Los Dos Molinos - Baseline and Central

Brien:

Hey everyone!

So this'll be my first post with an ACTUAL review! As Kristi said in her introduction, I'm not a professional so this is just my opinion. But I eat out... almost every night of the week - so I think I know just a little about restaurants! (From a completely non-culinary perception, of course!)

First up is Los Dos Molinos. I had been talking to my aunt, mom and grandma about this place for a while. A friend had introduced me to it almost a year ago and I've been dying to go again since. I had ALSO been talking about a family outting for a little while, and was able to wrangle everyone up to try this place. I met them down at Big Lots in the area, then led them to this place, and as I remember, LDM did NOT disappoint. (Me anyway!)

We were seated at a booth very near the door which wasn't a problem. What we did find disconcerting was the fact that no matter what anyone said, you could hear regardless of where they were. The only people you couldn't hear...? The people at your table! Unfortuantely, we chose to go at about noon, which wouldn't have been so bad initially, but there was a LARGE party that was sitting less than 3 tables down from us, and the accoustics made every laugh sound like the person was right at our table. We were literally yelling across the table at each other.

Of course any good mexican restaurant worth its salt has chips and salsa, and LDM was right there with them just a few moments after we got there. There was a red and green, both with lots of flavor. Now if you're reading this, I'm sure you've heard about the reptuation that LDM has for being extremely hot, and the salsas are just a taste of things to come heat-wise. I bit into the first chip with the red and was immediately reaching for the water. HOT! Caliente! It was AWESOME! I'm a HUGE fan of spicy food, and of course this was RIGHT up my alley. My entire family is, in fact, and my aunt and mom were in heaven! My aunt said that the red was her favorite, and my mom liked the green - I bounced between them both. The green was definitely the more chunky, with bits of pepper and onion. The red looked like it had crushed peppers in it also, definitely obviously hot.

The waiter came and took our order. My grandma (who compares all mexican places to Arriba's, and always gets a cheese crisp) got, surpise, a cheese crisp. I warned her to get it extra crispy as she likes it as crispy as possible, but she did not. (More on this to come). My aunt got a combo plate that included a taco and a tostada. My mom chose the ground beef taco salad, and I got the machaca mexican pizza. I also ordered a lime margarita on the rocks. My aunt and mom had iced tea to drink, and my grandmother had water.

Now, a few snags that were noticed right away. My family (including myself) are always looking for values. One thing we noticed is they are charging .75 for refills of pop (soda for you southwesterners) and ice tea. This is the first I've seen of this, and I hope the last. Esp in a place thats known for its very spicy food. To me, though not this drastic, its a slight slap in the face. "We hope you love our hot food. But dont think you can cool your mouth down with a beverage of your choice without paying!" Maybe I'm just a little penny pincher that way, but I can go through 2-3 ice teas in one sitting (arnold palmers) and with hot food it becomes even moreso. Another kick in the pants is that they charge a buck everytime you want more chips and/or salsa. ($1 for chips, $1 per bowl of salsa.) If you want chips and both kinds of salsa, thats another 3 bucks. Thats just disappointing to me, to say the least.

And then, an ADDITIONAL snag that really made me wonder was, my aunt had originally ordered the two taco platter, but asked to have ground beef instead of shredded beef. She's not a big fan of shredded beef in general. The waiter said that they do not have ground beef for tacos. I looked at him kind of funny, considering they DO have ground beef for taco salads... I didn't quite understand. But we all frowned and continued on.

I first got my margarita (along with the rest of the non-descript drinks) and tasted it. I am not a huge drinker, so when I took my first drink, I was very impressed. I was able to drink it without tasting an overpowering tequila/alcohol flavor. I took a few more drinks and was pleasantly suprised that it was so mild. I could drink it as I would pop or arnold palmers.... so I did. And then I realized after a few drinks that I was getting tipsy. Since I was driving i chose to back off, but I say now - if you are not driving, GET A MARGARITA! They're awesome :)

The food came out next after about an approximately 10 minute wait. The first things were my grandma's cheese crisp and my mexican pizza. My grandma was immediately disappointed. Refering to the crisp, she said, "Its not crispy at all". I looked and indeed, it was very limp. Basically its just a large tortilla covered in cheese, and unfortunately, LDM was skimpy with their cheese covering... Much like Seth over at http://www.feastinginphoenix.com/ , I can't understand how a restaurant can call a something a cheese crisp if its not... crispy.. It just boggles my mind! After a few bites, it was apparent that she was unhappy. This, however, is not an unusual phoenomenon. Her favorite mexican place, as stated above, is Arriba's, which is good... but... Well you get the idea :)

