what I was saying about a sauce! @slobberchops would agree with me!
Finally, @mrsbozz's best friend and @diamonddave's wife got some kind of chicken sandwich with the tinga chicken in it. She said it was good and she happily ate the whole thing. My wife said it looked a bit dry to her, but I am sure the flavors were probably good. Our friend isn't a fan of hot lettuce, so I have a feeling that was a bit of a turn off for her.
Overall, I am not sure I would come to Krazy Juan again. If someone invited us I probably would, or if my wife and I wanted to stop somewhere just for appetizers and drinks, I would definitely do the salsa trio and maybe some margaritas. I just feel like it had the potential to be better. Perhaps after they are open a while and they have fully embraced the transition from Brazilian Steakhouse to Mexican Steakhouse they will be better.
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