This past weekend, my best friend and I continued our exploration of restaurants around Jacksonville, trying new places to broaden our dining experiences in the city. This time we chose a Mexican restaurant called Las Tapatias. At first we came up to it and thought it was closed, the windows so tinted we felt disheartened and annoyed at ourselves that we failed to check their hours before driving there.

But we saw neon lights in the window as we got closer, and we soon entered a relatively small restaurant with quite a few tables of patrons.

The restaurant serves complimentary chips and salsa, a much-needed beginner to catch up with my best friend. We both ordered frozen margaritas; I opted for the mango one and she the classic. Although I’m not the biggest fan of tequila, I found this one thoroughly refreshing.

For meals, we each ordered something different to try each other’s as well. My friend chose the ibirria tacos while I got the pollo chino chipotle, a dish with two thin pieces of chicken breast with spicy, homemade chipotle sauce. It came with sides of rice, beans, salad and tortillas. Although I could not finish it all, I loved every bit; the sauce had the perfect amount of spice.

We were too full for dessert, as one often is after indulging in a good Mexican meal, but we are happy to finally mark Las Tapatias off our list and venture on to the next restaurant.

— Aoife O’Riordan, associate editor