I was excited to try another Mexican place in Phoenix and I was even more jazzed when Michael's friend mentioned that this place served one of his favorite sandwiches, the naco torta - which was described as a sandwich grilled rib eye with a fried egg and avocado. Yum!
The restaurant is actually inside the Clarendon Hotel and it was totally hoppin when we arrived on a random Wednesday night. We had originally asked the waitress if we could sit outside and she said it would be a 5 minute wait. Ok, no biggie. So we wait and we then calls us over and walks us to our table - which was inside. We had to stop and remind her that we wanted to sit outside and she was like "oh, yeah, sorry!". That should have been our first clue that the service was going to be off that night. Then we notice all the commotion at the tables next to us and the waiter and other stuff apologizing profusely. That should have been our other clue. Then we waited and waited and waited until finally someone comes over to take our drink order. Then we waited and waited and waited for our drinks to actually show up and Michael comments on how they are now half the size they used to be before. I start to notice that the table next to us is quite agitated because their waiter was MIA and they then proceed to walk over to the serving station, get a pitcher of water and re-fill their own glasses. Clearly, it was just a really bad service night. Even though this place is known of tacos, I decided to get that yummy sounding sandwich ($10) that Carlos had mentioned plus a small mixed green salad ($5) and we split a guacamole for the table ($6.50).
Usually I say that guacamole is really hard to get wrong but this one wasn't all that great. It was very lumpy and had large chunks of citrus fruit it in that I thought was a bit weird. Plus it was missing salt to it. While I ate it, I can't say that it was a great guacamole. The salad was pretty decent although it might have been too heavily dressed for my liking. As for the sandwich, it had such potential but it was a letdown. First, the bun was way to bread-y and big. Even though I'm not afraid of carbs at all, I had to just stop eating the bun as some point because it was just too much carbs. The rib eye was also too chopped up and it was hard to hold together all the pieces of meat. By having it so cut up, it really allowed the meat to dry out quickly and it wasn't as moist or juicy as I would have liked. Plus I felt like they skimped on the avocado. The slices were too small, at least in relation to the huge bun. At this point I wished I had ordered the fish tacos instead. I did like the fried egg component but it wasn't enough to really make the sandwich a winner in my book.
Maybe it was an off night for this place or maybe it was a sign of things to come but the overall experience that night wasn't a great one. I can see how it could have been a great place and I liked how everything sounded on the menu but the execution of the food and the service were just not on point that night. Total bill: $30/pp with tax, tip and drinks
Photo Credit: Yelp
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