Last night, my sister and I ate here: http://www.isalita.com/
Last night, my sister and I ate here: http://www.isalita.com/
and had dessert here: http://www.blankslatecreamery.com/
Isalita
It's not inauthentic. #doublenegativesftw What it really is is a so-called small plates place. At least they don't try to call it tapas. Pet peeve: everything on a small plate is not a tapa, ok? Anyway, we had the traditional guacamole, the duck flautas, the cauliflower tacos, and the barbacoa tacos. I also had an horchata.
The guacamole is delicious, gets an A. The chips were fresh, not greasy, and just enough salt so you knew it was there. They were very, very good flour tortilla chips.
The flautas were ok, unless you got some of the green sauce that was minimally drizzled on the plate; then they were amazing. Presumably this is the "poblano avocado sauce", although it neither looked, nor tasted like either of those things. WIthout that sauce, they were a B-, with it, an A. In fact, we both would have just eaten that sauce by itself. There was very little of that sauce on the plate, needs more.
The cauliflower tacos were very good, B+. Sharp, flavorful, with a little heat from the pickled jalapenos. Being jalapenos, the heat was also sharp and up front. I mention this because these were served before the next item, and that was poor planning on the kitchen's part because although these were lighter, they were refreshing and palate cleansing and left a lingering effect that took away from the taste and flavor of the more subtle barbacoa.
Speaking of the barbacoa, it was, hands down, the best thing we had, A++, would eat again. It was warm, subtly spiced (with flavors other than the guajillo), and the guajillo sauce gave it this delicious latent warmth that just sort of glowed with heat on the back end. Absolutely should eat this if you come here.
Unfortunately, the horchata. This was not horchata. It was rice milk and almond milk out of a container, like Rice Dream, or something, and a cinnamon sugar syrup like they'd put in your coffee at Starbucks. No offense to Monin, or whoever's syrup they used, but this tastes like the syrup they used to use to try to cover up the flavor of children's liquid medicines. I know, they gave me a lot of those when I was a kid. It is not even a good candied cinnamon syrup flavor. I've had those, too, and they taste awesomely like the red hot hard cinnamon candies and are delicious. This tasted like medicine.
Regardless, horchata ought to be made with actual rice, and actual cinnamon spice. Still, this could have been at least a tasty if fake version, you know, kind of like some of those boxed chai things are to a real steeped mix of whole spices and tea with milk. Nope. Yuck. Overpriced, tasted terrible. D-
Atmosphere - we were seated in an area that gave us plenty of room; we could see that some seating areas might have been a bit cramped. Physically looks very attractive, but for some reason the lighting where we were seemed very low, like, I must be 80 'cuz it's hard to read the menu low. Fortunately, we were near the bar and the glow from the flat screens helped.
The major minus here, though, was the acoustics. It really didn't look like the kind of space you'd typically walk into and expect it to be loud, but it was ridiculously loud. It was I'M YELLING AT YOU AT A CROWDED DANCE CLUB AND I SEE YOUR LIPS MOVING BUT THERE'S NO SOUND loud. It was lose your voice and walk out and your ears feel like you just left a rock concert loud. WHAT?! I SAID MY EARS FEEL LIKE I JUST LEFT A ROCK CON.... Presumably you get the point, by now. You could not have a conversation with the person sitting 2-3 feet directly in front of you who could read your lips across the table. And this was not because there was loud music. Honestly, I could not tell you if there was any music. It was that loud. Major, major acoustic design fail for a restaurant. F
Service - Really good. We assumed there'd be a wait, but they turn it over surprisingly quickly and we were seated in less than 5 minutes. The waitress came over quickly to ask about drink orders, but then disappeared for a bit before getting our food orders. She also wasn't too thrilled with my disinterest in her sales pitch after we asked if you could mix and match the tacos (they come 3 to an order). P.S. Clearly, people ask this all the time. For your future reference, the answer is most emphatically no.
