Hacienda de los Morales - DF

[Mari]

I went to a team dinner at the Hacienda de los Morales earlier this week for a dinner. I thought the setting was very nice and the hacienda is spectacular given the location in the middle of Polanco. However, the consensus with was that the food did not live up the nice setting. The Hacienda was full of groups of foreign business folks.

We started with an appetizer order of mini chiles en nogada as we had someone in our team who had never tried them. They were decent, but the sauce was actually quite good. We also shared an order of fried quesadillas filled with squash blossoms and cheese. Those were the highlight of the evening.

The waiters brought around a huge basket of bread with about 10 different breads (banana, biscuits, ciabatta, breadsticks, etc). The biscuit was heavy and bland, but my colleagues enjoyed a brioche-like bread filled with cream cheese. My entree was an order of squash blossom crepes and they were very disappointing. It looked like the microwaved the plate before serving to melt the cheese and the sauce developed a film as it cooled. My colleagues ordered arrachera (skirt steak) and they weren't happy with the order either, but they did like the mole served with the little enchilada they got.

Desserts looked nice and my colleagues insisting on ordering creme brule even though it was not on the menu. They were disappointed, but the pastel de tres leches was very good. The pecan pie was more like a fruit cake since it was a little too dense. All that plus two excellent bottles of Malbec (Lariviere Yturbe Partida Limitada 2004). The serve was grand and our waiter promised us he could do anything we wanted, but the food still disappointed.