Are they still BYO?

John Danza wrote:Are they still BYO?

The now serve alcohol, but they might allow you to bring a bottle (with, I'd suppose, some kind of corkage fee).

Yes, they do allow you to bring alcohol with a corkage fee - I cannot remember how much it was, but it was not bad. The manager/host seems to sigh a lot, and he sighed quite heavily about me bringing wine. But it was not a problem once we got past that, and when I met him it did seem to be just that - he sighs. Not anything really about the wine I brought.

Good to know about the BYOB still being ok. I don't mind a reasonable corkage (no more than $15). I'll try them out soon. I need a place for the May Wine & Food Society dinner due to a last minute change, so this place might be a good option.

Thanks much.
John

Is this place still in business? We drove around today and could not find it. The space across from the Olive Garden is empty, totally gutted .

They're not across from Olive Garden, they're on the same side in the little strip mall to the north. They're in the same little strip as Casual Male.

Is this place still in business? We drove around today and could not find it.

That's what I did for an hour for an event which I planned!

The location may leave something to be desired; I hope it's not hampering the business too much, as some of the plates we had were sublime. Others were a little goofy.

Macarena is still open and they seem to be doing alot more business than ever before. I have gone there many times now, mostly on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nites and each time they have been swamped. I've learned my lesson.. make reservations! Since they are so small, if you do not, you will get stuck at the table right by the swinging door that goes into the kitchen. Not the best place to be! Most of the dishes that I have had there are outstanding. One of my absolute favorites that I can't get enough of are the Goat Cheese Croquetas. These are sublime! They are so delicately crunchy on the outside and all melty and wonderful on the inside. Then they have the perfect touch of honey and balsamic vinegar to go with them on the plate. I swear I could eat these all day!. Another favorite is the smoked salmon plate. The salmon is excellent and served with some capers and a mustard sauce that goes well with the salmon. There were some very crunchy crisps as well. These were a bit too crunchy for my liking though. My dining companion, on one visit, tried the Albondigas, beef meatbals, which were ok. They had good flavor and were very filling but were nothing out of the ordinary. As filling as they were, I would save the room for something more special.

The sangria is good. The pitcher is a great deal. It seems like a bottomless pit as it always seems like there is more in there I've had some of the fruit flavors like the peach and the passionfruit which I thought were just ok. Almost too light in flavor. The passionfruit tasted almost just like the peach.
Next time I will have the red and see if that tastes the same!

For desserts, I highly recommend the rice pudding! This is fantastic!!! It is so rich and creamy and wonderful with the cinnamon and fruit that is in it. YUM!

I really enjoy this place alot. They do a wonderful job. I have recommended it to all of my friends and many of them have gone there and loved it. Service needs to step up at times and they really do need to get their website up after all this time but besides that, I really hope they stay around for a long time!

I finally found this place and went on Saturday for lunch with 2 others. The whole time we were there, 12:30 to 1:30, we were the only people there. We started off with 3 tapas, patatas aioli, solomillo en toastadas, and yes, a chocolate covered date with garlic and pistachios. The potatoes were very garlicky and we were served a very large portion, everything else came in groups of 4 which is awkward for 3 people. The solomillo was wonderfull, very tender topped with manchego cheese and a balsamic reduction. I wound up getting 3 of these, we had one vegetarian and the other didn't care for the taste of the balsamic which was a little heavy handed. The dates were not to my liking and I could not taste any garlic, I didn't finish my one. For our next round we got the warm goat cheese in a tomato sauce, a blackened salmon covered in a orange-honey cream sauce and a portabello stuffed with goat cheese. The portabello was ok, the goat cheese ok but the salmon had a strong fish smell that urned me off. What I missed from the many other tapas places I have been to is a great sauce left in the bottom of the serving dish that demanded being sopped up with bread. Everywhere else we have gone through several baskets of bread, here I think I used 2 pieces because all the tapas are served very neatly put together for you, almost dainty. For being the only people in the place, the service was cold and impersonal, nothing was explained just brought to the table and set down without comment. Each time we ordered we had to ask him to come over to the table even though he was standing in the room and looking right at us. The check was brought without offer of dessert or coffee. Water was never refilled though he did grab my friend's sangria glass and ask "another?" to which she said no. The manager came in about 1, walked right past us and headed to the back. He came out, fiddled with something at the hostess station which was right next to us and never said a word. When we left, no one said good bye much less thank you. The food was ok, the service odd considering every time something was brought out we were very profuse with oh and ah's and thank you's. We all eat in nice places and are used to fine dining, we're not rubes, unless they just pegged us for 3 ladies out shopping at the Fox Valley Mall and got lost thinking this was the Olive Garden.

