My husband and I have been frequent visitors to Tortilla Flats for years. We would go for margaritas and a bite to eat before we were married. Now, we bring our two small children there for our Friday Night outing two or three times a month. It just keeps getting better. Here are a few reasons why:
1. The Margaritas. Plenty of kick, plenty of salt. The real reason we started going to the Flats, and at least one reason why we kept coming back.
2. The Salsa. Hot, mild or mixed. We get the mixed salsa, with a basket of chips to start every meal. The mixed blend has just enough bite to it to make it nearly impossible to stop dipping that chip.
3. The Menu: It's been updated recently, and has plenty of eclectic dishes, like BBQ Bison Burger, to complement the traditional Mexican Fare. We tend to stick to the traditional stuff though. I particularly like the pork enchiladas. Yumm! Great mix of sweet BBQ sauce topped with a spicy enchilada sauce. Took me a few years to try it. Now I am hooked. The menu is budget-friendly too, with most entrees less than $15.
4. Family-friendly. The staff at Tortilla Flats just gets it. Most restaurants have crayons for the kids. The Flats has little magna-doodles. My kids love 'em. All the kids meals come with a side of sliced apples. Not only are they a guilt-free side dish, the apples give my 2-year-old something to do while she waits for her meal to cool a bit. (That little princess will only eat her food at room temperature. Makes for long meals at home, but that's for another blog.)
5) Grown-Up Friendly. We started coming to the Flats long before we had little ones in tow, sipping a couple of margaritas at the bar before dinner. It's still our favorite place for "date night" when we have a sitter. A super casual, relaxed spot, with a nice local mix: grad students from nearby Brown, neighborhood residents, etc. Even though we've aged ten years since our first visit, each visit makes us feel like we're back in our college days.
Tortilla Flats is located on Hope Street in Providence RI
Thursday, September 17, 2009
5 Reasons Why Providence Prime Seems to Have Lost its Shine
> We ate at Providence Prime over Labor Day weekend with another couple. I wish I could say we dined, but that term implies a bit more refined experience than we enjoyed. It was our second visit to Prime. Our first visit was a little over a year ago, in the dead of winter, and we loved it! The place was hopping. The bar was full, mostly couples like us enjoying a cocktail while waiting for their table. The atmosphere was energetic.
Here are my 5 reasons why we were disappointed in our second visit.
1) The Quiet: Saturday evening of Labor Day weekend was beautiful. DePasquale Plaza was packed with diners, tourists and locals enjoying the live music on what would likely be one of the last warm evenings of the season. Atwells Avenue was a 1/2-mile long parking lot as we inched our way toward the restaurant. A perfect evening for a night out with good friends.
On entering Prime, we were struck by the quiet. We had 8:00 reservations, and had been told the restaurant was completely booked for the 7:30 slot. We arrived there just before 8:00, and decided to have a drink at the bar before taking our seats. Almost no one was sitting at the bar. When we took our seats, we couldn't help but notice that, while most tables were full, the room was very still. None of the white noise you might expect at a popular restaurant. The background music was so low that guests seemed to be speaking in whispers. Odd.
We attributed the quiet inside the restaurant to the gorgeous evening outside. In all likelihood, Prime's normal crowd had opted for al fresco dining at one of the many other spots on the Hill.
2) Please, write down the order: Our server, Mike, was very pleasant, but we got the sense that we either got him on an off night, or prime time dining might not be his forte. He certainly tried to get our orders right. In fact, he confirmed our orders, again, and again.
I suspect that Prime has a policy against having their servers write down their orders. As a customer, I would much rather have my server write down it down, than have to repeat it once, twice, even three times before the food arrives. We gathered that Mike was drawing on every mnemonic device in his toolkit to remember our appetizer order. "S- Salmon, W-Wedge, C-Calamari” ... “Sally, Wally, Callie … got it!"
3) The first course: We had plenty of time to catch up with our friends while we waited for our appetizers, which included another visit from Mike to confirm of our orders. We talked about our vacations, our summer, our kids starting school, plans for the Holidays. Then our appetizers arrived, or at least a couple did. Mike once again asked my husband what he had ordered, before running back to find a wedge salad for him.
Despite the wait, the first course was quite tasty. I loved my smoked salmon, prepared a bit differently than I’ve had before, refreshing. My husband enjoyed his salad when it came.
4) The main course: We had little time to enjoy our salads before our entrees arrived. Many restaurants would take pride in getting the entrees out promptly, but I personally enjoy a “fine dining” experience that is a bit more 'paced.'
Our entrees themselves were a bit disappointing. We each had different types of steak: filet, rib eye, etc, but we all had the same thought. Fine cut of beef that tasted like it had been sitting under the warming lamp for 10 minutes. Based on the long wait for our appetizers, we suspect that our entrees were ready before our appetizers even arrived. Our steaks fell victim to the first-course bottleneck.
5) The dessert? I can’t really comment on the dessert, except to say that we enjoyed it on our first visit. After finishing our meals, we continued our conversations: the upcoming Patriots season, speculating on the Red Sox, contemplating home renovations, all while we waited for our plates to be cleared.
After acknowledging that we all had babysitters at home, with curfews, we realized that trying dessert just wasn’t meant to be that night. Time would not permit it.
In short, Prime should have been, by all standards, a superior dining experience that turned out to be rather dull, and drawn out. Even US “Grade A Prime” filet mignon loses its sizzle when it arrives at the table a bit cold.
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