Forest Cafe
1682 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02138 (617) 661-7810
- Hours:
Mon-Sun 11:00 a.m.-1:00 a.m. - Price Range: $$
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Parking: Street
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: No
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Delivers: No
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible: No
- Outdoor Seating: No
- Good for: Lunch, Dinner
- Alcohol: Full Bar
50 Reviews for Forest Cafe
For a city that doesnt have any great Mexican options, this is a fine place to go for south-of-the-border eats. I am always happy with the Enchiladas Tres Marias (cheese with three sauces: salsa roja, verdes, and mole from Puebla) which comes with rice and black beans. They also have a fairly extensive tequila selection if margaritas are yr thing.
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I was told that if I was looking for decent Mexican fare in the Boston area I had to come here.
I was lied to :'(
I ended up having some weird swordfish thing because their version of well, pretty much everything, was incompatible with my taste buds. I got the feeling they were attempting to be gor-may which does not at all match the surroundings.
Three stars because it's not the worst I've had out here and the server was pleasant enough. Seriously though Boca Grande is down the street and cheaper/faster/just as fancy.
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Hardly fashionable and fashionably late, I showed up to brunch and was greeted by the HOI!s of my peers and the stink eye of my wife.
She was a sour girl the day that she met me.
The eatery which was lauded for its thrifty meals and good Mexican food was enough to drag me out of my slumber. Well that, and an barrage of early morning wake-up calls. My friends are like gnats.
It was empty this particular morning, and we were seated at a table by the window where I could easily view children who looked like the Farside Boy and quarreling couples trapesing by. The space is divided restaurant/bar by a low lying partition, and in case I didn't realize it wasn't a white table cloth establishment before I came, the enormous dangling blow-up corona really drove the point home. There is a jukebox and antiquated photos of Mexican yore modge-podged on the walls, and gives off the feeling of being a pub.. which I am generally not accustomed to when it comes to tacos.
The menu item names alone imply traditional dishes, mostly because I knew within minutes I would be butchering the Spanish language and remotely cause the Man with the Blue Guitar to shed a pigmented tear. While figuring out my dish, I realized that everyone had already ordered cocktails, unaware.. I took the Spring Break route and opted for a large margarita, salt rim. Novice. Everyone else went for a mojito(which can be served up classic, or Mexican style with tequila). The margarita was cool/refreshing, and could have been purchased in mix form at my local packy, and I actually enjoyed the mojito for its sweetness, although I am not sure it fit the bill for everyone else.
Foodwise, I decided to order the uh..-references website-MIGAS de NUEVO LEON, which is scrambled eggs, crisp tortilla pieces, bacon, pica de gallo and "Mexican cheese". Side of sour cream of course..no "plop of guac" this time. We all ordered items with elaborate/butchered names and when it came time for Chloe's softspoken beau to order his meal, "el gordo" fit the bill. Plain.simple. He will slit your throat in your sleep.
Although my dish was the least aesthetically pleasing of the bunch, my compost pile of delight was perfect. Where were you Saturday mornings in college Leon? WHERE WERE YOU. I was not used to having tortilla chips in my meals, but this small addition gave some texture to the grub..almost like breakfast nachos.
It was a good meal, and it was a good morning. The highlight of the whole event(pardon my momentary dip into esoteric waters) was when I thought Adam's boyfriend, Jarf snuck away for a cigarette and I went on a whole "Now that he's gone...." soapbox decree about how I didn't think he should move to Oregon with him(the land of Nike HQ and Everclear(the band)) and out popped Jarf who was curled up under the table...who was down there because......still no idea.
"I will buy you a garden
Where your flowers can bloom
I will buy you a new car
Perfect shiny and new
I will buy you that big house
Way up in the west hills
I will buy you a new life
Yes I will"
--dedicated to Adam's new life, Jarf, Mormons.
"I was ten years old
Doing all that I could
It wasn't easy for me
To be a scared white boy
In a black neighborhood"
--Liz D.
Have fun in Portland. Sucka.
