Mi Cocina: The Mambo Taxi

You’re at a dinner party.  Everyone you know is there alongside—more importantly—everyone you want to know.  Someone brings up the name of a movie (let’s just randomly title this film “The Shape of Water”).  Before you can say a word, everyone is raving about the film.  Your friends are raving.  The people you wish were your friends are raving.  The Shape of Water is amazing, Oscar-worthy stuff, and anyone who doesn’t like it, says the crowd, is a tasteless rube. 

The West Village Mi Cocina patio is great for dogs and humans alike.

Here’s the thing:  you’ve seen this movie.  And you know to a moral certainty it’s not that great. More importantly, you’re not a tasteless rube.  Has everyone lost their minds?  Are the beautiful people, in fact, abject morons?  Someone should say something—you should say something.  But you don’t want to rock the boat. After all, you like dinner parties and you want friends.  You want to be invited back to this party.  So after initial resistance, you quiet your inner-critic and shelve these questions.  You put the knowledge that The Shape of Water really isn’t very good into the deep recesses of your mind.  Soon enough you’re nodding along with the crowd, smiling and laughing.  The cool, comforting wave of Stockholm Syndrome washes over your mind.  The Shape of Water is one of the greatest movies ever made.  You are in the sunken place. Actually, you’re just at Mi Cocina.  And the ‘movie’ is, in fact, a margarita called the Mambo Taxi.

If you’re reading this blog, you’re likely familiar with both Mi Cocina and the Mambo Taxi. To the uninitiated few, Mi Cocina is the Dallas Mexican food franchise of record and the Mambo Taxi is its bell cow.  Component wise, the drink is simple.  It’s a house frozen margarita—made with Sauza Silver Tequila—mixed with a swirl of sangria (and, depending on who you ask, Chambord), traditionally garnished with salt and a lime.

Conan O'Brian...enjoying (?) a Mambo Taxi with Angie Harmon.

Despite its basic ingredients, the drink’s popularity is extraordinary.  Menus at other Dallas Mexican restaurants actually refer to some of their own margaritas as “our version of the Mambo Taxi,” the basic equivalent of “sorry you’re not at Mi Cocina, we’ll try to make it up to you.”  The drink has been on Conan. Beginning each Thursday at 5 pm thousands of people (many of them attractive women with an unfortunate attachment to rompers) throughout the city can be heard asking each other those two, oh-so-Dallas questions: (1) “Happy Hour?!” (2) “Mambos!?” 

If the tone of the review hasn’t given it away, let me be clear: The Mambo Taxi is overrated.  It’s obnoxiously sweet, likely a consequence of the sangria/Chambord swirl mix. An unfortunate byproduct of this is a sugar crash and accompanying feeling of bloat that almost-inevitably results in the hours after consumption.  What’s more, the drink’s consistency is often disappointing.  A frozen margarita—swirl or not—should be served at a temperature cold enough to ensure the drink is rich and relatively-thick when presented. Personally, I use the ‘Straw Test;’ i.e., if your straw cannot easily stand upright by itself in the drink when served, the margarita is not sufficiently frozen. But far too many times at various Mi Cocina locations, the drink comes out watery, which only exacerbates the margarita’s already-overdone sweetness.  Indeed, even speedier drinkers are likely to find that, after the first third of the drink is gone, the remainder is a loose, syrupy, reddish slush.

One example of a product offered by Mi Cocina better than the Mambo Taxi.

Staunch defenders of the Mambo will point to its alleged ‘stoutness’ as a virtue.  But the fact that you’ve witnessed groups of twenty-something Dallas women adorned in ‘Brunch So Hard’ tank tops and floppy hats stumble out of your local Mi Cocina like a group of soaked newborn giraffes says more about the people than the cocktail.  If you drink margaritas at any kind of regular interval you’re likely to find the Mambo Taxi is of average strength.  And the most pronounced and lingering effects of this cocktail—for the typical margarita consumer—will result from the sugar, not the alcohol content.

Ultimately, the Mambo Taxi is patently average.  It’s certainly not a ‘bad’ margarita.  I’ve drank it before, and I’ll undoubtedly drink it again. And, to be clear, Mi Cocina—along with its numerous Dallas spin offs which also offer the Mambo—is a good restaurant that serves some great entrees and (at its Highland Park and West Village locations in particular) provides some of the most exceptional people watching the city has to offer outside of Nick and Sam’s.  All at a completely reasonable price point.

 But a margarita with this much hype, that is purportedly seminal to the ‘Dallas Experience’ must be judged—in no small measure—against its own reputation.  If you think that’s unfair consider this: how many times have you heard a Dallas newcomer be told “you have to try the Mambo Taxi”?  How many people have missed out on better margaritas—including better margaritas at Mi Cocina—for no other reason than reputation?  No, Dallas, you don’t have to try a Mambo Taxi.

Also, The Shape of Water isn’t that great.

Final Score:  2.5 Limes