Salt Tacos Y Tequila recently opened I The Shops at Norterra in North Phoenix Arizona. Two other locations are in San Tan and Glendale. This is a Mexican style restaurant and bar. It’s LOUD and energetic.

You can sit inside at the bar or a table or outside with really great misters that makes 103 degrees F seem almost cold.

The chairs are specially made for this restaurant.

We started out with margaritas. One house margarita and one Cadillac margarita.

I think they taste watery…….?

We try the taquito appetizer. We got two blue tortilla shredded beef, two yellow corn tortilla shredded chicken that were covered in chipotle cream, lettuce, avocado salsa, pickled onions, pico, and queso fresco.

The flavors are tasty……the meats inside dried out a bit but still tasty.

For dinner I tried the grilled salmon with asparagus, jalapeño mashed potatoes, and serrano garlic butter.

It came with a grilled lemon. This is reasonably good….Not fish house quality but better than from some places. They removed the skin and the bloodline. The fish is nicely grilled and is cooked all the way but still has some moisture. It doesn’t taste fishy at all. The portion is large and the flavors are good.

My husband tried the carne asada plate. It was a marinated skirt steak that was sort of burnt and crispy.

They forgot to give him one of the sauces that it comes with but they did give him fajita vegetables, sour cream, guacamole, grilled jalapeño, refried beans and tortillas.

He did complain about the steak and they quickly took the plate and replaced the steak with a much better one. They are newly opened at this time. (May – 17 – 2022)

Salt Tacos Y Tequila Newly Opened at The Shops at Norterra in North Phoenix.

2459 W Happy Valley Rd PHX AZ

www.Norterra.SaltTacosYTequila.com

Phone number is not listed on website

Everything is subject to change.

When a new buffet opens up it is usually as great as it is going be so I like to check them out as they open when one pops up in the area. This particular one recently opened. It’s open everyday for lunch and dinner. They offer over a hundred dishes to choose from.

They have a small koi pond inside. It’s set up like the zoo. You can feed the fish for a dollar.

It looks very nice inside.

We pay on our way in and then get seated. And now we are off to try things.

We usually start with the sushi. They didn’t look the best so I only picked one to try. For some odd reason the fish felt hard and crunchy on the ends…..(ick!) …….Today it’s better not to eat the sushi.

Moving on…..

The food looks ok for buffet food.

They have all kinds of chicken dishes, a few beef dishes, a little shellfish. They have soups, lots of desserts and much more. It looks like everything is labeled today.

I took Sichuan chicken, chicken on a stick, one piece of orange chicken, mushrooms, green beans, flounder, and some noodles.

Oh my…….none of the chicken I took is chewable….The orange chicken is hard as a golf ball……The mushrooms and noodles have an unpalatable taste…..it’s so horrible it’s too painful to eat. ………It FORKING doesn’t even taste like food!*********When I get to the flounder.it is edible but is unseasoned and unflavored….Only the green beans are good….. (I was thinking that they must have purchased the green beans….I didn’t think they taste like they could have came from this place.)

My husband took different things with the same results….All the chicken, beef, and shrimp dishes were un-chewable. Everything we tried with the exception of the green beans tasted terrible….so terrible that I can’t even describe….so bad the food is just painful…..to eat.

We decide that we must try the Mongolian grill….It just has to be better……

I make a plate with chicken and my husband makes a plate with beef….

The beef came out hard and chewy.The chicken came out moist but the flavors are unpalatable…….ICK! I can’t eat this!

We left.

My husband left hungry and wanted to eat someplace else.

I felt kinda sick to my stomach and didn’t want to eat anything.

Maybe if you try this place as soon as they open for lunch there is a possibility that the meats might not be so leathery, hard and dried out. If you don’t mind leathery chewy dry meats and don’t care how food taste then maybe you might be alright here.

Based on just one visit I do NOT recommend Las Vegas Seafood Buffet in Phoenix AZ.

The Forking Truth is that Sometimes a Buffet isn’t your Best Choice when you go out to eat.

2929 N 75TH AVE Phoenix AZ

623-849-3333 – 623-849-6666

www.LasVegasSeafoodBuffet75.com

Everything is subject to change.

Cala is described as a Modern Mediterranean Restaurant. It is in the small boutique hotel called Senna House in Old Town Scottsdale Arizona. The restaurant is led by celebrity chef Beau MacMillan. Parking is difficult but not impossible. It’s just like city parking. You can valet there or search for a parking spot somewhere. The nearby lots are tow-away zones but we’ve found a parking spot down the main road.

We’ve found the hostess desk. Eventually someone walks by and says that a hostess will be with us. We waited about ten minutes. During that time I could look around.

Inside is comfortable looking, modern, airy, and visually beautiful. There are lots of live plants. It’s like a big patio inside and also they have an actual outdoor patio with another bar outside.