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I'm going to have to hop on the 3 star bandwagon for this one. It's Sunday, it's raining, we need the sort of sustenance that only a HUGE brunch followed by slothing around my apartment in pajamas while gingerly tracing Haribo rattler gummys down boy's shirt into his (covered) bellybutton (x files style) while watching movies about toothy vaginas can provide. This is what Sundays are for.
Practically empty on a Sunday at noon, sort of suspect. We sat ourselves by the front window alongside my wife, her confidant, Adam, and Jarfy, Jarfy and I perched on the window seat across from a portrait of Nadya's abuela on the homestead. And by perched, I mean seriously I felt like I was 3 feet up in the air, lumbering 20 inches over the tabletop busily calculating the distance my fork will have to travel from plate to mouth, determining the object's terminal velocity, and what the odds are that this piece of omelet will shift it's weight and wind up rolling merrily along the way down the front of my shirt. Questionable.
Our waitress arrives while we're discussing "my future girlfriend" and the social impact of large glasses x rat tails and how it's affected modern day OSHA standards in the workplace. Glass ceiling. Boy and I order a mojito, a questionable one at that. It has ginger ale in it? Uh, whatever. Just bring it, Mama needs her medicine. I ordered what was essentially a ham and cheese omelet covered in both red and green sauce, with a "plop o'guac". One plop was plenty. Just a plop. One plop. While the omelet appeared mighty, it was just enough. In fact, I almost wanted a little something else after. It also had a side of black beans, which I quickly gobbled up.
Boy ordered some sort of Mexican inspired pork chop that was served alongside two fried eggs, potatoes (awesome!), a link of chorizo, and there may or may not have been black beans. He expressed to me that it was pretty tasty, and our general consensus was that the food was more than decent for the money. My omelet was only $6.50 or so and drinks were $5 a piece, can't really complain about that for a slightly more than satisfactory meal.
**see wizard, i edited it.
S'ALL FOR CHEWWWWWWW. Love, Janet
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Good food, fine beer list. I am going to get some sort of fun marg next time I go.
Great guacamole (with a spicy kick!) and burritos. The enchiladas looked really tasty although I did not have a bite.
I was there with a huuuuuuuuuuge group of people and the staff was so accommodating and attentive.
I'd go back.
The Forest Cafe is what I think would happen if you gave your senile grandmother a pattern for a Mexican Restaurant and actually let her do it.
The evenly spaced decorations that look like they came from iparty, the perfectly stenciled native looking design that hovers at eye level along the entire wall of the "dining area", and the hand sewn reupholstered bar booth backings. Not to mention the Mexican food. Gramma has an idea of what Mexican food should maybe taste like, but has never had it herself.
The margaritas were shitty, and it's not like they didn't have enough booze in them, they just didn't taste good. The salsa tasted like chopped veggies in tomato paste. The chips were almost stale. The enchiladas in mole sauce were actually just boiled chicken wrapped in tortillas and barely drizzled in what may have been a great mole sauce, but honestly there wasn't enough on my plate to give a qualified opinion. I was hoping they had some hidden gem on the dessert menu, but, surprise there wasn't even a menu.
The only thing keeping this stupid place from one star is the wait and bar staff. They were both very attentive and friendly.
otherwise: Suck.
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Blah... I'm sorry I've always heard the forest cafe is great, but I can still recollect the semi gross dark meat chicken they used in one of their entrees.
You know when you bite into a dish and have to spit a piece of meat out that has some funky something in it? That is my experience here.
I think this place needs to be remodeled in more than one way....
First and foremost, don't expect anything fancy. Your waitress will probably forget to bring you a fork, and you can forget about a refill on your diet coke, so ration accordingly. If you don't set the bar very high, you'll have a pleasant dinner.
Food materializes in front of you about five minutes after you order it, and for the most part it's moderately delicious. In fact, as far as Mexican restaurants go, it serves my favorite food (but my second favorite Mexican restaurant is Taco Bell, so that might tell you something). The food is somewhat pricy and the waitresses are bitchy, but the place makes up for this with fantastic drinks and friendly bartenders. The decor and vibe are strictly dive, and there's a cute drawing of a dinosaur on the wall in the men's bathroom. I'd recommend the place; just don't go in hoping for a life-changing experience.
