Alki, Madison Park, Kirkland

When it comes to eating Mexican, I’m very hard to impress. After living South of the Border as long as I, it’s difficult to accept burritos and crunchy tacos as “Mexican” food. However, I was pleasantly surprised by what I found at ¡Cactus! on Alki.

Since opening in Madison Park in 1990, ¡Cactus! has been serving up “Flavors of Mexico and the Southwest,” and bravo for that. The menu includes an incredible assortment of delicious flavors that one doesn’t normally find in a Mexican restaurant—flavors that define genuine Mexican and Southwestern cuisine.

From top to bottom, the menu reads like a culinary wish-list come true—and it eats even better. The complimentary basket of fresh chips and salsa put a smile on my face as I read through the “antojitos”: guacamole, ceviche, chorizo and queso fundido. Nice. And then there are the salads, all of which include Mexican ingredients like pumpkin seeds, guajillo and chipotle chiles, roasted corn and jicama, just to name a few.

But I wasn’t there to eat chips and lettuce. I was there for dinner, and as soon as I reached the “taco” section, I knew exactly what I wanted. Carnitas Yucatecas sounded perfect: “natural achiote pork roasted in banana leaves served with red onion escabeche.” Served with white corn tortillas, Spanish rice and cumin black beans, each bite was delicious. I was literally drooling as I ate up every tasty bite.

My lunch date had something else in mind: ceviche. The classic Mexican dish is traditionally made-up of chopped up fish that is cured by soaking it in lime juice rather than by cooking it. The ¡Cactus! version includes sea scallops, Pacific red snapper, lime, red onion, cilantro, tomatoes, serrano chiles, guacamole and tostaditas, and although she ordered it from the appetizer menu, her two orders of ceviche appeared to be about the same size as an entrée, and as she told me, it was “delicioso.”

¡Cactus! also specializes in exotic cocktails, with a special emphasis on Margaritas and Mojitos. There are also drinks such as the Coco-Mojito and the Mangopolitan, to name a couple, that are based on classic recipes with a Latino twist.

I would venture to say that ¡Cactus! is a gourmet Mexican restaurant, especially considering the presentation of the dishes, which, as everything else at ¡Cactus!, is absolutely amazing.

Ceviche $8.00
Tortilla Soup $6.50
Ensalada de la Casa $4.50
Tacos Carnitas Yucatecas $13.00
Three Milk Cuban Flan $5.50
Coco-Mojito $7.25

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