This past Friday, thanks to a "best of" list I found on Gainesville.com, we decided to check out La Tienda Latina on SW 13th St. La Tienda immediately reminded us of El Taconazo in Tampa and El Toro Negro in St. Pete - a great no-frills, restaurant and bodega serving up authentic Mexican food.
For around twenty bucks, we ate like kings and had food to take home. You order up at the counter and the food is then brought out to your table. We started with chips and salsa. I ordered fajitas and Traci went with flautas. We also split a big bowl of sopa de pollo, which the Gainesville.com article had raved about. The soup was fantastic and big enough to be a meal in itself. Everything was deliciously spicy with big portions - and cheap. I'll take authentic Mexican over tex-Mex anytime. We'll be back.
Side note: La Tienda does look like a place where the kitchen can get backed up pretty quickly.
As good as La Tienda was, Bento Cafe on Archer was as disappointing on our visit Saturday evening. The Bento Cafe concept sounded interesting. Noodle, rice and salad bowls, sushi and bento boxes at fast-casual restaurant prices. Maybe we ordered the wrong dishes (I went with a roasted duck special and Traci a rice bowl with szechuan chicken), but it's hard to say much positive about our meal. This may have been the mildest szechuan chicken I've ever tasted. My duck was okay, but the sides (rice, green beans, small ginger salad) were all bland and tasted like they had been sitting out for a while.
Maybe sushi is the way to go at Bento Cafe. I can't complain too much because the meal for the two of us was only around twenty bucks. The surroundings were certainly nice and I still think the concept is a compelling idea, just the execution wasn't there, at least on our visit. I'd much rather spend around the same amount of money for much tastier food at La Tienda. We also plan to try Las Margaritas, which appears to share the same owners as La Tienda. I also found El Norteno discussed favorably.
Bottom-line: I think we're going to be hard pressed to find a better, more authentic Mexican restaurant in the area then La Tienda. As for Bento Cafe, you win some, you lose some. At least now we know.