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The food isn't that impressive, but it's a decent place to go if you're in the area, want to sit down with your friends and have some booze and Mexican food but can't put up with the insanity of Border, .
Oh, also they give endless amounts of free chips and salsa.
The margaritas are passable, the enchilada is decent, and the burrito is the size of my head, but really my major reason for coming here was watching the Guinness atomizer/carbonator/awesomeness infuser. We sat at the bar at the end and got a front-seat view of the transformation of a can of hops and barley water into a swirling heady pint of goodness. So cool.
The regulars are super creepy at that end of the bar, though, so unless you enjoy being leered at while chowing down, get a table.
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The place smelled musty and old - not a good start.
The servers were not overly friendly.
The coke was actually pepsi (thanks for telling me, not), and the water/pepsi ratio from the soda gun was way off.
The mole was overly sweet without any complexity. On pork it was almost inedible. Fortunately I didn't order it.
The Swordfish was too dry, and I wondered whether it had been frozen...I'm leaning toward yes.
Plaintains were terrible - dry and tough.
Free chips and salsa were also pretty bad.
I used to live in California, and so I am probably biased, but on any given night I would go to a place like Chevy's over this, and chevy's is just ok.
2 stars because it's local, and I applaud the idea of serving non-cliche Mexican food, but the bloom has long since faded off this rose, and otherwise it would have been 1 star.
love the nachos and mole sauce. i really like the margaritas too. Recently I just tried their Sunday brunch. It was yummmy. they have a large selection of different egg dishes, omeletes and are served with beans. planninng to go to sunday brunch again soon.
Know what I love about yelp, you can give a little dive bar with a weird menu four stars and people know you're not comparing it to the seasons.
Is the food here life-changing? no.
Does the decor make you think you're in a museum? no.
Are the benches comfortable? no (sit at the bar).
But the place is colorful. They actually have a *selection* of moles. The bartenders are super nice. And the vibe. . .well, it's exaactly what I want when sitting in a mexican place, eating chicken enchiladas con mole and drinking beer.
So kudos to you Forest Cafe. . .and i'll be seeing you soon.
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Why all the hating on Forest Cafe? Okay, it's not gourmet Mexican and isn't authentic. I don't need to take a culinary trip to Oaxaca every time I eat Mexican food! Sometimes I'm just happy with gooey, cheesy, american-ized enchiladas and a decent margarita. Even though this place has gotten some rhythm about watery margaritas, I can safely say that I've never experienced that. And after eating at Cafe Romero with their miniscule margaritas that are so tart you feel as if you're drinking battery acid, a normal margarita in a nice large glass with lots of salt is just fine by me. In all fairness to other reviewers though, I've never ordered anything but top shelf margaritas.
And yes, while the guacamole is a bit bland and some of the tables are so small that you can't fit chips, salsa, and your dinner plates on at the same time, the grub here is pretty good. Try the "Mark"-arita... it's a bit on the sweeter side and is just perfect after a long day at the office. The burritos are also really tasty here.
With Forest Cafe what you see is what you get. It's unpretentious, unassuming and underappreciated. This place won't shake your world with its culinary delights, but it will satisfy you at a price that's okay for the end of the pay cycle.
REVISED: I am now subtracting a star because my friend reminded me that when we ate here she found a piece of metal in her food and they didn't comp her meal. Bad Forest Cafe. Bad restaurant.
During my visit to Cambridge this last summer ('07) I was walking down Mass Ave., just enjoying the balmy Friday afternoon and checking out the menus on the restaurant windows that I passed by.
When I took a peek at Forest Cafe's list of offerings, a middle aged local popped out to have a cigarette and struck up a conversation with me - which took me by surprise since for the most part I felt that New Englanders were quiet stoic sorts. I think he had a few beers in him, as he was quite genial and started expousing the virtues of the joint, saying that his buddy either owned or ran the place. He then invited me inside for a drink. I thought "Sh*t. Why not?" as I was on vacay anyway.
