Eating Out: Soyla's Mexican Cuisine

Ok, so I'm not the biggest Mexican food enthusiast. I like it, but it's not something you would normally find me yenning for. I'd rather migrate toward Asian or Indian cuisine.

But that doesn't mean I can't tell whether or not a Mexican restaurant is serving a legitimate product.

Cameron and I were riding our bikes around downtown when we decided to hit up Soyla's for lunch. We'd never been there before and it had been on our "to dine" list for a while.

We were impressed by the place when we walked in. Big, open room with lots of windows and high ceilings. Some of the decor was tacky, like sombreros and cacti that looked like Soyla snagged out of a closed down Chi-Chi's or Chili's dumpsters. Other than that, though, the place was beautiful.

The front row view of the Capitol Theater wasn't bad, either.

We waited at our table for a while before anyone resembling a server greeted us. We weren't even sure if we were supposed to seat ourselves or not; nobody was around so we just picked a spot and waited. Eventually our server showed up. She was nice, I guess, but very impersonal, barely informative, and hardly helpful. Maybe she was hungover. I'll give her that benefit of a doubt.

The menu was confusing. Kind of impersonal, uninformative, and unhelpful. Hey...

Aside from those less-than-desirable qualities, we weren't very pleased with the prices. They seemed a little expensive for what the vague descriptions were offering. Vegetarians can usually survive pretty well in a Mexican place since there's plenty of beans to go around. But vegans it seems will hardly stand a chance. There's cheese on everything. And since I'm trying to forego cheese, I found myself with a dilemma. Cameron ended up ordering a cheese chimichanga entree. I got the lunch special with a bean tostada and a bean burrito.

I forgot to mention that one of the first things our server greeted us with was an offer of some chips and salsa. Of course we said yes please, but then she asked, "half order or full?" Wait a second...is my lack of Mexican restaurant experience kicking me in the butt or am I thinking that usually chips and salsa are on the house? Chips and salsa are to Mexican places as pita bread and garlic dip are to Indian joints...right?

But alas, no, this bad boy baby batch of chips and salsa is apparently worth two and a half bones. Don't get me wrong, the chips were actually very good (salsa not so much). But $2.50 for a handful of them? No thanks, I'd rather buy a bag of Tostitos.

Here's another sneaky thing I noticed on the menu:

See where it says "Andreas"? The queso blanco cheese dip is $3.29. By itself. If you want anything to actually dip in it, you have to pay more than double that for chips. Can someone explain this to me? I'm Mexican cuisine illiterate. Maybe some people like to order just the dip to go with their other food? I don't know. I'm completely puzzled.

Anyway, the wait for our food wasn't long, and I think I know why.

Chimichanga "entree"

Lunch special: Bean "burrito" and bean "tostada"

I think it was so quick because they have a secret Taco Bell hidden in the basement.

Seriously, though. I should have put a quarter next to our plates so you could understand the portion sizes to scale. I've seen more beans stuffed in a Taco Bell burrito than that. And the tostada probably could have fit in my mouth in one bite. Stop snickering.

And there was still cheese on it.

The flavor? Good. Not great, but not bad. I'll give them that much credit. But for the price? Terrible. It doesn't make any sense to charge seven bucks for a fast food quality meal. I'm willing to pay a little bit extra for a kick ass meal, but this just wasn't even close to kick ass. In fact, I felt nauseous and had a sore throat for the rest of the day. So it was more like kick digestive system.

Our server never once checked on us after our food was served. There was one or two other occupied tables in the entire room, in the middle of lunch hour, and our server took way too long to bring us the bill. In fact, she was bussing other tables while we were sitting there, waiting for her to check us out. As a server with ten years of experience, Cameron was especially unimpressed with her lack of professionalism and prioritizing.

Nonetheless, we gave her a fair tip and hopped on our bikes towards home. We were glad we finally crossed the place off our To-Do list, but now we have added Soyla's to a new list: To-Don't-Ever-Again.