Tasting Journey #14 - Primo's Mexican Grill

Primo's Mexican Grill
4509 W. 12th Ave.
Vancouver, BC
604-736-9322
http://www.primoson12th.com/


Located in the Vancouver westside, and on the corner of West 12th & Granville Street, I read that Primo's is a locals favourite.  I've gone by this place many times, but never had I noticed that there is a Mexican restaurant at that intersection.  It just happened that the other day, I was checking out the deals on Groupon, and Primo's offered a $15 for $30 worth of food.  Since it is close to where I live, and since I really need to work harder on completing my restaurant goal, I - without hesitation - clicked Buy.  I knew that I had half a year to find someone to go try it out with me.

The restaurant, from the outside, looked more like a high-end steak house to me.  No typical Mexican red & green colours on the exterior wall, no fancy cactus deco, and no sombrero hat mascot indicating that this is a Mexican restaurant.  From the inside, the restaurant was dimly lit, and was only 2/3rd full (maybe because it was Sunday night?).  No endless pages of menu selection which made it easy to choose from.  Prices were in the range of $20 +/-, more on the higher-priced end for Mexican maybe? 

Similar to most of the Mexican restaurants I've been to, we were served a basket of tortillas as soon as we sat down.  I wasn't super hungry so we ended up ordering 2 tapas and 1 main entree to share.  Deep fried jalapeno stuffed with cream cheese, Jumbo prawns sauteed in spicy garlic butter, and a very basic chicken fajita.  The jalapeno was a good appetizer to start (but only tasted good while it remained warm), and the basic chicken fajita was nothing but ordinary.   The jumbo prawns were by far my favourite for the night.  The prawns sat in a pool of garlic butter with chili peppers.  I loved the extreme garlic-ness of the dish, and the spiciness of the chili peppers.  The dish came with a thick slice of french bread which I easily gobbled up by dipping it in the garlic butter.  To top it off (and to wash down the spiciness), we ordered a pint of Cerveza (beer in Spanish).  Perfect blend for the dinner. 

It is a restaurant worth trying out...even better with the Groupon discount.  Without it, we would be looking at a $55 dinner 2 people.