We sat at the bar. I told him that I was from L.A. and asked him what he thought about the Mexican food Forest Cafe served. He said is was good. I took his word for it since I wasn't hungry. We talked about living in Cambridge. I asked him if it was a pain-in-the-ass during the winter. He said you get used to it. The manager came over and the dude introduced us. We exchanged pleasantries and shook hands like gentlemen.
We talked for about another half hour, during which time I bought him a beer b/c he was such a cool dude. He was a little thrown off by my token of generosity - you woulda thunk I bought him a bottle of champagne by his expression of appreciation, but he actually just ordered a Coors or Budweiser.
I got up to continue my walk back to my buddy's apartment.
Three stars to the Forest Cafe for being so welcoming to a traveling soul.
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very workable mexican, which can be hard to find around here. small restaurant; decor could use some updating, but pretty good service. we were drawn in because we had heard good things about the mole, and the two we had were both very good. the salsa was a bit too tomato-y, but at least chips and salsa were included unlike many other places (boo on them).
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I haven't eaten here for years so I can't really review the food, I used to really like it. Anyhow, the bar is a pretty nice dive and the vibe pleasant. The bartender was cool and the people ok. There were a bunch of candy bars on the bar for some reason and I was given a skor bar and peanut m&ms, that was a nice treat.
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I really REALLY want to like this place. I moved into the neighborhood (just blocks away actually) about 2 years ago. I heard good things and read good reviews about this place, so I tried it immediately. Had a decent meal, and liked the vibe of the bar on the other side, so I assumed I was on my way to becoming a regular.
Then I met the bartending staff.
I am a guy who likes to eat at the bar when eating alone, which is about half the time. I am a good tipper, and not pushy/needy. What I do need is the bartender to be attentive and slightly polite. Every bartender I have 'experienced' in this place has brought new levels to the word rude. And the food that they toss at you (3 minutes after you order it) is bland. the tortillas are stale, the chicken is stringy and the cheese is overpowering.
I have given it a try. I am no food snob. But I am destined to never return to this place after giving it more than a handful of opportunities
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I made my husband drive all the way from Waltham to meet me for lunch here. We're both big fans Mexican food. Now I could care less if the food is "authentic". A great lunch for me is good food at a reasonable price. The Forest Cafe failed me on both counts.
My meal consisted of boiled white rice and a piece of grilled chicken with a brown sauce that was supposed to pass as mole. Actually it tasted like flour mixed with water. Absolutely tasteless. It made we wish they used Nestle powder. It wouldn't have tasted great, but at least it would have tasted like something. My husband's meal was the same grilled chicken wrapped in a tortilla with some cheese and canned tomato sauce on top. Both lunches were served on small white plates. Never in my life have I gone to a Mexican restaurant and seen so much of the plate around my food. The portions were tiny. At roughly $9 a pop (excluding drinks, tax, and tip), it was the third most expensive lunch I've had in the Cambridge area. Top two were both at Japanese restaurants (and I left hungry from those places as well).
Maybe this is a great place for drinks, but I'll never go back here to eat. I doubt my husband will ever trust me to pick a lunch spot again.
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I have to give this one a mixed review.
On my first trip there, I loved it-- I had enchiladas tres marias and a really excellent strawberry margarita. The one drawback was that it was winter and whenever the door opened a cold breeze blew in.
I ate there again recently, take out this time, because I was craving the tres marias that I'd had before. It arrived one enchilada short and cold. My partner ordered a crab taco that tasted like it was canned crab right out of the can-- salty and weird and not dressed in any way.
So...I'd eat there again, just not take-out, and not seafood. And I'd have a big strawberry margarita.
A friend of mine raved about this place and this weekend some other folks were pushing to watch a game here so I went. Underwhelming. Admittedly I sat at the bar and watched football with a nice crowd of townies (and I really mean that in the best way possible, as opposed to the proto-yuppies that were up the street at Spirit) but the food was just acceptable and nowhere near excellent as I'd been promised.
Nachos were uninspired and needed the basket of chips in order to scoop up the flaccid chips that had been covered with a heaping pile of the kitchen sink, including clearly canned beans. The chicken quesadilla was your standard grilled tortilla with a cheddar cheese and dry grilled chicken, thank heaven for beer and sour cream to wash it all down.
