Don’t be fooled by the facade: Playa Del Carmen is solid, affordable Mexican

Update 2/23/11.
This review was written in April of 2010.  In February of 2011, the “owner” of Playa Del Carmen sent me an email demanding that I remove the review, or that she (?) would … take further legal measure or something.  She (?) then called me a “racist idiot (…) white trash,” and also demanded that I remove all comments from the post.  Reviews have been consistently protected under the 1st amendment of the US Constitution, so, instead of removing this review, I’ve decided to post her (?) email’s & cherish her comments for all time.  You can scroll down towards the bottom of this review for a quick view.  Yet, here is the review as originally posted:

My first reaction to driving by the recently opened Playa Del Carmen, on Main St., in Holden, MA, was “oh no, as if this restaurant locale could get any worse.”  Many remember the litany of failed restaurants that have opened on 700 Main St in Holden… From “O’Leary’s” crummy looking Irish pub, to the knockoff Italian joint/Brothel that was there before, nothing could keep itself open at the location for very long.  When I saw a Mexican restaurant opening in Holden, the Worcester county town renowned for entirely mediocre food, I wasn’t very optimistic.  After construction was complete and the knockoff-Irish exterior was replaced with knockoff-Mexican, I considered it dead-on-arrival.  Playa Del Carmen, though, came recommended to me by two co-workers and then, finally, by family, and on a whim I decided to stop by on Saturday night.

We arrived around 7:30pm on Saturday evening, a time that would deal you an hour+ wait at Mezcal, but we were sat immediately.  The ugly, cheap exterior revealed a low-class but comfortably non-assuming Mexican-style interior.  Playa Del Carmen is really the opposite of Mezcal.  At Mezcal, you have twenty-something hipster beauties who seat you, with the typical rejected model bar staff, classy interiors with a unique mix of scenester texmex married to modern place-settings.  Playa Del Carmen, on the other hand, overdoes the fake Mexican look, with Mexican flags, paintings of Mexico, sombreros, and fake pizazze all over the interior.  Sure, this is a complete fraud in Holden Massachusetts, an entirely yuppie, WASP town that has a stick so far up its ass that restaurants have to unbrand themselves just to open up shop (which always made me chuckle that Holden thinks itself better than, say, McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts).  So, to escape Everytown, USA and walk into a place that felt cheap and inauthentic and unassuming felt … good.

I was greeted by a hostess who was speaking legitimate Spanish on the telephone.  I was stunned.  Spanish? In Holden?! While the US doesn’t have an official language, I had always assumed it was some sort of crime to do that in Holden, but nevertheless, I was sort of impressed.  We sat down and looked at the menus:  poor production quality, canned photos of some of the food, but a pretty decent sized menu and easy to hunt through what I was looking for.  Yelp Reviews of Playa Del Carmen mention some negatives about the waitstaff, which I noticed too — our waiter outright forgot things every 3 seconds, he stared at my girlfriend, forgot to bring me my drink, and so on — but because he struck me as an authentic person working at this restaurant, instead of a 17-year-old airhead or college student home on spring break, I didn’t mind so much.

The draught menu was sparse:  Sam Seasonal, Stella, Budlight, Watchusett.  The bottled menu was typical domestics and lousy imports, with the standard mix of South and Central American beers (I wanted to say cervesa, but let’s not fool ourselves, I am the least worldly person on Earth).  Regardless, nobody should order beer at a Mexican style restaurant, man up and get a margarita.  I will never be ashamed of ordering a margarita.  I am, unabashedly, a beer guy, but I order margaritas every six months or so, and y’know what,  I love them.  Give me the girliest looking glass, with the fruitiest looking straw, put it on the rocks, and you bet your ass I’m getting salt around the rim.  Even if you want to put some fruit around it, just so that there is no doubt in anybody’s mind that I am drinking a feminine drink, by all means, do so.  We ordered “big” margaritas: $12 for the Presidente rita and $10 for a house strawberry rita.  The Presidente tasted good, but I’m going to bet that it was house brandy… I don’t really care because it was strong.  This is one part of the Yelp reviews that I disagree with:  my drink nearly put me on my ass and a few times it turned my face into the impeccable image of pain when I hit pure liquor sitting at the bottom of my drink.  However, for $12, that’s what I wanted.

Playa Del Carmen serves you heaping bowls of tortilla chips, and they’re good and salty, and their salsa is spicy, watery, but good.  If you’re looking for chunky salsa, this isn’t it, but the flavor is good and I got a couple refills of chips.  They also prepare homemade guacamole at the table upon request, but we weren’t interested:  I have heard that the presentation is lacking and that the guac isn’t worth the wait.  Contrast this with Mezcal, which you should visit primarily for their homemade guac.

I ordered a steak chimichunga and my girlfriend ordered chicken fajitas.  The food came out at different times which was frustrating, we waited about 2 minutes longer for my chimichunga… This is something that really bothers me when eating, but it wasn’t the end of the world here because the sizzling chicken had to cool down before my girlfriend could eat it.  The fajitas were liberally served:  large portions of meat, five or six tortillas, plenty of sour cream, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and everything else that you expect.  This was a welcome surprise when an order of fajitas at most restaurants gets you three sparsely decorated fajitas and a high price tag.  My chimichunga was good, lightly fried, the meat was well cooked, and it taste good.  I would have liked more sour cream inside mine, but that is a preference.  The rice served with both meals was not dry and tasted good.  The refried beans were disgusting.  I love black beans and I love baked beans, but there’s something about refried beans that make me want to barf… I can never quite figure out if it is because they look like wet dog food or if because they taste like wet dog food.   Nevertheless, the refried beans were about as disgusting as refried beans that you will get anywhere.

The total bill came to about $55, with drinks included, and it fed us well.  Drinks were a bit expensive but the food was reasonably priced, and while the service wasn’t stellar, it also wasn’t bad either.

Playa Del Carmen’s best asset, though, is the convenient location for Worcester West-Siders or Northerners who are looking to get something different without having to go to Shrewsbury St, Green Island, or elsewhere.  It’s an eyesore sitting on the immaculately designed and decorated Holden Main Street, but, for some reason, that feels really appropriate… as if the owners of Playa Del Carmen are kind of sticking it to the man by opening a fraudulent looking, but delightfully unassuming Mexican restaurant in the heart of Main Street USA.

Update, 2/23/2011

So I thought I’d share some of this information.  I received an email tonight from a “Fabiola6@yahoo.com” with this to say:

Hi I am the Owner of Playa Del Carmen in Holden Ma, I have read a review from MY resturant in your website without our consent, I need you to remove the entire comments and Reviews from your site ASAP! You have 48 hours to respond before I take further action.

Thank you.

I apologize I must have read the wrong  review. Thank you for taking the time to do the review

I just checked and I though you were the one who yelped a bad review and I made a huge mistake sorry. I’m just a fan of the restaurant not the owner lol.. I was trying to do a nice thing for my fav place sorry

You are just a RACIST Idiot!!!!!! If you are this racist why did you go eat there???????? Jerk! Go to your Fricking Mcdonal’s or Dunkin you White Trash!

Tagged as: Holden, margarita, Mexican