Restaurants

Sopes de Monterrey

Hollywood, Florida, is a bit skinny on Mexican restaurant selections, which is how we first stumbled onto the Cancun Mexican Grill off the Howard Young Circle. Now you can’t keep me out of the place — and my brother is even more of a fanatic. While in Miami for one day with tickets to the Super Bowl, he still drove up to this suburban restaurant for lunch.

It’s the salsa and the people-watching opportunities, frankly.

I usually order food to be polite, and then ask for a tub of the salsa and chips to take back to my refrigerator at the Manta Ray Inn, so I can make a few more meals out of it. They’ve never shared their recipe with us, but we suspect there’s garlic stirred in with the peppers.

However, you can’t take this caliber of oddball people back with you, which is probably a good thing. On my last visit, I thought the old guy riding the pink bicycle up and down the sidewalk while he hooted at cars would be my winner. Then I was sure it was the old geezer with Super Fly glasses who drove up in a Mercedes, took a sidewalk table with his arm bracelet wife/girlfriend/escort, and proceeded to play the hot shot with the waitress. And then Steve took a seat.

Steve, as I was able to eavesdrop from the five tables away, is a concierge. He grew up speaking Spanish, but his kid is failing that course in school, as he told the two women he was buying drinks for — a couple of giggleheads I dubbed Thing 1 and Thing 2. He wore a jacket, buttoned-down white shirt and a tie with bright blue Keds tennis shoes. If you’d asked him who he thinks he most resembles, I’m sure he’d say JLo’s husband, Marc Anthony. (He was certainly bragging about how he could sleep with her any time he wanted, along with Angelina Jolie. Teeheehee, said his fan club.) He was more like a cartoon of Ricky Ricardo.

I nearly spit Coke all over my table laughing when Steve started taking gadgets out of his pockets and inadvertently mentioned during his ongoing chatter that he had “another little tool right here,” which is quite the unfortunate phrase when you’re trying to pick up women. His adoring audience didn’t seem to notice, though, no doubt because the margaritas were flowing.

Hollywood beach

And then he felt compelled to impress these chicks by describing how a doctor stuck needles in his eyes during a surgery. “Ohhh, that must have been so painful,” said the chorus. No, macho Steve assured them, he could handle that. It was the nausea afterward that wasn’t any fun. He hates feeling nauseated. And Thing 1 cried, “Ohhh, nausea. I hate that,” and Thing 2 echoed, “Nausea. Disgusting.”

OK, there’s a difference between being a small tool and having a conversation about vomit while I’m trying to eat Sopes de Monterrey. Steve may have won this round of “who’s the weirdo?” but I lost my appetite. Well, for that hour anyhow. Me and the salsa had our own party about midnight out on the beach.

Cancun Mexican Grill

1828 Harrison St.

Hollywood, FL 33020

(954) 922-8515

Photography: Julie Sturgeon