Has anyone been to Macarena lately? (We have been here but it was 2+ years ago.) Is the service better than the last report? We are looking for a place in Naperville/Aurora or west for a family graduation dinner for 6 or 7. The grandparents prefer smaller portions so tapas sounded like the right menu. Meson Sabika is another possibility - it beats Macarena for ambience but how does the meal compare?

My wife and i were going to a late movie at Hollywood Palms last night so we went to Macarena for dinner. We got there around 6:30 and the place was quiet, but by 7:15 all of the tables were filled except one. We did the all-you-can-eat option for $19;95/person. This option allows you to order off of a special menu and everyone at the table has to choose AYCE. You can't mix AYCE and ala carte at the same table. The AYCE menu had more choices than the ala carte menu. We also ordered a carafe of their red sangria. The total bill including tax and tip (20% gratuity is automatically added to the check. This is clearly stated on the menu) was around $75.

There are some rules around the AYCE option. You can order no more than three items per person at a time and you have to finish those before ordering another round. Also, the rules state that no dish can be ordered more than twice per person. They also do not allow you to take home leftovers.

So, on to the food. We took advantage of the AYCE concept and tried many different dishes. There wasn't anything that we didn't like, but some stood out, and some were just OK. The lentil soup was one of those that was just OK. It would have benefitted greatly by some salt, but salt and pepper weren't on any of the tables. The Spinach Salad with Grilled Pear, Dried Cranberries, Sun Dried Tomatoes, Walnuts and Bleu Cheese with Raspberry Vinaigrette was by far the standout on the cold tapas menu, with the Beet Salad with Bleu Cheese and Almonds coming in second. The flavors of the spinach salad were bold, and we tried that before the beet salad, which was a much subtler dish. I think if we had them in the opposite order the beet salad may have gotten better scores.

On the hot side, the Seafood Chowder with Crunchy Ham was excellent. I also really liked the Tilapia with an Artichoke Spinach Sauce and the Bacon Wrapped Scallops over Romesco Sauce. The salsa on the Grilled Chicken with Avocado Salsa Verde was good, but the chicken was overcooked and a little dry. To me, the star of the hot tapas was the Mussels with Noodles in a Spicy Tomato Sauce. There were 8 nicely cooked mussels and the spicy tomato sauce was quite spicy and had a nice flavor. My wife's favorites on the hot side were the Oven Baked Goat Cheese with Tomato Sauce, the Beef Tenderloin Skewer with Caramelized Onions and Horseradish Sauce and the Beef Tenderloin with Red Wine Sauce and Bleu Cheese. She ordered the last one twice. But, the standout for both of us was the Dates wrapped in bacon served with honey. these were perfectly cooked every time with the bacon nice and crispy. We ended up ordered these three times. We ordered them the last time as a "dessert" while we finished the last of the sangria.

Overall, I would recommend Macarena if you are in the area. Is it worth a drive from the city just to go there? I'm not sure. The food and service were good (although the kitchen slowed down somewhat as the place filled up). I haven't tried Meson Sabika yet (one day, soon) but Macarena was good enough that we'll go back, and for the price, the AYCE option is hard to beat.

Macarena Tapas
618 S. Route 59
Naperville, IL
630-420-8995
http://www.macarenatapasnaperville.com/

Took my wife to Macarena on Saturday night as she has been wanting to try it for some time and we just keep missing it for some reason.

Reservation was at 7pm and the tight space was packed (est. 12 tables, mostly 4 tops but some tables pushed together). 3 small "patio tables" set up out front full as well. Small space + packed house = very loud, but not necessarily a bad thing.

