Brick Cantina is going to serve food and make a lot of money. People will flock from minutes away, because there's not much else open in or near Hebron in the evening for table service. And it will be open forever.
Don't get me wrong, Brick is abysmal in every regard. And it's not going to get better. But that doesn't matter, because you're not going to Brick for good Mexican food. First of all, it's not Mexican; it's Tex-Mex+. But it's also not good Tex-Mex--unfortunate because Tex-Mex is one of the simplest cuisines to do very well. You're going to Brick because it's there--it's ethnic cuisine in a sleepy Connecticut town--and because it's inoffensive. You won't be surprised by spicy chilis or stumped by hard-to-pronounce menu items. You will get lots of salt (just not when you want it) and cumin by the boatload.
Let's start with atmosphere. There's a mural on the wall, likely someone's first mural based on a description given to them by someone who once saw Mexico in a movie, but the movie was filmed in California. Brick is unbearably loud. The table spacing is as tight as I'm sure code will allow. No sound dampening. Your server can't hear you. Your table can't hear you. You'll be louder to compensate. So will everyone else. It was miserable to be there.
I really try not to knock a new place for service, but watching the rookie staff bumble about was agonizing. Our server did not know the menu at all. We ordered ceviche, but there's no way she could find that on the menu if we didn't point it out. The appetizer arrived with one entree; the other came ten minutes later. We were offered a second basket of chips without prompting; our water glasses were never filled until we asked.
Wife ordered a paloma, asking for añejo instead of the menu's blanco. Server even read that part back. It arrived with blanco. I ordered a cold Mexican Coke and got a lukewarm Mexican Coke with the bottlecap still on. We had chips upon arrival; the salsa was like extra-salty spaghetti sauce. The chips themselves were unsalted, and there was no salt at any table. Tex-Mex, Mexican, MexiKorean fusion, I don't care--you have chips, you put salt on the table.
The ceviche confirmed where the rest of the meal was headed. More liquid than solid, it found a way to have the right ingredients--though I'm still not sure if it "had" tomatoes as I only found three tiny bits of red in the whole thing--while still leaning mushy and tasting only of acid. There were two pucks resembling tostones, sadly drowned in the acid sea.
Wife's enchiladas were bad. The tops were sauced with red and green; I use colors because they had no flavors by which to describe them. The insides alternated between dry and missing. The refried beans and rice were completely unseasoned. Neither of us could find flavor anywhere in this dish. The portions were small for the price, a blessing in disguise.
My "autentico" burrito was a wrap--a tortilla untouched by heat, drizzled lightly with a watered-down sour cream and dotted with no-seed, no-placenta jalapenos (flavor: green). The inside was mostly lettuce, followed distantly by cheese. The bits of chicken were tender but entirely unseasoned. The only flavor in the entire dish was the sparse chorizo, and its flavor was salt and cumin. The menu indicates the presence of carnitas; my burrito must have missed that memo entirely.
We planned to order dessert; instead, we opted to flee. Don't worry, we paid the check. Oh, be sure to check your check; half our items were differently charged than the menu prices--some higher, some lower, but blessedly coming out even so we didn't need to linger.
Brick will thrive, I'm certain. It's ultra-American Tex-Mex at prices high enough to convince folks they're paying for proper Mexican cuisine. If you're reading this after going a few times, I implore you to drive the extra 15 minutes into Willimantic and go to absolutely any Mexican restaurant there to see what you're missing at Brick--spice, flavor,...
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