One of the more interesting Pandemic-era changes around the “Lower Upper Valley” was that, while there were a lot of restaurant closures, there were also some openings of note, primarily replacing those closures. Particularly when it comes to Mexican cuisine. Newport, NH used to have an outstanding Baja Mexican place, with the odd name of The Little Red Baron, but it closed in a squabble between the town (who owned the building) and the restaurant over septic system refurbishment, and there had been a gap in the area’s Mexican offerings for a while. But, in relatively short succession in 2023, we had three Mexican places show up: Rancho Viejo in Claremont (replacing the departed Pleasant Street Restaurant), Jalisco Mexican Bar and Grill in Newport (replacing the departed and dearly-missed Country Kitchen), and the similar named Casa Jalisco Bar and Grill in Claremont. While I have been to the first two a few times, the last of these I hadn’t had a chance to check it out, and a recent event in Claremont gave me an excuse to drop in.
Casa Jalisco is in a bit of an odd location, since it’s in the back half of a commercial building on Claremont’s Washington Ave. The space has been around a while, since I remember when this was Coyote Creek, and I think the Claremont Eagles had it as a club for a while, too. But after the current owners renovated it a bit, it is actually a pretty nice restaurant space, with a spacious dining room and a nicely-renovated bar.
We started out with a pair of house margaritas. While I often look a bit eschew at house margaritas, the version served up by Casa Jalisco is quite good: a descent well tequila, and a descent lime and orange house mix, and this was decently refreshing while remaining reasonably affordable. Honestly, one of the best house margaritas in the area.
For my dinner, I selected the Chimichanga special. Unlike a lot of places serving up a single, large chimichanga, Casa Jalisco serves up a pair of smaller chimichangas, which allows you to do some mixing and matching: I got one beef and one chicken chimichanga. Served up with some fresh tomatos and a rather good guacamole, these were crisp and flavorful. The accompanying Mexican rice was nicely flavored with a lot of jalapeño, which made for a nice side.
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Carol, meanwhile, got the Casa Jalisco Special, which was an impressive array of food: a chalupa, a chile relleno, an enchilada, a burrito, a beef taco, rice, and beans. Overall, these were good, with the beef taco (not in a pre-made shell, but a freshly-fried corn tortilla) being particularly good, the enchilada having a particularly nice green chile sauce, and the chalupa having a nice, light and crisp shell. The relleno was good, but honestly I think the other “Jalisco” over in Newport does a better job with those. Overall, a reasonably good dinner at a decent price if you’re on the hungry side.
Overall, I liked Casa Jalisco, and I’m glad the area has picked up a lot of decent options for Mexican food. I find a hard to pick an overall winner between Rancho Viejo, Jalisco (Newport), and Casa Jalisco (Claremont), but all three of them are pretty good, and I think if I’m looking for Mexican food, it’ll mostly be a matter of proximity choosing amongst them, unless I’m looking for a good, cheap house margarita, where I think Casa Jalisco has the edge
