Thursday, October 25, 2007

Restaurant Review: Alo Cenaduria y Piqueos

By The Law Reviewers of The Law Reviewers

DALLAS — Under normal circumstances, we are not fancy people. But sometimes, we need to take the Mrs. Law Reviewers out somewhere a little hip, a little flashy, a little, how do you say? Not Burger House. Nothing against our thin patty, secret seasoning ‘migos at the ‘House, whose little-known Farmers Branch location is little known, but one recent Friday night was our time. Rather, it was Alo’s time, as they don’t take reservations. So we waited. And drank. And waited. "Hey!" we shouted over the people sitting at the bar. "Two more mojitos!" And drank. Thankfully, Alo, whose birth certificate reads Alo Cenaduria y Piqueos ... has a dizzying array of cocktails to distract you from the wait, some of which are purposely set on fire by the barkeeps (the drinks, not the concept of time). The wait really wasn’t too bad given that it was a Friday at 7:30 when we showed up; the four of us were seated by 8:15. We just like to complain. Er, critique. After all, we’re The Law Reviewers, not The Law Recomplimenters.

Filling a much-needed void in the Knox-Henderson restaurant landscape that desperately needs more cutting edge restaurants to attract Dallas' hippest and in-the-know-ing-est hair gels and the people they glob onto, Alo is the kind of place we would typically roll our eyes at and skip in favor of somewhere less Paper City. But Alo’s cool vibe was just that, without too much pretentiousness. The crowd was a good mix of the 325i and the 750 set, and some of the patrons even appeared to have over 80,000 miles on them. The clue to the mixed crowd is the fact that Alo is the brainchild of the La Duni people, whose growing Latin food empire fights for good (eating). Like La Duni, Alo’s food is Latin American-inspired, but Alo bills itself as Mexican and Peruvian "street food." Maybe so, but we’re pretty sure people on the street in Lima don’t plunk down the equivalent of $9.25 for three duck confit flautas.

Conceptual name branding and price point quibbling aside, for the most part, the food didn’t disappoint at Alo. Most dishes are tapas-sized, but there are a few full sized entrees. What did disappoint were the few starters we tried. We started with some guacamole and chips ($4.95) to try as a baseline for south-of-the-border cuisine, and, although it tasted freshly prepared, it was also rather pedestrian – no salt, chile or lime to taste of. Landing on the other side of the spice spectrum were the chiles toreados ($3.95), billed as seared serranos, onions and cilantro. Next time we want our mouths to burn for 10 minutes, we’ll recite a few of Ben Affleck’s lines from Armageddon. Zing!

Thankfully, just as the atmosphere had, the larger plates won us over. Beef tenderloin Peruvian saltado ($13.50), which is basically a hearty stir-fry, was cooked perfectly and accompanied by plenty of tender grilled vegetables. We also had the pork version of the saltado and found both meats to have a nice balance of seasoning in contrast to the starters, but we stopped just short of trying the chicken to complete our protein triple crown. The arracherra asada ($17.50) was basically a skirt steak, one-piece version of the saltado, but was served perfectly medium (as ordered) with fresh salsa and handmade tortillas. The sarten enchiladas with lobster and shrimp in mole sauce ($15.50) were chock full of moist grilled lobster and shrimp although the mole lacked the intense chocolateyness of some of the other moles we've tried in town. All those plates, big and small, left us no room for dessert, but we look forward to sampling their pastries when we go back in the near future – if they're anywhere close to La Duni's level, well, then we'll be glad that we returned to try them on the occasion that we choose to do that.

So, on our late night talk show-inspired five gavel ratings scale, where one gavel is the terrifying badness of The Steve Wilkos Show, and five gavels is the scathingly-sharp hilarity of The Colbert Report, we give Alo four gavels, or the always dependable Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

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