Tortas Frontera by Rick Bayless and Chicago O'Hare Dining

Oh airport food, how you are only topped in bleh-ness, and grossness, and blandness, and gummy and chewy and salty and sweatiness by airline food. But wait, after a terrible experience at Sky Bridge Bar and Grill, Rick Bayless gives me hope! More than hope, he gives me such great food at O'Hare that I forgot for just a second I was in an airport...

Tortas Frontera, part of the Frontera Grill franchise of Rick Bayless, has a storefront right in the heart of darkness - O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. Long the bane of travelers because their runways were not equipped to handle the snowy conditions Chicago deals out, O'Hare was the worst. Delays, cancelations, and the in-your-face Chicago attitude that pierces right through the American Airlines hub right into what seems like every stewardess and gate agent at the airport. So an extra thank you goes out to Bayless, for not only making O'Hare a bearable stop, but an enjoyable one.

Also, kudos to the wait staff and cashiers at Frontera Grill for being polite, friendly, and an all around joy. Your attitudes are not what I've come to expect while at the airport, so thank you!

And the food is fantastic! Stupid good. You'd think you stopped off at a specialty Mexican sandwich joint in any major city in the US. The prices are, well, Bayless-airport prices, but when you pay $7-10 for a nasty two-day old sandwich or salad, or $10-15 at the local Chilis-2Go for anything, who cares! This is the best food you will ever have in an airport. This may be the best Mexican torta sandwich you ever have. The guacamole is awe-inspiring. The salsas are delicious. The chocolate pecan bar was a tasty little desert to go.

I've had the fully dressed guacamole, pepito, and smoky garlic shrimp tortas, and corn & poblano chowder so far. I will keep going back until I try everything on the menu, because it's just that good. I have not eaten anything there that has not been great, not good, not very good, but great! (think Tony the Tiger.)

Smokey Garlic Shrimp

No wonder Tortas was named the best restaurant in a US airport. I've eaten at about half the list, and while they are better than most airport food, Tortas is a head and shoulders above every other airport restaurant in the US. I would not be surprised to see Bayless put one in other airports, or the downtown of a major city or two.

Oh, and the Skybridge Bar in the F terminal. F! It's terrible. Grimy, dirty, poorly managed, not clean, greasy, gross. I can't say enough about how you should avoid this place. Go to
McDonald's (that's right, I just recommended McDonald's over it!)!

Tortas Frontera by Rick Bayless
4.5 of 5

Skybridge
.5 of 5 (why .5, at least it's human food)

Chiles
1.5 of 5

bandolero restaurant and tequila bar

Have I lamented before about the lack of serviceable Mexican food in Seattle?  Good, well let me tell you about another bleh experience.  Bandolero.

In typical fashion, my wife and I were starving.  We hadn't really eaten all day, had been gone from home for hours, and were stuck in that sort of upper U District, not quite Wallingford area of town.  We happenellinon ad artle f toter &nbsesta hapts. d upp;We lite tuclus awaof restaurants.  We were turned away at Kisaku, and then went to Bandolero.

We were d event to go to in just 45 short minutes, and knew we needed to eat in 40.  Well, telling the wait staff we were in a hurry did nothing for our service.  We waited 27 minutes for chips and salsa.  We waited tens of minutes at a clip to see anyone, and our drinks stayed relatively empty.

Starving, we ordered a little smattering of what they had to offer, sopas, ceviche, carne asada tacos, and their sort of signature chicken mole enchiladas.  I recognize it is unwise to order apps and an entree when you are in a hurry, but we told the staff to bring out anything they had ready when it was up and that we would take everything out on the table at the same time if possible.  No dice.




Who even knows how long we waited on our real food.  Did I say that we waited 27 minutes for chips and salsa?  Does that give you an idea?  The traditional salsa, by the way, was pretty devoid of spice and flavor.  The carne asada meat came out cold.  The ceviche was ok, but just ok.  The mole was ok, but thin and tasked burnt (not smokey).  It had the potential to be very good even, but the I just couldn't shake this burnt flavor.


