Service 4
Food 2
Cleanliness 3
Atmosphere 3
Value 3
Pros:
Great Beans
Fresh Tasting Guacamole
Large Drinks
Cons:
Parking lot exit dangerous to large vehicles health
Slowish Service
Less Then Stellar Food
Dishes Worth The Calories:
Salsa Red/Green
Beans
Guacamole
Full Review:
This is one of those times when "Meh. I've experienced better" fits perfectly. I was so excited to come eat here :( Like Los Compadres it had been on the list for a long time. A 4 star Mexican place with very few bad reviews seemed like a safe bet. This place also showed up on Chow Bella a few days ago. I was prepared for another kick ass meal but figured I was in for meh service based on what I read. Seems like I received the complete 180 of an experience.
Got there about 7:30 Saturday night. The place was 65% capacity at most. This surprised the heck out of me considering the time/reviews and recent writeup. Figured I was doomed for a night of waiting. We were at out table within 2 minutes and the waitress was there to take our drink order and drop off salsa in less then 5. She quickly returned with some HUGE glasses of water an a basket of chips. I was ready for these amazing hot from the fryer chips I had read so much about. What I got instead was room temp chips of which 1/2 had a nice freshly dipped in grease then cooled coat on them. I'm a good sport so I tried one of the greasy ones and all I could taste was room temp oil from a fryer that needed fresh oil in a bad bad way.. Blech :(
The salsa however was very tasty. The red was far from burning hot that I had read so much about. It was warm but far from spicy and was one of the best things I would eat all evening. The green was also very flavorful and masked the gross chips well.
We ordered a huge pile of food including a cheese crisp and guacamole which hit the table quickly. We were then in for a good 20 minute wait before the rest of the food showed up.
Food Details:
Guacamole:
Very simple prep here. Avocado, Onion, Salt and 800lbs of tomatoes. I absolutely HATE fresh tomatoes but that's just a personal preference. The quac was fresh and tasty. There was nothing "wrong" with it there's just much better at countless places.
Rice:
So far from exciting I don't specifically recall. I just remember having a bite and moving on. Was a little greasy and bland :/
Beans:
Just went I thought dinner was a complete waste I took a few bites of these and WOW! some of the best beans I've ever had. Pretty sure there is a huge amount of lard but who cares. The texture was perfect.. the flavor was perfect.. I could have been satisfied with a side of quac, couple tortillas and a huge bowl of beans. Half of it was smashed/creamed and the other was whole beans. I'm not even a bean person and it was the only part of my plate that had been scrapped clean.
Cheese Crisp:
No real crisp at all. Just a tortilla with melted cheese and a major pool of grease.
Green Chili Tamale:
The texture was very rubbery but it was at least spicy. This was another "not bad but far from great" items.
Ground Beef Taco:
The shell was nice and crispy and didn't taco fail. The meat inside was this super fine texture but did not have a lot of flavor.
Chili Relleno:
Oh man.. I've been trying to figure this one out. Terrible is the only word I have for it. There were two of them on the table and they were both the same. The batter was literally water logged and there was nothing on the plate to do that. They weren't greasy.. they were watery. I'm nearly positive these were made in house, frozen, and heated to order. There's no other way they could get a spongy soggy texture like that any other way.
Enchilada:
Suffered from more cheese on top of my enchilada then inside of it and a serious lack of red sauce. Don't get me wrong.. I like cheese but it was 10% red sauce and 90% cheese. I couldn't even really taste the red sauce to see if it was any good. The enchilada was a corn tortilla with a sprinkle of cheese on the inside. It was literally flat on the plate like someone folded it then smashed it down that's how skimpy the filling was.
Red Sauce:
Don't know.. there was not enough of it on anything to actually taste it.
Could this have been an off night? I guess its possible but I order so much variety that it pretty much rules out having a bad experience because a single item wasn't good that night. Is this the worst Mexican in town? Far from it.. But there are so many other great places I feel sorry for anyone who might call this their only Mexican stop when they have a craving. They are missing out on some real good food out there.