February 16, 2012
Tino's Too (Never trust a restaurant that doesn't have a website)
Plano, Texas
I thought that a family-owned restaurant "Serving the Plano Community Since 1976" was a good sign. An even better sign was this review by Dr. Joe F. found on urban spoon. My favorite Mexican food place in Collin County. The service is excellent and very friendly. The food is very good. Also, their salsa is very, very good. They give it to you with generous amounts as well as keeping the chips flowing.
This could not be further from the truth. My salsa looked anemic. The tomatoes did not even resemble red. They weren't green either. The salsa was a light orange color and tasted like unripe, watery, oniony blah. Chips were heavy.
Guac--So much lemon that the avocado taste was lost. Also it arrived so chilled that my first bite immediately caused a brain freeze. Ok--that's an exaggeration, but it did make my crown ache. Hint to sous chef--sub-arctic temperatures kill the avocado taste.
I ordered a ceviche and cup of tortilla soup. After I removed the huge chunks of carrots and celery (clearly the sous-chef is too lazy to chop the veggies into edible bites), I had about 2 bites of broth and chicken left in my cup. The broth was bland, almost tasteless. No spices, no richness. My ceviche resembled tabouleh. It did not taste like any ceviche that I had ever had, but thanks to the generous amount of lime, it was edible.
My son ordered a quesadilla. The teenaged bottomless pit couldn't even eat half of it, pronouncing the cheese rubbery and the flour tortilla hard. He's going to give up his role as my food review partner if we don't have a good meal soon.
Service--the waiter was efficient, but not friendly. He didn't ask me how I liked or didn't like my meal. He didn't ask if I wanted dessert. He didn't thank me.
February 13, 2012
West Village, Dallas, Texas
It didn't hurt that I had AMAZING company for dinner including one of my best artist friends and two visiting New York artists. When they heard about my food blog, they were very interested in how I rated the guac. While we didn't have tableside prepared guac, the PRE-prepared guac was fresh and lightly spiced with onions, lime and cilantro. The salsa was deliciously smoked.
I ordered the fish tacos. I couldn't quite identify the marinade, but the fish was tender and full of flavor. Small dishes of cilantro, onions and salsa are served as toppings. One
friend ordered veggie tacos. She proclaimed that all the veggies were fresh and lightly spiced/salted as she requested. My other friend ordered chicken enchiladas with tomatillo sauce and he gave the thumbs up as well. Service was fast, if not overly friendly.
February 4, 2012
Frisco, Texas
The best part of this meal was the friendly, if overly earnest and attentive waiter. The chain boasts numerous locations throughout Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. They have three in the Dallas area. My meal was loaded with lard. I felt like I had a rock in my stomach after eating only half of my meal.
When I inquired about the possibility of spinach enchiladas, the young waiter asked the manager to come over and speak to me about my dietary restrictions. He wanted me to know that the beans were cooked with pork and that there was even some meat or broth in the rice. I thanked him for his concern and instead of bolting for the door, I told him that I was no longer a food nazi and would happily have the spinach ench dinner with rice and beans.
Yuck salsa served with yuck heavy chips. Bland guac, not recently made. The ranchero sauce was rather bland and there was too much cheese and not enough spinach in my ench's. My son's black bean and cheese burrito was bland and had a yuck cheeze-whiz type of queso on top. Note to sous-chefs--actually cheese does not come in bright orange.
I completely overtipped, even though the waiter tried to get me to drink a half-price margarita made with HOUSE BRAND TEQUILA. I felt so bad for the young waiter, who was clearly new and had no other customers.