Table for 2 was reserved, so we sat down immediately. It was a two top right off the back next to the kitchen door, but honestly every seat in the place heard a ton of clanking dishes and waitstaff hustling all over. Very chaotic, but I kind of expected that with tapas as people are continually ordering (I saw a AYCE sign for $19.99, but I think it was advertising it for Monday night or something). Anyway, there were obvious miscues going on in the kitchen as sometimes our dishes were brought to us a second (or in one case, a third) time, or once a dish came that we had not ordered (yet). But I passed this off as it was the manager and hostess helping with delivery, not our waitress, so I'm sure those dishes found their proper home table a few minutes later.

The consequence of multiple people on the serving end though was that, sure you got what you ordered, but it might have been out of someone elses order. By this I mean, some dishes came out piping hot, others came that were cooled down considerably. Made you wonder if your dish was grabbed for another table, or vice versa.

The waitstaff could not have been friendlier. Water continually refilled. Very friendly older woman was our waitress, explained the process (our first time there) and continually checked up on us. Floor manager also checked in on us while also delivering/clearing plates.

Just about everything we had was very good. We've been spending so much time at LaQuebrada and La Quinte de la Reyes in Aurora, it was good to take a step back "to the old country" per se and try dishes of a more Spanish nature.

We started with the Jamon y Manchengo which is the Serrano ham slices with aged cheese, olives and peppers. That was very good.

Popcorn soup was next. Just had to try it for the pure novelty factor. Didnt notice chocolate covered anything on the menu, so we went with this. It was interesting, a corn chowder with popcorn garnish. Wouldnt have it again but we were there to try a few new things and it fit that category.

Esparragos a la Plancha Pimientos (grilled asparagus w/ roasted pepper) arrived with Abondigas Champinones Salsa (spicy beef meatball). Both of these were very good. I could have eaten two more orders of Abondigas as its 6 meatballs were just perfect.

Next were scallops wrapped in bacon with avacado chutney sauce and chipotle aiola, these were just okay as we believe we received someone else's order which was just warm, as 5 minutes later a second plate arrived with steam visibly coming off everything. I think that was probably our real plate. It was still good, but was actually my wifes first try of scallops, so I warned her to try them again as these were "held" a bit.

Patatas Bravas (spicy potatoes in a tomato sauce with jalepeno and chipotle) knocked it out of the park. Best dish of the night. Nearly an entire second loaf of bread brought to our table was used to sop up the rest of the sauce.

Queso Alcachofas, Tomato y Jalepeno was a nice cheese and spicy tomato sauce served on large "Texas Toast" sized pieces of bread. Another winner!

The last dish of the evening, was a clear miss. Tilapia con salsa with spinach and artichoke. I ordered the beef (abondigas) while my wife gravitates toward fish selections. This tilapia should not have been served. I'm guessing farm raised as my wife instantly had a sour look that I just had to try to believe. Did not smell "fishy" at all, outside seared with a lemon pepper taste, but then once the flesh touched your tongue, you tasted it. It tasted like my fish tank smells after an algae outbreak. I don't think the fish went "bad", I just beleive it spent its entire life in a high algae environment and it permeated it flesh.

We mentioned this to our charming waitress, she took the dish, comped it off the bill and wanted to replace it free of charge. We declined, only because we were now 2+ hours into a beautiful evening but were getting full. So she comped us one of the Sangria's (which my wife said were fantastic, btw). Waitress also gave us a couple of $15 off cards for our next visit. She asked if we had Groupon, so that might have explained some of the crowd. We did not.

All in all, we will definitely be back. Its 10 minutes from our house and with a slightly less crowded night, would be a little better conversation wise. Still, we loved the experience of the new place (to us).

Now we want to try Meson Sabika to compare. Hey Ronelle, maybe we should set something up?!

It is a GREAT place to go at lunch. When I arrived there at NOON today, there was only one table filled.

I had the smoked salmon dish and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and quantity of the smokes salmon on the plate. The avocado and paprika "tartar sauce were very good and the caviar was a surprise.

The bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin was quite excellent. I was surprised how tender and moist the pork was and the almond crust on top was a flavorful addition.

Two dishes was about all I could eat in one setting.