El Coyote Restaurant––

New Cuisine With An

Authentic Mexican Accent

When Carlos and Rolando Axilote opened El Coyote restaurant in the Sand Hill Plaza this year, they were not concerned about the fact that there already were Mexican restaurants in the area.

“We offer New Mexican cuisine, not the usual Tex-Mex,” Carlos explained. “We are different from other places. We have Spanish and Caribbean dishes plus a wide selection of choices like pastas and steak that have a Mexican flavor.

“We made sure we have something for everyone, even people who think they don’t like Mexican food,” he said.

The Axilote brothers grew up 60 miles southeast of Mexico City, in the state of Puebla. Both Carlos, 40, and his brother Rolando, 35, wound up in the United States, working for and eventually owning Mexican restaurants. Carlos and a partner have operated a restaurant, also called El Coyote, in Jamaica Queens, N.Y., for the past five years.

When the two brothers decided to go into business together, they leased a space that had originally been two stores in the minimall at Sand Hill Plaza. A large restaurant with three dining rooms, a waiting room, and a bar, it seats 120.

The menu is extensive, beginning with more than a dozen appetizers. Specialties of the house include fresh guacamole made tableside and served with corn tortillas, deep-fried shrimp covered with coconut flakes, and varieties of stuffed green plantains. There is Camaron a la Veracruzana, stuffed shrimp in light tomato sauce combined with sauvignon blanc, chopped onions, tomatoes and cilantro. For a taste of several appetizers, diners can order the bocadillos mixed sampler, $10, which includes cheese nachos, chicken wings, flautas, and beef empanadas.

Main courses include both entrees and platters. All entrees are served with a choice of rice and beans, vegetables, salad, house creamed potatoes, sweet ripe plantains, or green plantains.

There is a house special, Paella el Coyote, a traditional Spanish dish made with lobster, sea scallops, crab, mussels, clams, chorizo sausage, shrimp, and chicken, with rice.

“We have red snapper, salmon, and lobster both stuffed and in lobster sauce,” Carlos said.

Beef choices range from Pepper Steak served with a Spanish cabernet sauce and Steak Ranchero, served with onions and poblano peppers in a mild guajilo pepper sauce, to a traditional New York-style sirloin steak.

There are traditional Mexican dishes such as Mole Poblano, a boneless chicken breast in a traditional mild mole poblano sauce, and Pollo en Salsa Verde, boneless chicken breast in a green tomatillo sauce. There are chimichangas, taquitos, enchiladas, fajitas, chiles rellenos, burritos, tacos, and tostadas, too.

The mole sauce, made up of a large variety of dried Mexican chili peppers, is a special blend prepared by the Axilote brothers’ mother in Mexico. “It’s an authentic Mexican flavor, not like the spice blend that you buy in jars here,” Rolando said. “It’s the real stuff from the real source.”

Salad lovers have a large selection for lunch or dinner including a tropical salad with marinated breast of chicken, pineapple, cantaloupe, and mangos tossed with guava dressing over field greens.

Entrée prices range from $8 for a Mexican sandwich or $9 for a combination platter to $18 for the house special paella (which takes 45 minutes to prepare but is worth the wait).

The restaurant offers dinner specials on the weekend. A special children’s menu includes choices like chicken fingers and a small hamburger for kids with unadventurous tastes.

El Coyote is open 11 am to 10 pm Sunday through Thursday, and 11 to 11 on Friday and Saturday. A mariachi band plays on Thursdays through Sundays from 6 to 10 pm. Major credit cards are accepted. For reservations call 426-5755.

 

Pollo Y Camaron

(Chicken & Shrimp Sauté)

3 slices chicken breast

3 large shrimp

Fresh herbs (oregano, parsley, cilantro), chopped

Finely chopped garlic

1 Tbs olive oil

Margarine

1 cup beef stock

1 Tbs red wine

Finely chop garlic and herbs and combine with olive oil. Coat the chicken and marinate for at least three hours in the refrigerator. Clean and devein the shrimp.

The beef stock should be cooked until it is thick enough to use as a demiglaze. Add 1 Tbs red wine and cook for three more minutes to evaporate the alcohol.

 Melt some margarine in a sauté pan (do not use butter as it will burn) and cook the chicken on one side, turn over, and add the shrimp, cooking until done. Pour the sauce over. Serve with yellow rice and black beans on the side.

Serves 1.