Margarita's (Dempsey)

Fly, Cel, Chong and I met at Margarita's ( Blk 11 Dempsey Road #01-19 Tanglin Village) for dinner, and our original plan was to catch He's not that into you after that (which we didn't cos we chatted all the way till after 11pm!!). I've been wanting to check out this place (and made many many unfulfilled bookings cos somehow the dinners always got cancelled) and finally I made it here! It is always very full, and a reservation is a must.

Nachos

with Guacomole, Cheese, Chiles, Sour Cream, Refried Beans

Its one of the most colourful looking nachos I have eaten, but the tortilla chips were rather soggy, unfortunately!! I'd much prefer the ones at Cafe Iguana.

Quesadillas with Beef

Cheese Turnovers with Light Sour Cream and Guacomole

The quesadillas were nothing much to shout about - its a classic, simple, thin tortilla wrap with cheese and beef stuffing.

Baked Crab Enchilidas $34

topped with Chile Chipotle and cheese

This was our favourite dish of the night- the roll was rather small though (compared to the kitchen sink burrito) but was chokeful of real crab meat. The cheese topping was divine, when eaten with the sauce the enchilidas was fantastic.

And everyone liked it also partly cos...

The beans sauce was served with the rice on another plate! No one was a fan of the beans, except me.

Kitchen Sink Burrito

Chicken, Beef, Refried beans, Rice in Large Flour Tortillas

Topped with Salsa, Guacomole, Cheese and Sour Cream

I liked this - quite a carbo overload cos of the tortillas and the rice stuffing inside but there was a generous serving of chicken and beef inside the roll also.. This was really rich and hearty cos of all the sauces and it was a HUGE roll. But I liked it enough to also eat Cel's share. And I like my food in big portions.

After awhile, we realise Mexican food revolves around the same makings: the rice inside the roll is similar to the one served with the crab enchilidas, the beef in the kitchen sink burrito was similar to the one in the quesadillas. And there's cheese, salsa, guacomole, sour cream and (to everyone's horror) refried beans in almost every dish. I prefer Cafe Iguana over Magarita's though.

Kahlau Tiramisu $12

Don't order the overtly dry tiramisu. We should have gone for the Mexican bread and butter pudding instead.And the talk during dinner all about arcade games led to Chong and I having a sudden craving to go play air hockey - I beat her FLAT! Her reflexes are sho shlow! Haha. But the ergonomics of that air hockey table was terrible - it was too low for us tall creatures and the table was not smooth and the ?saucer always got stuck halfway in the hole.

We then went to watch Let The Right One In...It is actually a Swedish romantic horror film adapted from a novel and was highly acclaimed in last year's film festivals. It was a rather creepy show though- the child actors were brilliant. The movie explores how the young boy and girl (vampire) seek solace in their friendship and eventual relationship as they were alienated and lonely from their peers - human-human (in the case of the boy who was bullied) and human-vampire (for obvious reasons). The violence and the survival instincts of vampire hunting was juxtaposed with the equal instinct for companionship and acceptance. The cinematography was gorgeous.

The amazing thing was that I went to read Wiki about the movie and they cut off some subplots from the show - spoiler alert - that the girl was actually a boy castrated (hinted extremely subtly when she repeatedly said she was not a girl and we all thought she meant she was a vampire and in a brief dressing scene), and the part about she eventually killing the older man who collected blood for her and he becoming undead and evil, and his sick attraction to her from the start. Yes you can sense the disturbing nature of this show - the horror is not the full-fledged gruesome kind you'd expect in a horor film, but was beautifully depicted and relished on afterthought.

The most interesting part of the movie though, was that for the first time, we got popcorn delivered to us. Why? Cos we had their new Shaker Popcorn ($4.80 - only one size its a small packet) - there were different shaker seasoning - Cajun, Pizza, and Nacho Cheese. We chose the latter. What truly puzzled us was why they took SO LONG to deliver our Shaker Popcorn, and the queer thing was, it arrived unshaken - the shaker seasoning cheese powder was in a ziplock packet - they took so long and they did not even bother to shake it up for us???? Couldnt they anticipate the STARES we would get, shaking our popcorn in that paper bag in the middle of a movie?? We had to wait for a vampire attack for our vigorous shaking - but of cos we didn't get much of a chance (remember its a CHILDHOOD SWEETHEART ROMANCE, even the vampire attacks were sudden, short and sweet) so there was too much seasoning on the top most popcorn - even the savoury fan Chong couldnt take it.

Thank god we ordered another Large sweet popcorn combo ($7.80) with drinks. I ate so much popcorn (esp the shaker one it got quite addictive like Mammie can be) I was really thirsty later on.

We went on to Zouk after that and the dj was awesome and he was so whacky he had this funky gigantic panda-faced, blinking multi coloured eyed- headgear, giving us ideas for Halloween. A fellow wannabe too, with rainbow coloured stripesy shirt and rice-bowl hairdo, Chong will remember this.