If you are going to watch a game the crowd is friendly and service is pretty good. Not a lot of televisions, but there was space at the bar when everywhere else was turning folks away. So if you're looking for your basic knock-off Mexican restaurant and are looking for a quieter place than/ can't see the point in the line for / too cold to walk to the Border Cafe, this is for you.
Me and my labmates versus:
Margaritas (unsalted and salted), roast chicken mole verde, roast pork mole rojo, pollo burrito, enpipianes plate of roast chicken in green pumpkin seed sauce, enchiladas tres marias (chicken and cheese with mole poblano, a veggie burrito, enfrijoladas of grilled veggies in black bean sauce, chips and salsa, guacamole
Who wins? OTHER Mexican joints (u know, the type that you go to NOT because they have great food but because they serve you TONS of it and the margaritas come in vat-sized pitchers)
Not a bad place, but it just doesn't stack up those great Mexican restaurants where the powerful margaritas are everflowing and the dishes come as lakes of cheese, beans and rice
We went because we wanted to try their mole sauce but most of the sauces were quite disappointing. They weren't awful, just completely tasteless (like thick food coloring). The red mole sauce was the best tasting, its spices were blended well with the cacao flavor but it lacked a certain kick or spiciness
Unfortunately, most of the meat in the chicken and pork dishes was also dry as cardboard and chewy.
We had a good time nonetheless because we got a chance to play hooky from work and drink margaritas in the middle of the day!
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Dive bar with great food. You have to know what you're getting into before you go here.
There are some old school alchies that have been drinking here for like 30 years and you can tell. They are rowdy but they usually don't last very long into the night.
The bartenders are really nice and the margaritas are almost decent. The soda is always flat, or at least the diet coke is.
BUT...this place get's four stars for 2 reasons:
1)Wed night is TRIVIA NIGHT. That's right, 10 pm I get to feel like an idiot while these Harvard and MIT students kick my ass. The losing team gets free shots and the winning team gets a crappy prize, so losing is better anyway.
2)AWESOME food. Great salsa, great mexican food like yummy crab enchiladas and this awesome roasted corn with cheese appetizer. Pretty much all the food is good, but especially whatever specials they have.
The mexican brunch really isn't that good so go to the Temple instead.
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Every time I go to this place I like to sing a song... I take "Louie Louie" from the Animal House sound track and replace "Louie" with "Mole". They have really and truly excellent mole sauce. The margaritas are OK, and the guacamole has giant chunks of avocado- which I love. The interior is a bit dark so I don't go here in the summer much, but in the winter or on rainy days I dig it.
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I'm from Illinois; my pallet for Mexican food is quite simple. I've never had Mexican food so displeasing. Seriously. If I could, I would give zero stars. ZERO
They charge $7 for guac?!?! The margarita was obviously made with cheap mix and maybe had half a shot of tequila. The mole sauce tasted like molten chocolate cake in a really bad way; I think they used nestle cocoa to make it. The salsa almost tasted like sweet pasta sauce. Ick
I will not be returning
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Wow. Really, wow. I'm at a complete loss for words. That was, by far, the worse 'Mexican' food I've ever had, even worse than anything I ever had in the Northern mid-West. The worst part was, it was also ridiculously over-priced. Their profit margins must be through the roof, because they're charging as though they were a top notch Mexican eatery but are clearly using canned/bottled ingredients. Their mole seriously tasted like Nestle chocolate syrup! The enchiladas were just completely bland and flavorless. And how do you mess up rice and beans? Seriously. Also the margaritas were clearly made with a pre-made mix. I could make a better one for less with store bought ingredients.
There are only two good things I have to say about this place: 1) the beer prices are good, I'm not going to complain about a $3.50 Negra Modelo, and 2) their nachos rancheros tasted good, though still not particularly Mexican, I have no idea what they stuff they were trying to pass of as chorizo was.
Oh yeah, also, what is up with people saying that it _used_ to be kinda divey and has been upgraded? I'd probably rate them a 7 out of 10 for diveyness. Black ceiling? Love it in my bars, but it's not what I'd call a sign of class.
