Susan M.
Yelp
This is the age-old tale of the nerd (foodie) finally getting a date with the cheerleader (popular restaurant, beautiful food presentation), and the night ends in bitter disappointment because she has zero personality. We began with the Paloma cocktail, which was delicious and well balanced. The chips appear to be made in-house and had an off flavor, due to, we are assuming, old tortillas, and/or old deep frying oil. The bowl was also full of unappetizing "chunks" of multiple tortilla triangles folded over each other. These were bad chips. Food is presented beautifully. It's just delightful! Looking at the online menu earlier in the day really had us pondering what the heck to choose because it all looks so good! We started with the habanero mango ceviche. While it was also just lovely to look at, it was too fruit forward, so it was extremely tart (where was the salt?) and there was barely any shrimp on it. Also, we could not detect habanero at all, just a tad of smoky oil. The smoke flavor was really excellent but overpowered by the fruit. It was not a good value, and certainly not what we consider as being ceviche. For our mains, my partner ordered the hangar steak, which is usually a great option bc it is an inexpensive cut of meat that is actually quite tender. Except this one wasn't tender, and it lacked flavor. I had the braised beef rib, which was presented (& tasted like) beef cheek. It was fork tender, but it probably needed at least another 30 minutes of braise time. It was set in a bowl of way too much oil, and it had no flavor. This dish came with bone marrow, which was precisely why I wanted to order this dish. Sadly, the marrow was extremely scant (less than a teaspoon) and mostly consisted of oil (textureless), which does not fare well with a (bad) tortilla chip. I was scratching my head. Why did they even bother putting this on the plate? Do not order this expecting the fabulous marrow you get at a neighborhood bistro in Paris. We appreciated the addition of condiments (pickled red onion and jalapenos), but they were scant, and there was no salt shaker on the table. We each got rice and beans with our meal, which were both flavorful, but inconsistent (his had very little rice, but tons of cheese, mine had equal amounts of each, but hardly any cheese.). My initial instinct was to give this place another try, but my common sense kicked in, knowing it would be just as bland. Is this why people wind up in bad relationships? Good cock(tails) is not a good enough reason to keep going back.