A note on the words: the Las Vegas Strip is the stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard the big casino hotels stand on, and Mandalay Bay is one of them. Calle is Spanish for street, so calle tacos are the small soft-tortilla tacos sold from street stands, and nachos are tortilla chips baked under melted cheese and piled with toppings. Azuki are the small red beans that Japanese confectionery cooks down into sweet paste, which is why beans served savory can catch a Japanese palate off guard. Prices are in US dollars.
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Border Grill Mandalay Bay on Tabelog (in Japanese) — Tabelog has no English pages for restaurants outside Japan, so this listing is in Japanese. Opening hours and payment details are kept up to date there, not here.
Hello, this is Hangover Meshi. So, I was attending a conference at Mandalay Bay and lunchtime came around, so I decided to try a place I had my eye on. It is a Mexican restaurant inside the Mandalay Bay hotel, a place called “Border Grill.” It was fairly busy, so I made a reservation and came back 30 minutes later.
It says real mexican food, after all! I am looking forward to this.
Thirty minutes on, I was shown inside, and was surprised by how much larger the room was than I had expected.
This was in fact the second floor, with a wide floor below.
CALLE TACOS — $19
CRISPY DIABLO CAULIFLOWER TACOS — $24
SPICY SHRIMP TACOS — $24
FISH TACOS — $22
We ordered the tacos one kind each, plus a single order of nachos to pick at together. The tacos I chose were the Calle tacos! For the nachos we went with the steak nachos. $22!
Right, it is lunch, but a beer all the same.
Even a Corona costs $9! Steep.
Ta-da. Finely cut meat piled on top. Behind them are rice and — what would this be — something like azuki without the sweetness ha Beans, that is. Beans I am not very familiar with ha The tacos are properly good. Real Mexican, it said, and it really is the real thing.
These are the ones we each had: fish tacos in front, spicy shrimp tacos behind.
The fish ones are certainly good, but the spicy shrimp tacos were good in a very easy-to-grasp way. The spiced shrimp and the tortilla went together beautifully.
These nachos are good! Sour cream, avocado, tomato, cheese, steak, corn!
Whichever combination you take, it is good. They go well with beer, too.
So: real Mexican food in America. Well, Las Vegas is closer to Mexico than Japan is, so I shall take it that what I got to taste was closer to the real thing. Mexican felt more reasonably priced than the other food around. And it is good with it, so the value is excellent. Could we not have this in Japan too…
BorderGrill Mandalay Bay (Mexican / Las Vegas Strip)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.5
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
