| rev:text
| - Mexican food is such a subjective cuisine: what you grew up eating, where you grew up eating it, how it was prepared, what your memories are of who prepared it and how you compare what you eat now to your memory leads to a score of reviews and opinions. Oftentimes the ambience will lend to, or take away from, the experience and the pleasure of dining - it can even influence the perception of flavor and taste: add in exceptional service or a poor attitude and you get even a larger spread of positive and negative reviews. Such is often the case of many noteworthy Mexican restaurants not receiving the proper review, or a high enough review (or an uncharacteristic not-the-norm low review), because of their location, time of visit, service, wait time or even decor.
I typically rate the taste and quality of Arizona Mexican food by two items: tacos and bean burritos. Now, those beans can be put in a burrito, tostada or served à la carte or the tacos can be soft, hard, crispy, grilled or battered and fried - I use these two food items as my south-of-the-border barometer for Arizona Sonoran style Mexican food. These two items tell scores about the recipes and the kitchen that prepares them. Are the tortillas made on premises? Are the shells pre formed? Have the meat and legumes been stewing on the stove for hours prior to severing? A tasty bean or decent tasting taco filling and we have an a-ok rating. A tasty taco AND flavorful bean and the rating goes up; the rating goes higher if the other food items offered are of the freshly prepared variety. However, if both the bean and taco are not up to snuff, a package or can was used somewhere, I give the the Mexican food restaurant the benefit of the doubt so long as there is value and quality - otherwise we are at two stars (franchise territory).
I have eaten at Christinas before, many years ago, and visited about once a year over those years. It was because of good reviews and mentions that brought me back here and kept me try trying them again, but I just couldn't bring myself to write an average review; I had to be missing something . . . so here I am, back again to see if anything has changed, and it hasn't, which is to say that it is still just average. I hate to use that term, but there is no single thing or group of things that make Christina's stand out food-wise. It hits the marks on local, mom & pop run, hidden away, divey atmosphere with service that is friendly, hospitable, and very prompt - for that it gets high marks and keeps me coming back to see if we have attained four star status through the food. However, after another recent visit, with exceptional service, and just slightly above-average food, there are too many other choices, nearby and far, that are tastier and worth the drive.
Overall Rating: 3.4 Stars
Food: 3.5 stars
Service: 4.5 Stars
Cleanliness: 4 Stars
Atmosphere: 3
Price/Value: 3.6 Stars
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