A good restaurant and a great restaurant are separated typically by one element: customer service. Customer service can make or break an experience. When my husband and I visited Mesero in Clearfork this week, the customer service was the cherry on top of already incredible food.
Jaime OCampo greeted us from the get go and immediately set us up (lookin’ at you Beto!) with one of his top servers. He also assured us he would be personally checking our food as it came out of the kitchen to make sure it was up to Mesero-standard before it made it to our table.
Let me just say…I n knowing that, I watched the sweet man like a hawk. He did indeed check our dishes before they came to our table and I will have you know he never once had to send it back to the kitchen. His kitchen staff knocked every dish out of the park and that deserves applause. (Insert applause) A job well done should never be ignored.
I thought I would be a little saucy (pun intended…you’ll see…I’ll get there) and placed a teaser of where we were eating dinner on my Stories on Fort Worth Woman asking people to guess where we were. Immediately ten people guessed Mesero based on the picture of the salsa (get it? saucy?) trio alone. I was blown away!
We then ordered appetizers: Spicy Guacamole, Shrimp Ceviche, a Margarita on the Rocks, and a Victoria. Everything was fresh. I will admit, I am not a huge Shrimp Cerviche fan but this was truly delicious because it was so fresh. The flavors, freshness, and overall presentation of the food set us off on the right foot from the get go.
Now my ‘rocks’ margarita was delicious but Mama needed some more “zing’. I next ordered the Jalepina and let me just explain, this was EXACTLY what I needed. Place your favorite things about a margarita, a jalapeño, and a pineapple on the rocks in a glass and that is this drink. Beto let us know it’s a customer favorite and I can absolutely see why. My hubs then also decided to go spicy with his margarita and ended up with a spicy strawberry concoction called Fresa Fuego.
Kid-free, two margs down, and surrounded by incredible people explaining their passion for their food…we were in Fort Worth foodie date night heaven.
Entree time.
We ordered our food purely off our amazing servers’ recommendations. He has been with Mesero in Clearfork since they opened and I swear he could read our minds. He recommended that I order the Redfish and that my husband order the Pollo La Brasa. Y’all. We feasted.
And we learned more about the restaurant. Beto let us know that COVID has been hard but their regulars are back. He has so many regulars that he even knows what drinks to pour for them as soon as they walk in the door. Y’all. Service. I now want to be a regular.
Back to food. My Redfish dish was truly outstanding and I’m still to this day trying to figure out what was in the sauce in the bottom of the plate. Basically my redfish was cooked with the skin still on (to keep in the flavors/moisture) and was then placed on a pile of veggies that all sat in this incredible red sauce that made the entire dish. I cannot wait to go back and get this meal again because it was that good.
Summer. Fall. Winter. This Redfish should be a Tex Mex staple in your normal meal routine when you need a healthier option. And, just to clarify, yes the kitchen perfectly placed every radish and cooked tomato to Jaime’s perfect expectations.
The Pollo La Brasa looked amazing. I can only say that because my husband didn’t as much as even offer a bite. I had to steal a quick bite of his Cheddar Chipotle Grits and he mumbled things like “who knew chicken could be so good” and “can’t wait to come back and get this again” between bites.
To pair with our meal, Jaime brought out a whole other trio I hadn’t seen before that had different sauces and pickled jalapeños. We snacked on those to the high heavens and holy cow he was right. The flavors perfectly complimented each of our meals!
Should we of had room for dessert? No.
Did we find a way to move things around and MAKE ROOM for dessert? Why yes we did. Something about a FIVE LAYER TRES LECHES CAKE (of which my joke about a Tres Leches cake not being good enough was probably the millionth time they’ve heard it, but they were still gracious and laughed) requires you to just figure yourself out and order the cake.
So typically Tres Leches, in my opinion, is either great or awful. I truly don’t feel there is a middle ground. So many times only the bottom is moist or the cake is cooked strange, or somehow, amidst the multiple milks, you lose the flavor.
Not in five layers of this tres leches cake.
I want this cake again in this exact moment now that I’m viewing the photo. Every single layer felt like it’s own perfect tres leches cake. The moisture, the flavor, and the portion was absolutely spot on.
We were running up again our time to leave (we were headed to see the Frank Sinatra show at Casa Manana) so we quickly ordered two Don Julio 1942s chilled before we headed out the door. Well, Jaime had his own surprise and brought out a Spanish liquor that I cannot wait to share with my family! We enjoyed this almond-flavored, dessert enhancer so much we even asked to take a picture of the bottle. Jaime called it his ”Liquor 43” that pairs perfectly with the Five Layer Tres Leches Cake.
That was the cherry on top as it was absolutely spot on to complete our meal.
So there you have it Fort Worth. Get out, eat local, and order that.
And tell Jaime that Michelle sent you for Liquor 43.