When the waiter set down my mexican pizza, my aunt and mom immediately said, "oohh Bri that looks GOOD!" And it indeed it did! A large torilla crust was covered with machaca beef, enchalada sauce, and large hunks of tomatoes with cheese covering the top of everything. I looked at it and immediately drooled. I love machaca and its so hard to find good machaca around here. Immediately, my aunt and mom wanted to try, so I cut each off a piece and gave to them. "Oh Bri that is REALLY good" my mom exclaimed immediately. My aunt was just a little more critical. "I think I'd like it better if it didn't have as much enchalada sauce, but it still has a good flavor". I dove in after hearing their thoughts and was immediately satisfied with this choice. The machaca and enchalada sauce both had a heavy kick to them, heatwise, but moreover, the machaca was tender and melted in my mouth. The sauce itself had a very smoky quality to it that immediately endeared me to it. I love smoky flavors, and heat + smoky = heaven for me! I loved it! I picked off the tomatoes, as I'm not a huge fan of moderately cooked, large chunked tomatoes, and gave them to my grandma. (Who should grow a veggie patch, with as much veggies as she eats!)

Next out was my moms taco salad and my aunts combo platter. My moms taco salad was a large crispy shell with 4 sides that had one side broken out and laying flat. The other 3 made up the rest of the bowl. The piece that was laying flat was covered in guacamole and sour cream, and I have to say, very generous portions of both. I am impressed when a restaurant doesn't skimp on those kinds of items. The taco salad itself was a mound of shredded lettuce, whole beans, tomatoes (again, big chunky tomatoes), and ground beef. All this was topped with a dressing, which I unfortunately didn't catch what kind. (My apologies, my first review! Sorry!) My mother immediately exclaimed, "The beef has a REALLY good flavor! Its too bad they wouldn't put the ground beef in the tacos!" to my aunt. I tried my moms gauc (as she doesn't like it) and was very impressed with the flavor. Slightly chunky, lots of avacado flavor.

And last my aunts combo platter came to the table. A large taco and tostada sat on the left side of the plate, along with a small generic salad (shredded lettuce and tomatoes), beans and rice. She took her first bite of her taco, and made a funny face. I asked her what was wrong, and she broke a piece of the shell off for me. Tasting it, I noticed immediately - it tasted like they'd decided to keep the shells someplace that lots of air and light and anything else that turns a shell into a stale, icky piece of cardboard. I made the same face she did and immediately said, "we'll get the waiter on that." She continued, "The meat and the filling of the taco is really good, but the shell is really bad" she said and frowned. I could understand.

After the disappointment of the taco, I think she was hesitant to continue, but being the trooper (and hungry person) she was, she did. "Oohh The tostada is really good!" I was happy to hear that the platter had been salvaged. After a little while I asked her about the rice and beans. "The beans are very good, and they have whole beans in there, but the rice is bland and has little seasoning to it. Its also slighty dry and you know how I love rice." Indeed I do, so I was sad to note that LDM didn't pass the rice test.

Once we flagged down a waiter, we told him about the taco. Before we could even finish and say it was stale, he immediately said, "i'll go get you a new one". It was as if he already knew that the taco shells were stale. He brought my aunt a new taco within a few minutes, and she tried that one. "Oh this is much better. MUCH." She then took some of the red salsa, doused the taco in it, and munched away happily.

After we'd all finished our food, we sat back, full and were chatting about the place. My first question was, "So would you guys come back?" My mother immediately exclaimed, "yes! but I would get what you got!" My aunt said, "I would, but I wouldn't make a special trip. If I'm down this way, then absolutely this would be a first stop." My grandmother... well... She can keep her Arriba's! :)

My aunt snatched the check immediately before any one of us could see it, so I dont ahve a total but I believe it was in the ball park of 45-50$ for all of us, that includes 1 alcoholic drink and 1 refill of chips + salsa. An "above average" value considering my gripes above, however not spectacular.

Good points : VERY good food overall - very spicy, good flavor - Fun atmosphere if you dont mind loud. Moderately good prices.

Bad points : At times the waitstaff tended to disappear into thin air - substitutions? We dont do no stinking substitutions - You want heat? that extra! You drink lots? THAT EXTRA! - When the flavors of something were not good, they were really NOT good. (Rice, etc)

Overall, I'd give LDM 3 3/4's cheese crisps out of 5.