It’s impossible not to notice that NOT ALL but most of the females working there are wearing very little up top and not enough down below to cover their panties. Two servers today are wearing long jeans with a tank tops. I can’t decide if they are going for a beach in the desert look or a Hooters at The Senna House look?

This photo was the most family friendly of what was seen…..Other women I saw had the daisy dukes with their buns exposed.

Cala is for sure a great destination for younger men or any males that enjoy looking at young women in skimpy outfits……maybe even your grandpa…… But maybe not so great for most other women, young children, or grandma.

Eventually a brestaurant hostess seats us…..She looked like a teenager……..She wore hot pants and a top that exposed 49% of breasts…whole middle and part of stomach)………..She seats us at a table where I have to brush away what looks like a big spill of granola from my bench….(sorry now that I didn’t photo all that I brushed off)

We look at the menu. They have cocktails for the table. They also offer sharables like flaming cheese, and mezze plates ($58…that one seemed steep to me?), Cala power bowls, brunch plates like a green Chile pork burrito, burgers, banana French toast, insalada pizza, and a few desserts.

I thought that the spiced lentil & chickpea bowl with added salmon sounded good so I ordered that and I received a very large bowl of food.

It’s suppose to contain lentils, chickpeas, carrots, tomato, beets, cucumber, feta, and tahini-citrus vinaigrette. I wasn’t told but found out that the carrots and beets were missing and were replaced with crunchy corn nuts. (would have ordered the other bowl if I knew) Crunchy corn nuts seems like a bar snack………..and I believe that corn nuts are a South American food and don’t seem Mediterranean and also are not a replacement for carrots and beets. ….In a nice restaurant they usually let you know if they are out of something……..

Anyways-

I taste the dressing. To me it taste like tahini and lemon…….pretty much nothing else. I would expect to taste cumin, coriander, salt, and at least pepper. I can only guess that ingredients are missing from the dressing? ……I DON’T KNOW if ingredients are missing but I think so because the the bowl had missing ingredients and also the food I enjoyed from the chef’s previous restaurant was flavorful and delicious……so I was expecting flavorful and delicious here………

Then I taste the salmon. It’s prepared nice like it seems like it was slow cooked. It has a very good texture but it is also unseasoned and unseasoned is at the very least UNDER-SEASONED. For some odd reason it’s slightly fishy.

It taste exactly like the bloodline all the way threw. This bowl is mostly unseasoned. The crunchy corn kernels add a little salt. The best thing in my bowl are the tomatoes. They are extra sweet today. I could have sent this back but I usually don’t send things back at restaurants….especially when I can’t see into the kitchen. I used to work in restaurants and most were professional but I did work at a certain restaurant that was one of the busiest restaurants in the country. That restaurant was unique and very different from all the rest. They didn’t hire culinary students there to work in the kitchen instead they hired their cooks fresh plucked from the local jail to cook the food. When you sent food back…The cooks got unhinged….. you’d be sorry if you saw what they did to the food…….I’m not kidding….. It was exactly like from that 2005 movie called Waiting. When I saw that movie I thought they stole a memory from my head for the movie. Don’t send food back unless you can see into the kitchen….”You’re welcome.”

My husband ordered the shakshuka burger with fried cheese instead of the whipped feta cheese. He said that the fries seemed good and he received a very generous portion of fries. Also the bun was grilled nicely. He asked for the burger to be prepared medium (because he thought it was going to be made out of lamb..((his error…it’s beef)). (red pepper tomato jam, whipped feta, cilantro, fried egg, and fries)

The bun was grilled nicely.

The egg was a little under with some runny white and wasn’t seasoned. No seasoning is UNDER-SEASONED.

He said that the jam had very little flavor and the burger was extra dry. It was very dry. We brought home a small piece for our dogs and it was so dry that it was hard for me to break up.

*******Summing things up.***********

I had to wait ten minutes for someone to seat us.

I was sat at a bench full of crumbs that I had to brush off myself.

My meal was a very large portion but was missing some ingredients (beets & carrots). However it did contain an unexpected substitute (crispy corn nuts). It also was under seasoned (no seasoning on fish and possibly missing seasoning in dressing?) and the protein was a little off.

The burger didn’t seem seasoned and the egg was under seasoned (not seasoned). The burger was also cooked till dried out.

Maybe dinners are better or I hit them on an off day? I don’t FORKING know.

The next day I got an email from Cala asking me to rate the food and to write about my experience there. I filled it out and briefly explained everything I mentioned here. Haven’t heard back from Cala as of yet (and that was over a week ago as of 5-4-22).

That was my trip to Cala…Under-Seasoned, Under-Dressed, and left Underwhelmed.

www.CalaScottsdale.com

7501 E.Camelback Rd Scottsdale AZ

480-590-5676

Everything is subject to change.