Sunday, November 01, 2015

Breakfast at Camila's Morelia

Image from Camila's website
It was after 1:00 p.m., a rainy day in Morelia, and I wanted a substantial breakfast, having missed it that morning; in a nice place with comfortable, indoor seating. Camila's filled those needs very nicely.

Image from Camila's website
There's "free" valet parking, even though the parking lot is immediately behind the capacious restaurant. What the hell. Why not?

Camila's is well staffed and the personnel were very courteous and welcoming. We were asked if we wanted desayuno or comida, and we were pleased that desayuno was still being served into the early afternoon. (In reality, the comida buffet was still being set up and wouldn't have been ready until about when we were finishing breakfast.)

There are several dining areas and we were ushered into what I think is the largest. It's casual but nicely appointed. It has the feel of a non-formal dining room in a contemporary hotel.

The breakfast menu has attractive paquetes on one side and more varied a la carte options on the others. The paquetes almost all are $135 but go up to  $205 for Carne Asada a la Tampiqueña. The a la carte menu lists a number of dishes ranging from mostly $85 to $155 for Cecina con Chilaquiles.

Breakfast package menu
The paquetes include pan dulce, pan salado (nice looking rolls that we didn't eat), jugo and plato de frutas, café americano, or chocolate or (I think) tea as well as the plato fuerte. These paquetes are a good value, depending on which you order. The table adjacent to ours got a Carne Asada that looked luscious.

Breakfast a la carte menu

Doña Cuevas ordered Huevos Motuleños, an attractive and elaborate egg dish. I tasted a dab of the underlying tomato sauce and it seemed to be made from crushed fresh tomatoes. O.k; so the beans were brown, not the traditional black, but they were good.

Huevos Motuleños
I had Trapo Viejo, scrambled eggs with seasonings and shredded beef. It was o.k. but not memorable. Our platos came with tostones, disks of fried plátano macho, which were o.k, although not one of my favored foods.

Trapo Viejo
The table salsa was thick, tasty and medium picante.

We both had jugo verde from a choice of orange, carrot, verde and grapefruit (which was out.) It was pretty good.

Other than the papaya and watermelon, the fruit on the fruit plate was underripe.

Coffee was just acceptable but not great.

Service was good overall, but we did have to request more coffee and tortillas, but then they came promptly.

Restrooms were nice.

Here's a rating summary. (I have decided to start rating on a 10 point, rather than a 5 point scale, for more precision. With this new system, a "1" is very poor, a "5" is average, and so on, up the scale of merit to a nearly unattainable "10")

FOOD: 7
SERVICE: 9

Cost: Average $135 PP plus tip

Ambience: Casual Contemporary Mexican

Restrooms: Clean, spacious and functional

WiFi: Open network, no password needed. What a pleasure! However, the signal faltered in the later part of our breakfast.

We would eat there again, trying something other than breakfast.

There's a Comida Buffet offered, served from about 2:00 to 6:00 I took a passing look at this, especially the cold items. The hot foods were awkward to photograph because the steam table inserts were covered with plastic lids. A small but nice looking salad bar, then hot foods, pescado en salsa, pork, chicken, etc. There were plenty of carbs and less protein, in my quick view. But you could make a quite satisfactory meal from the buffet. The buffet line ended in a modest selection of desserts. Buffet price is a modest $115 pesos.

There's also a separate, a la carte list of grilled meat cuts. Naturally, those items are more expensive.

Grilled meats and fish menu
Address: Calzada Ventura Puente 1661, 58290 Morelia, MICH
Phone: 01 443 315 5062
Hours: Open today · 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Web site http://camilas.com.mx/

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