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Forest Cafe was a childhood favorite of mine. Sigh... Now it makes me sick every time I eat there (twice in the last 10 years, Saturday night and once in '98).
I don't know if the food served at the Forest Cafe is authentic. Mexico is a big place. I'm willing to entertain the possibility that 'authentic' Mexican food doesn't all taste the same.
Authentic or not, the food at the Forest Cafe is dairy centric and very different from any other Mexican food I've ever had. All the dishes seem to be finished with liberal use of aged cheese and cream. Dish by dish we ate:
-Above average chips and salsa,
-Really bland potato cake thingies with unpleasant sauce, aged cheese and cream,
-A dish called 'Chile Relleno' that consisted of a big, flat slice of pepper topped by somewhat crunchy zucchini and bathed in cheese (it looked like a plate of melted cheese),
-A kind of tamale that I had never tried before and don't really look forward to trying again, they tasted more like muffins than tamales and were served covered in aged cheese and cream,
-Tres Marias cheese enchiladas, served with almost no beans and rice and topped by the customary aged cheese and cream mixture.
The specialty margaritas were acceptable, if a little foamy and not very strong and the tequila list offers some selection but isn't terribly exciting.
Ultimately, if your idea of good Mexican food is plates covered in dairy products with beans and rice used only as garnish then this is the Mexican restaurant for you. However, if you don't really like paying for food that makes you sick and you think that beans and rice should be cast with more than a cameo appearance Mexican food (especially vegetarian Mexican food) then you should probably look elsewhere.
Oh, and the booths are awesome! Really excellent straight back seating for those of us with good posture.
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Even the drunken munchies could not make this food taste good. And there is no excuse for a $10 burrito. At least not with those ingredients. Apparently my friend's margarita was outstanding and my martini was OK and not overpriced. Don't eat here though.
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I keep wanting to really love Forest Cafe, beause I love Mexican food, but I've never come out fullly satisfied. The food here has a lot of potential, as it's been good two of the times I've been there, but is also quite inconsistent, as evidenced by my other two trips there when the food was not so good. Out of the four times I've been there, the service has been horrible all but once. One day I went there for lunch, and they had one waitress trying to handle the whole restaurant, and that was just a disaster! The margaritas are nothing special, but they're usually pretty strong.
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I am highly suspicious of Mexican restaurants in which all the employees and owner are White.
So, I went once, wasn't impressed, and haven't been back.
Ok. I'm very surprised to see the negative reviews here - especially the nasty review regarding brunch. My most recent experience here was in fact brunch at the Forest Cafe. The brunch was excellent in my opinion, especially considering the value...$7 for a complete, authentic Mexican style brunch. The coffee was in fact superb - that is if you like dark and aromatic blends. If your choice is to leave the crowds and pretentious attitude behind - please give the Forest Cafe a try for brunch! (I've recently given up on Johnny D's, Soundbites and S & S, which are generally not worth the pure madness on a busy Sunday).
I'm an avid foodie with about 10 years of Boston dinning experiences and I have to give the Forest Cafe two thumbs up. If you are wondering how this place stacks up against similar restaurants (Rudy's, Cactus Club, Border Cafe, or Jose's) - those mediocre places don't even come CLOSE to the quality of the food, margaritas, and service here. In fact - I find the Forest Cafe to be more comparable to "high end" Mexican restaurants, such as Ole Mexican Grill in Cambridge.
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I finally went to Forest Cafe after its write-up in the June 2007 in-flight magazine for American Airlines (believe it or not - the article was about out-of-the-way dining experiences worth venturing out for). I've been there twice, and maybe I've been lucky each time, but I don't get all the negative reviews. I find the food here superior to Boca Grande further up Mass. Ave. But I like hole-in-the-wall type places and the dated bench seating and dark wood doesn't bother me. My only gripe thus far is that the chips and salsa are not gratis ($2.50), and it's a small gripe.
It's nice to eat a plate of Mexican food without feeling like my arteries are screaming afterwards. The cheese and sour cream are thankfully kept to a minimum; the black beans are not refried. (I take it things have changed since the "drowning in sauce and cheese" review.) I was pleased with the crab enchiladas and chicken with the pumpkin seed mole and would order both again. If you haven't been in a while, give it another chance - another poster noted that there had been a change in head cooks. Maybe my review would've been different a year ago.
