too much fat on stead and plantains dry. after reading all the great reviews, i expected a very positive experience atcafekacao. i tried to take my family to dine here last sunday and called at 12pm - the male on the phone stated that they were out of food and would be closing at 1pm; this is understandable being mother's day and thus has no effect on this review. i went with a friend today at 3pm, 5/14/11 and there were two other groups in the restaurant. the interior was decorated nicely. we wanted to try the horchata, guatemalean hot chocolate, or atol de elote, but none of these were available.
my friend ordered the tikal breakfast and i chose the carne asada. a soup with elbow macaroni and green onions was brought to us - it was lukewarm but was nice as a starter. our previous experiences with guatemalean food were our three visits to cocina guatelinda, thus comparison will be made with them.cafekacao looks more upscale and appealing compared to guatelinda. our two entrees came out and was very elegant - the plating is done very well. the potato salad looks better than at guatelinda - as for taste , they were almost identical. my friend liked his eggs. i had his sausage and it was very good. when it came to the main item on our plates, the flank steaks, it was terrible. they look gorgeous on the plate and fancier than guatelinda, but after taking a bite, it's obvious that appearance alone will not guarantee a delicious steak. there wasn't much flavor in it and a ton of fat on it! my friend had to spit out his first bite as it was too difficult to chew and proceeded to cutting out much of the fat; half of his flank steak could not be eaten due to the amount of fat on it. my steak was also bland but had slightly less fat. still, this is much more fat than the flank steaks at guatelinda (i don't recall ever having to cut out fat on their steaks).the beans were decent, but the spanish rice tasted similar to packaged spanish rice. we finish what we could of the steak and proceeded to the plantains. they were fried but were not warm in temperature and very dry, as if they had been cooked in the morning and served hours later. we decided we better skip the dessert.
cafekacao wins on interior looks and plating but it comes down to taste and unfortunately it's mediocre at best. i kept wishing i was at guatelinda instead. improvements could be made by using better cuts of steak and cooking the plantains once they're ordered.