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| - Summary for phone Yelpers and the TLDR crowd:
This place is fast and shitty. They can't speak English or cook. Avoid even in the most dire situations involving hunger. Possibly a good place to score drugs.
This review centers around the carne asada burrito. This burrito should only be used to play a cruel joke on the homeless as it looks like a wealth of food but it's really a mirage wrapped in a flour tortilla.
Alternate food recommendation would be the Jack in the Box a half mile north.
Situation:
I had twenty minutes to rush from the second floor of Gateway Community College to my car and haul ass anywhere with food.
Getting there:
My first mistake was opting to go west on Van Buren. In the same way a gas station never exists when you need fuel or a grocery store is nowhere to be found when you need milk in a new area; there is nothing. That is, until you see La Salsita on the south side just past one of twenty used car dealerships pockmarking the road fabled for its prostitution. Two miles was more of a trip than I wanted but I was happy to finally see a restaurant.
Parking:
If you're not going to heed the advice that follows in this review and you do choose to suffer through La Salsita yourself, make sure you attempt to enter AFTER the actual restaurant. Yes, the used car dealership does have the same color scheme but, no, you cannot park there. I assure you that parking will never be an issue lest La Salsita begins joining its neighbors in car sales.
Entering:
Walk past the walk-up order window that is curiously placed in a roadblock creating manner on the walkway in the event anyone is actually ordering there. Continue past the door that remains locked and has benches in front of it on the inside. Do enter through the door that leads you into a deserted Arizona room dining area which will then lead you to to the real entrance. Complete disarray.
To your left, you will notice a salsa bar that features some tomatillo based sauce, a red sauce, some green muck, a pot of frijoles; and a bin of radishes and carrots which served to confuse this gringo.
Menu:
Standard x-berto's fare
The menu is rife with pictures. A rule many havens of cheap food seem to follow is to have plenty of pictures that look even worse than what you're about to receive. Whether or not this is due to the lacking abilities of a novice photographer friend or to prepare you for the worst is unknown.
While you order at a counter parallel to the entrance, the menu is above that salsa bar on the left. It's counterintuitive but it will afford you an opportunity to do those oft neglected neck stretches left to forward.
Ordering:
I was being stared at by the seemingly nice woman behind the counter which caused me to precariously decide on the carne asada. She didn't speak English and my Spanish basics weren't helping me. Through pointing, shrugging, and head shaking the order came to an appropriate amount which signaled I didn't accidentally order a side of flautas for 40 or a used Hyundai.
Service:
The language barrier was rough but unsurprising. Since the woman didn't attempt to pull anyone else up to the front, I'm assuming I was the lone English speaker.
About a minute and a half into the wait, out came my carne asada. Very fast!
The food:
Living up to the picture was a good looking handmade tortilla tightly wrapped. There was so much meat that, should it be any good, buying one of these burritos to take home to use as an ingredient would be feasible. On the side of the plate was a child's handful of shredded lettuce with a squirt of deflated sour cream on the top of it.
I took one bite of the carne asada and couldn't believe how terribly dry and tasteless it was. There was no seasoning, no flavor, no freshness. This was meat that was cooked much earlier and sat under a lamp for hours. Acknowledging I was now only eating to satiate hunger and not to enjoy myself, I doused the thing in as much red sauce as the tortilla could handle and topped it off with the lettuce. One third was about all I could take. I thought about asking whether or not the frijoles were free since they were with the rest of the salsa bar but didn't see any point. If I got sick later, I knew I had a sole item to blame instead of two possible candidates. I chucked the rest of it and took off.
Conclusion:
I'm not above any of the many x-berto's. From the mid-tier cheap-o Mexican food of Filiberto's to the five star cheapness of Carolina's and Carumba's: I love Mexican food. This is why I hated La Salsita.
I'm all about giving even a perceived shithole a fair shake so I will return and play it safe with a combo plate.
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