www.playagrill.com
2401 Fenton Parkway
San Diego, Ca. 92108
OK, so for my first review, my husband and I went to Playa Grill in Mission Valley. I thought this would be the perfect place to start my 52 or more 'ritas in 52 weeks because hey, its a Margarita Bar! At least thats the name of the place! Nice looking place. Their Happy Hour (HH) is daily from 3 to 7pm. The great part about their HH is you can take advantage of their HH prices no matter where you sit, not limited to the bar or patio like their web site suggests. That is a great thing because we had with us little M who is 5, VERY close to 6. The next great part, and I really mean GREAT, of their HH, ALL alcohol beverages and appetizers are half off. Most places, they offer only the house 'ritas or beer for a discounted price, and usually only a dollar or two off.
The list of drinks were quite nice, I do think they would benefit from having a dedicated margarita menu. After all, it is a margarita bar! All of the margaritas were on a menu that was titled "Margarita & Specialty Cocktails", making it so I had to weed through all of them to really tell which were on the 'rita list and which were on the specialty cocktails list. Now that I have taken on this project, I am starting to really focus on the different choices I have with the offered 'ritas and not always having to settle for the house choice.
The Margarita!
The 'rita I ordered was the "Eldorita." Menu price, $10. Happy hour price, $5. I ordered it blended with salt, the most common way for me. I choose this one because it has Grand Marnier, and I really like Grand Marnier for a 'rita. The tequila used for this one is Cuervo Tradicional Silver. That is an important bit of information because I am also on the look out for which tequila makes the best 'rita. They sure do go hand in hand, in my opinion any way. Lets talk about the "Eldorita." When it arrived to my table, it had already separated. When I see that happen, I know that it did not come out of a dispenser, pre made and a lever pulled by some bartender behind the bar. The second clue that it did not get dispensed, was the chunks of ice still crowding the drink. This is not the best start for a drink that is originally priced $10. Perhaps next time I should order this one on the rocks? The first taste, I could taste the Grand Marnier, yum! One thing I have noticed about a frozen/blended 'rita, is that when its well blended, and stays that way through out most of the drink, the flavor is constant through out the entire life of the drink. However, when it separates, the flavor is different between the frozen part and the no longer frozen part. It has a much stronger "tequila" flavor to it, which is not so enjoyable for me. I would rather be able to taste their house made sweet and sour along with the tequila and Grand Marnier. That all being said, by time I finished my 'rita, I was wishing for more salt along the rim of the glass, it was gone, but the drink was not. The best thing I can say for this 'rita, is the buzz. It was a perfect buzz, to the point where the excessive tequila flavor at the end no longer mattered as much. I did, however, save the last bite of my food for after I finished my 'rita, because I wanted to finish off with something that was more tasty! Final opinion, I would not be as happy if I had spent the $10 for this one drink, $5 was just the right price for the buzz despite the lack of the sweet lime flavor I so look forward to in the perfect 'rita. So far, Playa Grill & Margarita Bar did not deliver me the perfect 'rita. I think I would give it 3 stars, only because it did deliver the perfect buzz, with out the perfect flavor.
The other stuff!
In all, the place looked very nice and the staff was very friendly. Of course we were delighted to start off with the house chips and salsa. The salsa was nice and tangy! Just the way my husband likes it. It also came out with a salsa verde, its texture was smooth and somewhat viscous. We ordered from the "Aperitivos - Small Plates" menu, the taquitos. This came with three chicken taquitos and salsa verde. It was supposed to come with queso fresco. When we asked our server about it, she said, "oh." Then did nothing about it. When a second server brought us our food, we asked a second time about the queso fresco, he told us the kitchen is running "low" and then walked away. Needless to say, we never did get our queso fresco! Next, for dinner, my husband ordered the "Carnitas plate" and I ordered an a la carte cheese enchilada. I had a taste of my husbands carnitas and MAN it was so good! Very moist and tender. My cheese enchilada must have been one of the best cheese enchiladas I have ever had. I had the choice of a mild ranchero salsa or the spicy one. The spicy one is the same one that comes with the chips and salsa. I chose the mild and it was perfect. I really did enjoy each and every bite. I even used the salsa and cheese on my plate to continue dipping chips into, wonderful! Our son got the kids cheese quesadilla. He ate it all, which is a good sign. However, a few kinks in the kids menu. For starters, the menu says drink and dessert are included. They charged us $1 for the lemonade, because it was not a soda. They also failed to bring out his dessert. We had to ask about it as they were handing over our bill. Kind of odd.
Thank you for reading my review on my 'rita at Playa Grill, if you would like to follow me as I hit San Diego for some more 'ritas, you can do so on twitter, @SD_Rita.
No comments:
Post a Comment