Restaurant Review: Masa

Tonight we had dinner club at a restaurant called Masa located on Nicolette Mall in downtown Minneapolis. Until just now, sitting down to get the website address of this place did I realize that this is one of the dining establishments under the big tent that is D’Amico and Partners. Knowing that before I went would have raised my expectations and I’m glad I didn’t have that knowledge beforehand as I can be more honest about my feelings for the place.

In a nutshell, it was okay. Not bad, but not great. It’s a small restaurant so luckily for them, there were some of the small things that were working for them tonight. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

All nice dinners start with a nice little drink and Masa had a wide selection of wines and a list of specialty mixes and drinks. I took advantage of the michelada, which is Negro Modelo beer with a maggi salsa, spiced lime and a salted rim. It’s a tasty drink and spicy, not too expensive at a very reasonable $5.50. Many people took advantage of other specialty drinks including a number of different margaritas. The mango margarita was quite good as was the two varities of sangria they offered.

We ordered two appetizers, the Sopes Surtidos, corn masa boats with shredded chicken, beef or roasted poblano. This was a tasty dish, to say the least. We also ordered guacamole, which, sad to say, was just adequate. I expected much more, but I guess how much can you expect with just the basic guacamole ingredients.

Entrees were ordered and even though there were nine of us, all of us decided on four different dishes out of eight choices: Pollo con Mole Poblano, Enchilada with Seafood and Pipian Sauce, and Puerco Veracruzana which is a pork shoulder. The last I can’t remember the name, but it is essentially a chicken stew. All dishes had their charm and my choice of the chicken in the mole sauce was good, but not so good that I was making the necessary yummy sounds that seem to follow me when I’m having a great dining experience. There was a lot of “oh, that’s good” and “that’s nice” going around the table, but no one going “you have GOT to try this.”

Only two people opted for dessert and I went for the flan. The flan was very good, possibly the best thing I had that night. I took my time with this one small dish and relished finishing it off. It had subtle hints of coconut that snuck through tasting.

But this gets back to the whole thing with Masa. Some of the little things that are done are spot on. The flan, the drinks, the chairs we sat in which at first take you by surprise by their shape but are eminently comfortable. But there were little things, obvious things, that were missed. One small plate of tortillias for the five people that needed them was embarassing. It eventually was too much of a hassle for me to keep asking for the tortillias to be passed back down from the other end of the table. One at each end of the table would have been a suitable and easy solution for this. Wait staff was friendly, but didn’t seem to really knock me over with service and I wasn’t compelled to think much about what great service I was getting. The chicken mole, which was good, had to be sawed off the bone which is a lot of work for a little chicken.

Masa is a place that you walk into and you expect a great meal and when you get a very good meal, you feel left out, like you missed something that should have been there. It is a place that seems like it’s almost there. Sadly though, there wasn’t anything besides the flan that is immediately compelling to me and makes me want to return soon on my own which would be the sign of a good restaurant with a bright future.