Alex’s Cafe and Aztec Nights

52 Main St # 1 Chester, NJ 07930-3608 – (908) 879-5044

Just in time for Cinco de Mayo! And my Mexican choice even has a Burger!

Alex’s Cafe and Aztec Nights is a new restaurant just off of Main Street in Chester that offers authentic Mexican cuisine, not the regular Tex-Mex like you’d expect. That being said some of these menus options will surprise you in the ways that they differ from the familiar dishes you’ve had elsewhere.



The Place - is in the spot where the popular Mama’s Grace Cafe used to be until they closed up shop last year. Alex’s Aztec Nights used to do nightly events for Mama’s Grace, and he decided to keep that as part of the name when the name changed to Alex’s Cafe. You can expect very good quality and freshness of the ingredients all around.



Free Chips - Let me be clear about this: I love free chips. Alex’s come with a home made salsa, too. The salsa has fresh tasting diced tomatos and it has just little bit of a spicy kick to it.



The Menu-runs the gamut. In addition to a wealth of traditonal Mexican Dishes, Alex’s serves breakfast items like French Toast and omelettes, salads, appetizers, tacos, burritos, chimichangas, sandwiches. There are even cool beverages, like Jarritos Mexican Sodas and Coke in glass bottles.



We got the Tacos Doradas, which was 4 rolled hard shell tacos filled with your choice of chicken or Chorizo. We went with Chorizo, which is a flavorful Mexican sausage.



Enchiladas de Mole- This was great. Three enchiladas all smothered in a mole sauce and melted cheese. Mole sauce is a cocoa based spiced sauce that has a bit of a heavy consistency. Don’t expect it taste like Hershey’s, though, as it has a taste that mixes sweetness and spiceness together.



They also have Chalupas, but do not expect the fried shells of their Taco Bell cousins! Check out the pic above! Beneath that sea of green sauce, beans and melting cheese you can barely see the 3 doughy shells. They had a really rich taste, and were just a little spicy. You could chose to get them filled with either veggies or meat. I chose meat, of course.



The Burgers- Alex’s cafe also has a collection of burgers. I was intriqued by the Aztec Burger, which is served with oaxaca cheese and homemade quacamole, but I instead chose the Spicy Burger. This burger is a cheddar cheeseburger topped with full jalepenos peppers on a Brioche Bun. Be warned, these are not just slices of jalepenos, but the whole pepper, seeds and all. This is the real thing, as the white seeds you see in the picture below are what gives the biggest spicy kick.



This burger was seriously spicy. After years of eating spicy food, I’ve built up an immunity to spiciness, and this burger made my nose run. I thought the burger was really tasty and a welcome unique choice.





Dessert -FLLLLAAAAN!!!! I love Flan, and Alex’s is home made. And yes, it was delicious and mouth-puckeringly sweet. But check out this special Flan they had:



I forgot the authentic Mexican name for it, and didn’t write it down. In English, its called an Impossible Cake. Its very difficult to make because of the cooking process. The cake batter is put on the bottom and the flan on top and, as it cooks, the batters pass through one another, and then you flip it over to serve it. This can lead to odd tasting, marble-looking cakes if done wrong. At Alex’s, you get served a perfect slice of decadence.



While eating at the cafe, we actually met the owner Alex, who stopped by our table on the slow night. He was friendly and clearly wanted to make us feel welcome. He went over the dishes we’d ordered, and told us about how the cooks worked on each one and what made them special. He clearly wants his business to succeed, and is putting a lot of heart into this endeavor. So don’t go to a chain restaurant on Cinco De Mayo like everybody else in the state! Care about the quality of the food and service and help a real New Jersey business grow.

Full disclosure: I did get a free desert one time, but I think it was just Alex being nice, as I already told him I’d be reviewing the cafe.