I'm not sure which aspect of this experience was worse--the food, the drinks, or the service.
We arrived at about 7:30pm on a Saturday night. The restaurant was nearly empty, though it didn't close for a few more hours.
We seated ourselves and waited. And waited. After about 15 minutes, a server shows up and gives us menus. We looked over the drink and dinner menus and made our selections--but they weren't going to be taken for nearly 30 minutes. We placed our drink orders (classic margarita and the La Paloma). After 15 more minutes, our drinks arrived.
The drinks were mediocre--at best. The classic margarita was essentially a glass of lime juice with half a shot of tequila; the Paloma was the same, but with grapefruit juice. $12 CDN each.
The next time we saw our server was another 15 minutes later when our chips and guacamole arrived. The chips were nice and salty; the guacamole portion was extraordinarily small (about an ice cream scoop size) for $10 CDN.
With the arrival of the guacamole, we were finally able to place our meal order. They were out of chicken, so we settled on two crispy pork belly tacos, one carne asada taco, and a pescado taco. $6 CDN each.
A full thirty minutes later, our food had not yet arrived. Our drinks were empty (there was only one other party in the restaurant at this time). I walked to the bar with my empty glasses to place two more drink orders: the passion cocktail (tequila, banana, cranberry, and orange were supposed to be the primary flavors) and the Envy (a margarita with blue curaçao).
At this point of the evening, it's now nearly 9:15PM. We've been in the restaurant for over an hour. Our second order of drinks and 4 tacos finally arrive.
Gross is all I can say.
- All tacos shared the same stale-tasting, rusty cabbage. It's like the half-off prepackaged slaw mix you buy at the grocery store tossed with a light vinaigrette.
- The fish tasted... fishy. Fishy tasting fish is never a good sign. I probably should have looked at the crowd and determined that there wasn't enough turnover to order the fish. Two bites and I tap out on the fish taco.
- The carne asada was not that. Instead of being the traditionally marinated and grilled strips of steak that I'm used to at other restaurants, it was essentially stringy, water-logged pot roast.
- The pork belly tacos were neither crispy nor flavorful. They tested more like baked pork chop with a hint of bacon. They were dressed with the same slaw mixture as the other tacos.
After tasting the Passion cocktail, we asked the waitress if there had been an error. Banana has an unmistakeable taste; the lack of it is quite noticeable. Cranberry juice is red. The fact that this drink was neither reddish-pink or had even the faintest hint of banana told us otherwise. It was the same drink as "the classic."
The Envy was at least blue. It was undrinkable, but the color was at least correct. After nearly 2 hours of waiting and shit service, we paid and left nearly all our food uneaten.
We walked around the corner to Bad Dog and had a second dinner. read more