In a city with few outstanding Mexican (or TexMex) restaurants, Mundo stands out as one of the best. Located in one of the northern buildings within the World Market Center campus, it’s one of the better off-Strip restaurants. Not only does it have wonderful food, it has an interior to match — as you’d expect from a place surrounded by a design center.
With a restaurant.com gift certificate in hand, I brought my wife here to celebrate her birthday. We started off with chips and salsa and a wonderful guacamole with diced onions and tomatoes, slices of radishes, and topped with cilantro and cotija cheese.
The chicken taquito appetizer consists of two taquitos cut in half and topped with sour cream, cotija cheese and green onions, with some lettuce and a sweet chile paste beside them. The chicken was a touch dry, but in combination with the other ingredients the flavors were excellent.
My wife’s dish was a large chile relleno stuffed with cubes of filet mignon, potatoes, wild mushrooms, and goat cheese in a smoke chile sauce. If you like a little heat, this is the dish to get. The tender beef was a great vehicle to soak up the smokiness of the sauce and deliver a bold punch of flavor to the palate.
I’m a sucker for some swine, so I went with the carnitas and they didn’t disappoint. You’d be hard pressed to find a better version in Vegas. The succulent chunks of pork was sitting in a large mound in the center of the plate with onions and cilantro on one side, avocado pico de gallo on another, and a cucumber habanero salad on the opposite side of the plate. The pork contained a balanced ratio of mostly lean meat with a little fat here and there to offset it with some additional flavor.
For dessert we had churros. The eight small pieces were filled with a caramel sauce in the center and had some additional caramel drizzled on top. Also on the plate was a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a small bowl of chocolate sauce. It would have been a great way to end the meal but they brought out one more thing after that.
An order of flan came out with a candle on top and two of the waiters sang happy birthday to my wife. I definitely wasn’t expecting them to sing. I thought they only did that type of thing at TGI Friday’s or place like that. But, it was much appreciated. As for the flan, it was unbelievably light, smooth and creamy with none of the eggy taste you get from lesser variations of the dish. Mom, I’m sorry to say this, but I’ve found flan that’s better than yours.
For drinks we had a margarita and mojito, which we were happy with and we checked in through Yelp and got a free glass of wine!
The dinner was close to being perfect, but the service could have been better. Despite our waiter being very informative and friendly, he was too busy to give any of his many, many tables *great* service. But, that’s more of a management and staffing issue than a reflection on him. The only other issue we had was when they cleared my wife’s plate (of which she only ate about half her meal) and tossed it instead of offering to box it up.
So, aside from a couple hiccups it was a successful bday dinner. One where we were able to save a bit through restaurant.com and the Yelp check-in and still have a wonderful meal. Come to think of it, the food here is a little similar to what you would get at Mesa Grill on the strip, but much cheaper.
4.5 Stars
495 S Grand Central Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89106
(702) 270-4400
