Guaymas takes Mexican food to new heights

Nation's Restaurant News, June 30, 1986 by Alan Liddle

Guaymas takes Mexican food to new heights

TIBURON, Calif. -- Spectrum Foods' latest authentic cuisine concept, Guaymas (pronounced Whymass), features Mexican foods rarely found north of the border, including banana-leaf-wrapped snapper, chicken and raisin-stuffed chilies with walnut sauce and lime-avocado pie. There is not an enchilada or refried bean to be found in the place.

Competing with the exotic Mexican fare for the attention of customers is the new restaurant's spectacular view of San Francisco. Guaymas customers can marvel at the view of the skyline and the bay through large picture windows on the water-level first floor or from the 150-seat second-story patio outfitted with yuppified pink and gray deck chairs.

Though Guaymas does not offer many of the border-town foods that most people associate with Mexico, such as chiles rellenos and fried tacos, business has been brisk: More than 500 meals were served in the 150-seat dining room on its opening day, June 5; Father's Day, 10 days later, saw more than 800 covers and some very tired Guaymas employees.

The menu was compiled after several company officials embarked on a recipe-collecting safari through Mexico. Included were Spectrum cofounders Larry Mindel, now the head of Saga's restaurant division, and Jerry Magnin, who has acted as a consultant since he and Mindel sold Spectrum to Saga Corp. in 1984.

Helping refine those recipes was Franco Galli, Spectrum's maestro of cuisine.

Diana Kennedy, an author and recognized expert on Mexican food, had an indirect role in menu development. Michael Dellar, Spectrum vice president, said several company officials studied with her and were "inspired" by her teachings.

Some of the appetizers, salads and soups offered at Guaymas include "Sweating Tacos," or tortillas filled with chicken or beef, steamed in a banana leaf and served with three dipping sauces, $2.90; a mixture of fresh marinated squid, octopus, shrimp, oysters and clams, $6.35; a salad of fresh cactus strips, onions and cheese with cilantro-garlic vinaigrette, $3.50; and "Sopa De Pozole," or giant corn kernels in chicken and pork soup, served with radish, lettuce and lemon, $3.60.

ENTREES INCLUDE three types of tamales, including one of green corn masa stuffed with cactus and plantain, steamed in a corn husk and covered with Mexican cream, two for $4.20; giant shrimp--two to the pound--marinated in lime juice and cilantro and grilled over oak, $12.60; and boned double chicken breast with red chile guajillo sauce, milk and milk curds, $7.40.

Desserts range from standards like coconut custard, rice pudding and fruit ices to not-so-common goodies like fritters with "drunken" bananas, $3.75, and pecan cake with honey glaze, $3.25.

Chef Francisco Cisneros, oversees much of the food preparation from the exhibition kitchen, which houses the wood-fired spit and grill, a stove top, a salamander and a shallow frying oil pool. Around the corner is a station that produces churos, or fried, braided-rope-shaped pastries dipped in sugar and held in display cases filled with housemade Mexican candies.

The 75-seat bar serves Yankee and Mexican margaritas (the Mexican version comes sans sugar and is shaken with ice but served cubeless) as well as a large assortment of Mexican liquors and beers. Nonalcoholic agua frescas (flavored waters made from pods, flowers, grains or fruits) and jugos (fresh fruit and carrot juices) are also available.

But authenticity does not always win out at Guaymas. Concern for quality and the need to be practical occasionally get in the way.

For example, the not-so-shrimpy 8-oz. "Camarones Gigantes," or giant shrimp, are not always from south of the border because Spectrum wants to serve a fresh product. All of the seafood from Guaymas, the Mexican fishing village the restaurant is named after, is shipped frozen so the monsters served by Spectrum come from a variety of waters, including those off Taiwan.

And, while there are senoras and senoritas in charge of tortilla production,

they do not pound out the tasty morsels by hand; they tend machines that can crank out and cook up to 80 of the thin corn cakes a minute.

Also a bit out of character are the hand-held computer terminals used by servers to place orders.

The terminals enhance record keeping and cut down on the number of trips servers must make to the kitchen to post and check on orders. That translates into faster service because food can begin cooking the minute the order is punched in, and better service because waiters and waitresses can spend more time in the dining room paying attention to patrons.

Charles Frank, Spectrum president, said the hand-held terminals are expected to become of critical importance when Guaymas begins serving food on the rooftop patio.

PLANS CALLED for cocktail service only on the patio for the first few weeks, with food service to be added in stages until a regular menu and a weekend brunch menu is available there.

"There would be no way in a million years we could keep up or keep the food hot without the terminals and [food] runners from the kitchen," Frank said, predicting a logistical nightmare if patio service was instituted without the computer system.