Valentine's Day: Rosa Mexicano - Lincoln Center, Manhattan 2/14/2014

His Take: I will start with this, I am not one who goes crazy for Mexican food, but Rosa Mexicano is excellent and I would most certainly return.  Ariana and I have been talking about going to Rosa Mexicano for some time now, ever since Ariana's mother mentioned it as a great date spot.  After speaking with Ariana about Valentine's day, I called Rosa Mexicano about 3 weeks in advance and made the reservation for 2 at 8:15.  We arrived at Rosa Mexicano at around 5 to 8, and by 8 o'oclock we were told to go see the person at the top of the steps and we would be taken to our table.  Let me tell you, the Rosa Mexicano in Lincoln Center is an absolutely beautiful place with a great ambiance.  This place is really set up to take a date.  We walked up a long stairwell that was lined with a waterfall.  We arrived at our table and the waiter explained our menu options as well as brought us some water (which Ariana later spilled across the table ;) )  Rosa Mexicano had a special Valentine's Day menu which was perfect and there was 2 options, pre fixed or a la carte.  We decided to order a la carte because let's face it, we do not like the pre-fixed meal selection on our food!!  We ordered our drinks while we continued to decide what we want to eat, I ordered a red sangria and Ariana some special Valentine's Day drink.  For starters Ariana insisted we try the guacamole, which on the menu it stated that Rosa Mexicano was famous for theirs!  This was my first time trying guacamole and it was excellent.  I like to consider myself a "dainty dipper" and not someone who scoops the whole dish up (unlike my date ahem ahem), and just getting some of that guacamole flavor on the chips was perfect!  The guacamole was made fresh right in front of us by a chef with his guacamole cart, and it was excellent.  Rosa Mexicano also served the guacamole with a little bin of tortillas which was great.  To go with our guacamole we ordered the melted cheese fondue, which was incredibly amazing and delicious.  I love cheese and this Spanish cheese was absolutely delicious.  This also came with another little bin of tortillas, which were perfect for making our own little cheese fondue quesadillas.  For entrees, Ariana ordered the short rib mole enchiladas where as I had the "pollo y carne asada" which is simply put chicken and steak.  The chicken and steak came in a little skillet with peppers and onions, as well as 2 small cups of Mexican corn and a bean tomato paste.  This also came with a small bin of tortillas!  This entrée was just as excellent as the appetizers!  Everything in my dish was worth ordering again!  Finally on to dessert we went, and we split an order of churros which were just as good as everything else.  The churros came with 3 different dipping sauces (boy do Ariana and I love options), a chocolate, caramel, and a raspberry sauce.  All the sauces were great, but I am a sucker for caramel so I stuck with that one!  How could I forget that while we waiting for our food, Rosa Mexicano had an authentic singer walking around with a guitar singing popular Spanish tunes!  Ariana absolutely loved this because she knew some of the songs and words and he sang them right to her.  Be sure to tip the musician because he is worth doing so!!

To close I will say this,  Rosa Mexicano is definitely a top notch date spot in NYC! I highly recommend heading over to Rosa Mexicano in Lincoln Center, but I am sure any of the other locations are just as good!  Ariana and I will certainly be heading back to Rosa Mexicano for some more of their delicious food!  So head over, enjoy your Mexican fiesta and maybe you will run into us while you're there!

Her Take: I have been wanting to go to Rosa Mexicano for a very, very long time; ever since my mom went and told me to try it one day! One day I finally got a cute boyfriend to take me to try this infamous Mexican restaurant. Nicky and I had talked about going for some time, we just never got around to it, and when he asked where I wanted to go for Valentine's Day, I
MEXICANO! There are 3 different Rosa Mexicano restaurants: one in union square, one on the upper east side and one near Lincoln center, we went to the Lincoln Center one! I must say it was the perfect choice. I have not one thing to complain about; everything was magnificent; from the space, the atmosphere, the service, the food, the drinks, the people, the timing, it was all perfect. Nicky made the reservation for 8:15 and we arrived 15 minutes early, our table was ready and it was up the beautiful stairs. The wall next to the stairs was a waterfall with small diving statues all over, it was sooo pretty. Upstairs the space was bigger than I imagined and the host lead us to our table near a window. They had a special valentine's day menu which I thought was excellent (I freakin love Mexican food) and we decided to do a la carte instead of prefixed. I decided to try the special cocktail, La Pasion Picante (spicy passion) which was Jalapeño-infused El Jimador  Blanco, passion fruit, pomegranate and lime and it was delicious, soooo yummy, I love jalapeno infused cocktails!! We started with Guacamole en Molcajete, which is prepared right in front of you and comes with nachos and fresh tortillas, and I forced Nicky to try it (since he's never had guacamole before) and he actually liked it!! I was so excited and proud of him!! I had to take full advantage of this and made him try the poblano sauce and guess what? He liked that too!!!!! (I get super excited because he's very picky) yay! Then for appetizer we had the Queso Fundido (cheese fondue) which also came with tortillas and we had to get it plain for mister pickypants. You could have gotten it with chorizo and peppers, but we settled on plain and it still was so so so yummy! We finally did the right thing this time: only two appetizers instead of ordering a vast array and then not being able to eat our entrees and hating ourselves because of how full we are. (Besides, we wanted dessert!) Then for entrée I got the Short-rib Enchiladas, yes that's right, SHORTRIB! You know how much I love short rib an yep you guessed it I LOVED this dish! The two enchiladas came with mole sauce and the shortrib was so tender that the whole thing melted in your mouth. Nicky got the Pollo y Carne Asada dish "skillet style" which he loved and he made a little taco and showed me to make me even more proud :-) For dessert we got the Churros with 3 different sauces: chocolate, caramel and raspberry. Everything was delicious and what made it all better was that the courses were perfectly timed out, we had time to digest a little between courses and they gave us time to sit and hold hands for a while and be cheesy before we were too busy eating! The staff was all super friendly and they all joked around with us and of course I had to show off that I speak Spanish to win them over ;) Our waiter was so nice, he sent over the singer they had that night to our table to play us some Vincente Fernandez to get us in the mood; he was wonderful. The entire night was wonderful, I enjoyed every second of it. We spent two hours in Rosa Mexicano and we left happy, satisfied and soo in love (with not only eachother, but the food as well) We will definitely be going back to try their complete menu!! Maybe we'll try a different location!
Rosa Mexicano, in my opinion, was the best date we have been on! I loved everything about it, especially my date :) :) :) :-*