When Klyde Warren Park announced in January that a certain Tex-Mex restaurant would replace Savor, MiCo diehards were thrilled. Swilling Mi Cocina’s Mambo Taxis among neat rows of birch and natural turf grass is the glamping version of going to the park.
Not so fast. Food and drink permitting at Klyde Warren disallows liquor outside of the restaurant proper, meaning you can’t stroll around 5.2 acres of public park with those boozy Mambo Taxis in hand. (You can still imbibe them inside Mi Cocina On the Park’s restaurant space, as well as the patio.) The solution, then, is a Mambo Taxi facsimile—a cocktail cousin, if you will—made not with tequila but most likely white wine.
The recipe is still in development. A name is yet to be. The powers that be can neither confirm nor deny the presence of a sangria swirl. I’ve been informed by the PR peeps that “M Crowd guards that ‘brand’ as closely as humanly possible and won’t adjust that recipe or call any other cocktail by that name.” Fair enough. I’ve had a taste of what was previously dubbed a “wine-based Mambo Taxi” and it makes an honest-to-goodness nice frosé—or perhaps it’s a pinot freeze-io, a freisling, maybe, depending on the wine base. Either way, a specialty cocktail will be created especially for Mi Cocina On the Park when it opens this fall, sometime around September.
If you can live without the legit Mambo Taxi while on your park promenade, you can quaff the wine-based version under the sun. MiCo On the Park also plans to have a picnic program. Out of the kiosk window that used to dole out Relish’s burgers and hot dogs, you can reserve picnic baskets. There also will be an option to call Mi Cocina on the Park to place an order that someone will bring out to whatever patch to which you’ve laid claim. (See? This is glamping in the city.)
