Frontera Grill
Manchester
June 28, 2024
I’ve had the opportunity to try many different kinds of foods and restaurants, but Mexican food remains my favorite. Visiting Frontera Grill in Manchester was high on my to-do list, and I finally got the chance to last week.
The meal started with complimentary chips and salsa. It’s hard for me to overstate how much I love chips and salsa, and the fact that many Mexican restaurants give them out for free has basically secured Mexican restaurants at the top of my culinary pantheon. The chips were warm and the salsa was cold — exactly what I was hoping for.
As always, I first ordered was a drink. And seeing as I was in a Mexican restaurant, a margarita seemed the best choice. I ordered the house margarita, a giant glass of tequila, triple sec and lime juice. It was a little on the sweet side, with the tequila masked by the other flavors. However, the salty rim of the glass helped to mitigate the sweetness and add a bite to the drink.
One of the most important elements of Mexican food is how saucy you get with it. Mexican food that I enjoy doesn’t come out of the kitchen exploding with spice and heat. Instead, they leave that up to the customer. Frontera was loaded for bear with hot sauces of various heat, flavors and even textures.
After cycling through the sauces, I landed on the green pepper sauce to use. It had a bright flavor that I thought would complement the food well, with a subtle level of heat that wasn’t going to overwhelm the taste of the food I put it on.
The food arrived fast, bursting with colors and smells that delighted my eyes and made my mouth water. I’d chosen the combination plate, which allows customers to choose up to three of their favorite dishes, and adds rice, beans and slaw as sides. My Dream Team of Mexican dishes was the chimichanga, the burrito, and the chalupa. The options for fillings include cheese, beef, chicken, pork, carnitas or spinach, but I went with chicken across the board.
I started with the chimichanga, a deep-fried burrito made with a flour tortilla filled with rice, cheese, beans, and meat. The key to eating a chimichanga is to eat it quickly, as the assortment of fillings and toppings can make the crispy tortilla soggy if left to sit too long. The outside of the chimichanga, covered in red sauce and cheese, was just as flavorful as the inside, where the seasoning for the chicken had mixed with the rice and beans.
Next it was on to the traditional burrito. The flavor of the tortilla came through clearer without as much cheese and sauce covering it. The tortilla was warm and soft, with the taste of freshly baked bread instead of the coldly utilitarian flavor of store bought tortillas. I mixed each bite with a bit of the refried beans and rice for a triple flavor that felt just a little indulgent.
Finally, I got to the chalupa. I wanted to end the meal with a crunch. Unlike with the chimichanga, the hard shell made of fried masa dough was in no danger of getting soggy. I drenched the lettuce, tomato, cheese and chicken in the green pepper sauce, ready to go out with a bang. The spiciness of the sauce was instantly cooled by the tomatoes, giving the chalupa a burst of heat as the crunch of the shell filled my ears.
One surprising element of the meal was the slaw, which was a refreshing departure from the heaviness of meat, beans and cheese. It had a light taste and a sweetness that served as a nice palette cleanser between the different parts of the meal.
The entire meal was delicious, and ranks in the top of any experience I’ve had at a Mexican restaurant. Frontera also offers the combination platter as part of its lunch menu, so you can try multiple dishes on a budget.
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Frontera Grill is open seven days a week.
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