mexican

Grab your gauchos and hit the beach East Hampton!!! News and exiles from Main St.!

Well there is one less empty space on East Hampton’s Main St. So who is it??? Who? Is it Hermes? Noooooooo! Is it Louis Vuitton? Nooooooooooo! Is it…. Lilly Pulitzer? HELLLLLOOOO! I said EAST HAMPTON not SOUTH! OK, here’s a hint. My mother in law … Mimi for those of you who know her… will be be tickled pink when she comes back from Boca about this news! Ok, enough. CHICOS! Now, for those of you who don’t know… it’s not a Mexican restaurant (that’s El Torito which would be great to have edible Mexican in East Hampton) it’s a woman’s clothing store! Call it a J. Crew for the mature woman. How does that sound!? I personally have never shopped at Chico’s although I do have a friend “______” who likes to occasionally wear Chico’s stuff but on Saturday evening’s only.

According to their website… “Chico’s was founded in 1983 as a small boutique selling Mexican folk art and cotton sweaters on Sanibel Island in Florida. Our friendly environment and unique styles connected with customers in a special way that quickly evolved into over 600 Chico’s boutiques nationwide, a monthly catalog, and round-the-clock shopping at www.chicos.com.” WHAT!?!?!? WARM AND FRIENDLY?!?!?!? This isn’t IOWA folks! It’s the Hamptons!!! Nice doesn’t play in these parts!!! I assume they’ll do attitude trainging for the East End clientle.

The location will be on the end of Main St., the former site of Prudential Douglas Elliman’s old stomping grounds. So the big question is why didn’t that other real estate company go into the spot? Apparently Fearless Leader along with Moose and Squirrel were spotted weeks ago measuring, designing and talking deals and then suddenly zippo!

Hola! Some new cuisine from South of the border!!

Ok, let’s be real here! The East Hampton Independent just published their review of the new “latin cuisine” restaurant D’Canela in Amagansett. I love the Indy as it’s affectionatly called on the east end … they’re kind of the rogue paper on the East End and they never hesitate to ruffle feathers but I’ve yet to really see a negative review on ANY restaurant. BUT I DIGRESS! Let’s get back to the issue at hand… D’CANELA.

It’s located at 195 Main St., Amagansett the home of the old Main Street Cafe. The decor as you can see from my lousy Iphone picture (but I do love my Iphone, more on that later) is sleek but a little cold. Who knew liquor bottles could ad so much warmth to the decor!? The round neon “open” sign didn’t help much either, I felt like I was dining somewhere in Asbury Park. Even though I felt south of the Jersey border instead of in Mexico, I can tell you the interior was clean and the service was prompt and friendly. I’m sure in time, they’ll get more liquor bottles, warm up the place and have a license to serve booze but in the meantime BYOB and save some dinero!!!!

So how was the food? We started with a mixed green salads and some chips and guacamole. They all got a B+. The salads were fresh and tasty as was the guacamole and the chips were crisp, thick and NOT greasy. So far… So good… they’re already about 10 steps ahead of the inedible BLUE PARROT! Now when it came time for the entrees things went downhill a bit. We weren’t exactly an adventourous crowd. Two chicken and one beef fajita and a mole chicken were the entrees. The fajitas weren’t bad… but they weren’t really good either. First off they came with melted cheese and my friends who are more health concious were NOT happy. Luckily our waitress did her best and got two new ones sans cheese asap! The beef fajita like the chicken was basically meat and onions with sides of salsa, sour and tortillas. The peppers; green, red and jalapeno were all missing. The mole chicken was the best choice. It was moist, tasty and tender (An A-).

All in all, better than Blue Parrot but far lacking anything close to the level of say Rosa’s Mexicana. But it is the Hamptons afterall and it’s January. I think D’Canela will improve in time, let’s just hope they can hang in there during this looooong and so far snowy winter!!!

When will the Parrot finally take flight??.. don’t say anything in the Hamptons unless you want the world to hear !!

So, we’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for the return of good mexican food to the Hamptons. I’m sure you’re all thinking I’m going to be mentioning a 7-11 Bean Burrito again.. but I can’t. I do love the nachos and the margaritas at La Superica in Sag Harbor but I’m not 25 and I actually like being able to hear my what my dinner companions say.. well certain dinner companions anyway.

I’m hoping BLUE PARROT will open soon. The longstanding tex-mex casa is being revised and revamped with the help of billionaire Ron Perelman, Jon Bon Jovi and Renee Zell…e…weigers..ener (I so can’t spell). The current owners promise it will have the same atmosphere as the old hangout but with a new chef and better food. I personally don’t remember what the food tasted like but the margaritas were amazing — oh maybe that’s why I never really tasted the food! I went by on Saturday morning.. no luck… called on Sunday… no answer and the message machine was full. Alright guys…we need guacamole now!! Open Already!!
Overheard:

A woman talking at the bar at Bobby Van’s about her upbringing; “Wolves would have done a better job than my parents!”

Two twentysomething Prada Princesses eating ice cream in East Hampton village and remarking on the young woman with her much older husband and their triplets: “Those aren’t children, they’re a science experiment!”
At a dinner party Saturday night held by a major Hollywood big-wig: “I take care of myself…. I treat my body well… I treat it like a pharmacy.”
Two “masters of the universe” discussing the new way of doing business: “I’m used to having free range in my business.” – I guess that’s not too bad… he could be a farmer with chickens?!