So, did I mention the wait staff screwed up our order?  They did.  Carne asada tacos.  Out comes a carne asada nachos.  "We ordered carne asada tacos."  "Let me go check on that."  Out comes out waitress again, "I had here that you ordered carne asada nachos."  My wife "I ordered the tacos."  Waitress "Oh, well that's not what I had."  She held the food out and said, "I had nachos, is this ok?"  We had to leave 5 minutes before it even came.  My wife looks at me, sad.  I say "Whatever, can you at least bring out some tortillas?"  The waitress says, "Sure."


Ten minutes later, the already cool meat got colder, still no tortillas.  We wave someone down, ask again, and another 5 minutes later they arrive.  Three.  Wouldn't want to give out more than three.  The girl almost looks mad at giving them.  Getting the bill was a process I also don't wish to discuss, but let's just say that "in a hurry" didn't seem to signify either leaving the bill with our dinner, or coming by with the bill, or coming by at all after delivery or when delivering others' checks.  Get the picture?

Epic fail.

The place does appear to be more "saloon" in feel then restaurant, along with accumulated cob webs under the table.  For bar food, it was ok.  For a restaurant, it was terrible.  In review, not-tasty salsa, burnt mole, cold meat, wrong order, terrible service, no hurry.  And no restitution.  My wife left feeling bad, she wrote on the bill "less than average service, less than average tip" and left 5%.  I said, "Good job."

carne asada "tacos"

Bandolero
2253 North 56th Street
Seattle, WA 98103
206-633-5828
1.5 of 5 (only because the mole had potential)


UPDATE:  Apparently my wife and I weren't the only ones that had a terrible experience.  This restaurant's website is down, and appears to be closed.  They had over 3 stars on Yelp, yet another sign of the apocalypse   

casa d's taqueria

One day for lunch I swung by this place, Casa D's Taqueria.  Why not, there isn't much good Mexican food in the Seattle area.  The best restaurant that I've tried, in terms of Mexican (tex-mex) flavors and price is La Cocina de Puerco.  I must admit though that I've not tried all the places, so don't be too upset if you think it's only average.  It is.  I maintain that most Mexican food in Seattle is average at best.

Anyway, I ordered the mini tacos.  All the better to try their different meats.  They give you four tacos for about six bucks.  The white guy who seemed to run the joint informed me that the mini tacos came with choice of meat, onions, and cilantro.  They also throw in a few chips and salsa.  I asked about cabbage.  They didn't have it.  I asked about lettuce.  It is extra.  Extra?  Extra!  The white man then informed me that the traditional way for the tacos to be served was meat, onions, and cilantro, and any deviation would cost.  Thanks white man for that newsflash, I guess all the Mexican people I know who serve them with cabbage, or... heavens forbid, tomatoes, really must not be Mexicans at all.  I'm glad he cleared that up, my operating assumption is now that they're all Salvadorans, possibly even M-13 gang members.

In all seriousness, I had this flashback to Vietnam.  Everyone there charges you extra for everything.  Again, I attribute this to whiteness.  That's neither here nor there though.  Looking around, they had signs, written on paper plates, extra meat with a $.  Jalapeños (they looked grilled), $ .30.  Everything was extra.

I was happy he didn't charge me for napkins.  I took my tacos, and escaped to eat before he charged me for using the door.  They were, in a word, average.  The tortillas were the corn numbers that are bought in massive packs.  The steak was tremendously underseasoned.  I could see why when I saw him put them on, out of a pack from the supermarket, onto the grill.  No seasoning that I could see.  The chorizo, and shredded beef were good.  Maybe the Mexican lady who had dished up my food was allowed to spice them up.  The carnitas were average.  Frankly, I prefer Chipotle's carnitas, but I can't complain about anything in particular - I can only say that they are forgettable.

Casa D's Taqueria
102 Bellevue Way NE # B
Bellevue, WA 98004-5974
(425) 462-8410
2.5 of 5

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