Agua Verde Cafe & Paddle Club

Yesterday I had the pleasure of eating at Agua Verde Cafe & Paddle Club (aguaverde.com/cafe.shtml).  I had never heard of the place but my mother suggested we try it out.  I am always willing to take a chance on a new restaurant so off we went.

One huge plus about this cafe is the setting.  It's located at 1303 NE Boat Street in the University district of Seattle.  It sits right on the water, a peaceful environment for eating a meal.  The place is so focused on the outdoors that they even rent kayaks out.  Adventurous people can go on a kayak excursion and then, after being exhausted from hours of paddling, eat great Mexican food.  We went out for an early dinner on a beautiful day, one of the most gorgeous days we have seen in Seattle lately, so the the place was packed.  The front was crammed full of people drinking margaritas to kill time as they waited for tables.  The margaritas looked delicious but sadly I didn't have one.

They told us it would be a 40 minute wait and we were ok with that.  This wasn't an issue, as it would take longer to find a new restaurant.  Luckily the wait wasn't even 40 minutes.  In only a half hour we were happily seated on the deck outside.  The air was warm and we watched the kayaks pass by as we waited for our food.  We even saw a 6 person kayak slide past us.  They were putting a huge amount of effort into their paddling and I was very glad to be on the porch relaxing instead of dealing with an intense workout in the middle of the lake.

Now to the best part, the food!  I had salmon tacos and they were delicious.  The flavor of the salmon was strong and the portions were great, three tacos with tons of salmon.  They didn't skimp at all.  The tacos came with black beans and green rice and I was glad to see they didn't try to fill me up on rice, as some restaurants tend to do.  At first I was disappointed that they didn't have refried beans but it ended up being fine.  The flavor of the black beans was rich and certainly as good as any refried beans I've tasted.

My mom had pork gorditos and salad with avocado on it.  I didn't try the gorditos because I don't eat pork, but I tried the salad and it was fine.  It was definitely far better than any salad I know how to make, but it wasn't something I would rave to my co-workers about the next day.  I definitely liked my dish better than the salad.

The waitress was nice and quick.  We didn't have to wait long for our food at all.  Even if we had a longer wait, I still wouldn't have been annoyed because we had that great view of the water and the kayaks.  One small thing is she never filled up my water glass and I found myself drinking from my mom's water after finishing mine.  That really isn't a big deal though because the place was extremely busy.  I'm sure she had plenty of things to worry about besides one guy's precious water.

Also, I'm a firm believer in taking responsibility for my own actions and I chose to put a bunch of hot sauce on one of my tacos.  The sauce was far more spicy than I expected and this is the main reason why I needed so much water.  If I had been more cautious with the hot sauce, the water wouldn't have been an issue.  I highly recommend Agua Verde to anyone who enjoys Mexican food, just go easy on the hot sauce.