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| - Ended up here after 7/4 fireworks (around 11:00PM). I was impressed that this place was open considering the federal holiday. Restaurant is fairly open air on two walls. Parking on the street, in the middle of what would otherwise be a busy Ohio City. Ended up ordering chips and guacamole, the Bakersfield margarita, short rib tostada, grilled mahi taco, and pollo rojo taco.
I will give the TL;DR version first. This is not legit Mexican, nor is it legit Tex-Mex. The only thing that makes the food remotely close to Mexican is the meat and how it's prepared. The Tex is barely there. The rest is just American. I hate to say this, but being a chain from Cincinnati, it kind of explains things.
The guacamole was not real guacamole. It was basically smashed avocado with some lime juice, salt, and maybe some cilantro. Couldn't really see the cilantro in the avocado, though. No red onion. No tomato. No pepper (jalapeno). So it was really chips with avocado. Eight dollars for basically one single smashed avocado. Not only that, but the salsa they gave was a bit of the joke. While the cilantro-based salsa that was also given was... cilantro-based, the "hot" (read: supposed to be spicy) red, tomato/pepper based salsa was more of a smoky chipotle behind it, and had none of the spice you'd expect out of a what was was supposed to be spicy salsa. I ended up going through about a cup and a half of the red salsa (about half of the squeeze bottle) and didn't even break a sweat. Hotness level for the cilantro salsa was 0/10. Red salsa was like a 2/10.
Sorry, guys, but when you say something is supposed to be spicy, especially the salsa, actually make it spicy.
The margarita was pretty standard, nothing really to write home about. Not worth the $8.
The short rib was a mistake to order. Yes, it was tender, but the flavor was lacking. The tostada was basically a taco salad. Chopped romaine lettuce with some almost slaw-like dressing on the bottom. On the top was the tostada, which had some beans, cheese, and a egg cooked medium-well. The Bakersfield hot sauce wasn't "hot" at all, and didn't have much flavor to it. I dumped another quarter cup of the red salsa to give the short rib (and salad) a little more flavor for the last third of the salad.
The pollo rojo was pretty tender, but the red sauce kind of drowned out the flavor of the chicken. The mahi taco was probably the best out of what was ordered. The slaw was pretty good, but it overwhelmed the fish. Probably one of the better fish tacos in the Midwest, but certainly nowhere near the balance of flavor you'd get compared to fish tacos on the West coast. Or the kick.
While the menu is pretty simple, and makes things pretty straightforward, the food doesn't really justify the price. You're really paying for the location and the "hipster" atmosphere of the restaurant and perhaps a bit of the "ethnic" surcharge. I initially wanted to give this place 3.5/5 stars, but after really thinking about what worked and didn't work (and it mostly didn't work), there's much better Mexican/Tex-Mex to be had, especially for the price from actual taco trucks and Mexican establishments... So, I really can't recommend this place. Plus, Johnny Cash singing covers for 90s songs kills the atmosphere. So, two stars it is. Sorry. It was a dud.
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