I wouldn't go here for a special night out, and yeah, Zocalo in Arlington is better/has nicer ambience. But you're paying up for that, too. If you're looking to have an inexpensive meal with a date, or group of friends, Forest Cafe is fine.
Am I the only one who thinks that "The Forest Cafe" is a rather odd name for a Mexican restaurant? For a while I avoided trying this part, in part because of the name confusion ("Forest"? Mexican food? are there pine-cone tacos?) but also because a large, noisy, air-conditioner hangs precariously over the entrance. Industrial sounds don't contribute much to a dining atmosphere. When I finally did dine there, I found a few positive points. The service was really polite, and the decor was run-down in a way that made me feel comfortable. Like many other reviews, I didn't find the food very inspiring-but there was a lot of it. I also found that our food arrived disturbingly fast-as in the waitress returned in about 45 seconds with our plates. I, for one, like to at least have the illusion that my food has been specially prepared, and hasn't just been sitting under a heat lamp for 2 1/2 hours. Alas, there are no illusions at the Forest Cafe.
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The Forest is a regular haunt for me and my fella. The big draw is their Forest Rita -- I love me some Forest Rita! They are excellent. When we first started going the food wasn't very consistent, but they've really stepped up in the past year and it seems to be getting better and better. Try the gorditas de papa, enchiladas nortenas, pescado zarandeado, and ejotes.
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I agree with what many people have already said, the food at Forest Cafe is barely tolerable. Its good enough that you will eat the food once you order it, but its bad enough that you never want to eat there again. I was surprised by the lack of healthy options (no salads at all!) and the lack of vegetarian entrees. Their vegetarian entrees are simply meat entrees with cheese substituted for the meat. I mean, would it be so hard to put some tofu or something in there?
That said, Forest Cafe still gets three stars because they have an awesome pub trivia night on Wednesdays with a really funny host. The good beers and the trivia make up a little bit for the crappy food.
More like 3.5 stars... Forest Cafe is probably the best Mexican food around Harvard Square... Now, considering their main competition is Border Cafe, this ain't sayin too much! The enchiladas mole are reliably good... not sure how someone could compare them to Hershey's. Their appetizers are what really make it worth coming here... go for the green beans and the guacamole. Considering the price of %#!@)( avacados in Boston in the winter, their guac is actually a pretty good deal.
If you're a vegetarian and ordering the cheese enchiladas, i recommend asking them to put less cheese and put spinach or rice inside instead, as the cheese gets a bit overwhelming.
The biggest downside is the service is kinda crap (ok, not so much crap as bizarre and discomfiting).
I went here for brunch the other day and was VERY disappointed. Our food was not good (even the coffee was bad) and there was ham in my dish even though I had explicitly checked with the waitress to make sure the dish would be vegetarian. I gave it two stars instead of one because they comped our entire meal, which was decent of them. About the staff -- I was confused by the fact that the waitresses didn't know how to pronounce or spell the names of the dishes...they had to copy down what we ordered letter for letter off the menu. So odd. Anyways, the food was definitely sub-par...probably the worst mexican food I've had in the area. Is that too harsh?
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Forest Cafe is caught between identities. Used to be divier, then they spruced it up a bit, which probably raises people's expectations probably too high. But It's not a bad place to get a margarita and gloppy plates of things drowning in sauce and cheese. Certainly not a place you go to get anything authentic or impressive, but a nice cozy atmosphere that works. Probably overpriced for what you're really getting, but there are deals to be had.
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Amazing food! The best Mexican I've had around Boston. Forget about the overrated Border Cafe on Harvard Square! The Forest Cafe is much more low key, the food is way better, and so are the margaritas.
I highly recommend going there for lunch! The food is the same quality but much cheaper. Too bad they're only open for lunch Thu-Sun... But if you want Mexican lunch on a Mon, Tue or Wed, you can always go to the Boca Grande taqueria that is one block down.
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Great Margaritas. Food is kind of slimy and just not all that fantastic. (definitely not spicy enough, etc.)
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