In general, though she was good, and because this is a small plates place, any staff who walk by and see an empty plate will ask if you'd like it cleared. They will also get you fresh plates off of which to eat, if you catch them fast enough to ask. When asked for, the bill came in a reasonable time frame and the left over food was nicely wrapped up. A-
Overall, a B+. Some authentic flavors, good service, bad acoustics and never, ever, order the horchata.
and had dessert here: http://www.blankslatecreamery.com/
Isalita
It's not inauthentic. #doublenegativesftw What it really is is a so-called small plates place. At least they don't try to call it tapas. Pet peeve: everything on a small plate is not a tapa, ok? Anyway, we had the traditional guacamole, the duck flautas, the cauliflower tacos, and the barbacoa tacos. I also had an horchata.
The guacamole is delicious, gets an A. The chips were fresh, not greasy, and just enough salt so you knew it was there. They were very, very good flour tortilla chips.
The flautas were ok, unless you got some of the green sauce that was minimally drizzled on the plate; then they were amazing. Presumably this is the "poblano avocado sauce", although it neither looked, nor tasted like either of those things. WIthout that sauce, they were a B-, with it, an A. In fact, we both would have just eaten that sauce by itself. There was very little of that sauce on the plate, needs more.
The cauliflower tacos were very good, B+. Sharp, flavorful, with a little heat from the pickled jalapenos. Being jalapenos, the heat was also sharp and up front. I mention this because these were served before the next item, and that was poor planning on the kitchen's part because although these were lighter, they were refreshing and palate cleansing and left a lingering effect that took away from the taste and flavor of the more subtle barbacoa.
Speaking of the barbacoa, it was, hands down, the best thing we had, A++, would eat again. It was warm, subtly spiced (with flavors other than the guajillo), and the guajillo sauce gave it this delicious latent warmth that just sort of glowed with heat on the back end. Absolutely should eat this if you come here.
Unfortunately, the horchata. This was not horchata. It was rice milk and almond milk out of a container, like Rice Dream, or something, and a cinnamon sugar syrup like they'd put in your coffee at Starbucks. No offense to Monin, or whoever's syrup they used, but this tastes like the syrup they used to use to try to cover up the flavor of children's liquid medicines. I know, they gave me a lot of those when I was a kid. It is not even a good candied cinnamon syrup flavor. I've had those, too, and they taste awesomely like the red hot hard cinnamon candies and are delicious. This tasted like medicine.
Regardless, horchata ought to be made with actual rice, and actual cinnamon spice. Still, this could have been at least a tasty if fake version, you know, kind of like some of those boxed chai things are to a real steeped mix of whole spices and tea with milk. Nope. Yuck. Overpriced, tasted terrible. D-
Atmosphere - we were seated in an area that gave us plenty of room; we could see that some seating areas might have been a bit cramped. Physically looks very attractive, but for some reason the lighting where we were seemed very low, like, I must be 80 'cuz it's hard to read the menu low. Fortunately, we were near the bar and the glow from the flat screens helped.
The major minus here, though, was the acoustics. It really didn't look like the kind of space you'd typically walk into and expect it to be loud, but it was ridiculously loud. It was I'M YELLING AT YOU AT A CROWDED DANCE CLUB AND I SEE YOUR LIPS MOVING BUT THERE'S NO SOUND loud. It was lose your voice and walk out and your ears feel like you just left a rock concert loud. WHAT?! I SAID MY EARS FEEL LIKE I JUST LEFT A ROCK CON.... Presumably you get the point, by now. You could not have a conversation with the person sitting 2-3 feet directly in front of you who could read your lips across the table. And this was not because there was loud music. Honestly, I could not tell you if there was any music. It was that loud. Major, major acoustic design fail for a restaurant. F
Service - Really good. We assumed there'd be a wait, but they turn it over surprisingly quickly and we were seated in less than 5 minutes. The waitress came over quickly to ask about drink orders, but then disappeared for a bit before getting our food orders. She also wasn't too thrilled with my disinterest in her sales pitch after we asked if you could mix and match the tacos (they come 3 to an order). P.S. Clearly, people ask this all the time. For your future reference, the answer is most emphatically no.
In general, though she was good, and because this is a small plates place, any staff who walk by and see an empty plate will ask if you'd like it cleared. They will also get you fresh plates off of which to eat, if you catch them fast enough to ask. When asked for, the bill came in a reasonable time frame and the left over food was nicely wrapped up. A-
Overall, a B+. Some authentic flavors, good service, bad acoustics and never, ever, order the horchata.
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