Chico's Tecate Grill

Yelp and I are friends.  It had never disappointed me... until it recommended Chico's Tecate Grill.  4 stars.  Please!  With around 20 reviews, it felt safe - but it wasn't!!

First, let's talk methodology.  Every now and then people's friends, acquaintances, family, or hired guns will over-hype average places.  Sometimes, even, poor places.  Crowdsourcing is a great way of combatting this.  Generally, the aggregate has it.  The masses.  Like voters.  Normally, you can expect a republic to function because the bulk of the populous are not bleating morons.  So with Yelp, I always consider what the average response rate is for a given area.  In San Francisco, it's generally 300-1200 for a decent place, New York sits around 200, Seattle around 50-100, Kennewick-Richland-Pasco is about 20.  That's your base.  If there are fewer responses than the average, by a standard deviation or two, the review is out.  I consider the responses unreliable.  If the responses are within a standard deviation from the expected output according to the area, and it's rated 4 (sometimes if I'm desperate a 3.5), I'll try the place out.

If you will allow additional digression.  A very good friend of mine runs a small business.  She has 5-7 five star reviews from clients.  Of those, 0, that's right zero, show up on Yelp.  Their "filter technology" filtered her real client's positive reviews because they seemed too good.  Automatically.  Her clients contacted Yelp, as did she, and all for naught.  I might suggest, given the 4 rating of Chico's, that there are more problems than just my friend's issue with the system.  YELP.  FIX THIS!

Ok, so my wife and I are hungry for Mexican.  The Tricities are good for that type of food, much better than the Western half of the state!  After Yelp'ing, we landed on Chico's.  It's a sort of fast casual establishment.  When we arrived, I opened the car door and found a pile of vomit on the ground.  This should have dissuaded me.  But, four stars, right?  We got inside, and there were a bunch of high school kids, with one tatted up person in their early 20's running the place.  They all sat around talking, the cutest girl was at the register (of course), and we could see - see - microwaves in the back of the place.  That should have dissuaded me.

Now my wife is accustomed to my antics.  Ducks hanging in windows of Chinese restaurants promises authenticity and deliciousness.  Mexican places where the staff doesn't speak English, that look slightly dingy, are hallmarks of tastiness.  Plus, could Yelp be wrong?

Yes!  The food, when it came, when the high school staff got around to nuking it, was disgusting.  Burrito.  Gross.  Beans.  Nigh unto rancid.  Chips.  Stale.  There was one saving grace, a single salsa that tasted good.  The rest, I would honestly best describe as putrid.  They were clearly old, not moldy or anything, but not fresh and tasty.  And someone, someone!! please tell me how you can nuke food and it still be cool (temperature-wise cool, not high school-wise cool).

My wife took three bites. I took four.  Then we did something we never do.  We said, let's chalk this one up to experience, and threw out the rest.  We left, and found a better place for dinner - after our stomachs had recovered from their disgusting Mexican gut-bomb.

I really can't put too fine a point on it.  This was the worst Mexican food I've ever eaten!  Think of one of those places that Gordon Ramsey visits to save, before the saving.  Think of a cool (not lukewarm, but cool) pile of brown and grey on a plate.

Chico's Tecate Grill
Stay Away!
7704 W Clearwater Ave
Kennewick, WA 99336
.5 of 5

the tricities burn my face off!!

have you notice that i am a fan of spicy food?  i may not have made that abundantly clear.  i am a serious fan of spicy food.  love it.  


rarely are foods spicy to me that bother other people.  at indian restaurants, the pickled/spicy peppers that is both extremely citrus-y and hot, isn't that spicy to me.  wasabi doesn't bother me much these days.  jalepeno is more nutty than spicy.  crushed red pepper paste in asian restaurants is downright sweet.  tabasco is laughable.  whenever i go to a thai or vietnamese or chinese or mexican or any other place where they say they have a scale, 1-5, 1-10, i say 5 or 10 or 6 or 11.  


most of the time, when i like the food somewhere and i go back, i have to tell them to make it more spicy.  i tell them to not focus on my whiteness and treat  me like they would family.  that normally does the trick.  sometimes it takes some convincing.  capsicum doesn't bother me much, lots of black pepper does (but i just find that lazy).  ok, is the stage set?


it's not often that i'm surprised.  and i was surprised twice, in eastern washington.  it's not exactly the middle of nowhere.  the tricities are the third major population center in washington state, but they're not even as densely populated as a new york city or boston commuter suburb, let alone big city.

(phuket)

my first surprise came from phuket thai cuisine in kennewick.  they have a sign, "we take our spicy level seriously."  ok.  sure.  i got the go ahead from my wife to order one dish at 5 stars (their top).  it was the beef and basil stir fry.  the waitress, a teenage girl, says " are you sure?"  "yes i'm sure, thanks for the warning" i reply.  she responds, "the cook/owner hates it when dishes go back because they're too spicy.  she won't accept them."  i considered myself duly warned.  my wife ordered a pad thai.  


when the 5 star dish landed at the table, visually you could see the red pepper paste on the top.  mashed, thai peppers and oil.  you also smelled it.  after one bite, my tongue was on fire.  fire.  it took quite a bit of rice to calm down the ol' taste buds.  i could have honestly ordered it at 4 stars and been very happy.  5 was too much.  it was more like the kind of thing you eat on a dare.  that said, it did have a nice flavor.  the spice wasn't lazy, it was layered.  my wife's pad thai (a 2 i think), was a nice break - but she wolfed it all down.  i suffered in silence...


in the end we had a nice black rice pudding, which was very tasty and a nice way to conclude the meal.  by that point my mouth had recovered.  the food was shockingly good.  good in general, very good for kennewick.


if that was not enough, then there was woo's teriyaki in richland.  

they have korean (bibimbap and bulgogi), and japanese (yakisoba and teriyaki).  i ordered the chicken yakisoba, hot.  "how hot?  we do low, medium, and high heat."  i replied "high."  the pile of noodles, with brownish-red sauce, and teriyaki chicken hits the table.  it didn't look quite as foreboding as phuket, but phuk it was hot!  i'm talking burn my face off hot.  worse than phuket.  i turned to the businessman i was trying to woo and said "this is hot."  he smiled and said "well, i'd heard a story about a guy being surprised by the spice, but i was waiting to see your reaction to figure out of it was true."


stinker!  not a month or two earlier, we'd had another meal together at a local mexican place.  it was pretty good, and i ordered their camarones a la diabla.  i also had their "hot" salsa.  i didn't break a sweat, it was nothing.  i commented that the flavor was there, but it lacked a little in the spice department.  well, not woo's.  it was there on taste, even better than phuket, and it was there in spice.  i had to order a tapioca ball smoothie and steal some of my compadre's rice to beat the heat.  he was a good sport.  i finished most of the plate, but the food did burn going down.  did i mention my mouth was on fire?    


after i finish the dish, manlily, the waitress says, "how was it."  "hot" we reply.  she smiles.  "how do you normally get it?" asks my new friend.  "very very hot, it's two levels above yours.  if i don't eat in a few days though, i can't even stand the normal hot.  you just have to get used to it."  get used to it!  my mouth recuperated about 20 minutes after lunch.  i can only imagine very very spicy.


phuket thai cuisine restaurant
ste d, 1407 north young st
kennewick, wa ‎
3.5 of 5 (4 for tricities)
(yes, if you saw the earlier thai ginger post, this place is better than thai ginger.)


woo's teriyaki
1379 george washington wy
richland, wa ‎
4 of 5 (5 for tricities)