O nce inside the bathroom, he struggles in the darkness, searching for the light switch. The quest, he soon discovers, is futile. The goal, an ineffectual tease.
When he finally finds the switch and turns the light on, it only flickers. Meeting no more light than those in systems control of a deadened Jurassic Park, he still cannot distinguish himself in the mirror.
Defeated, unable to assess the damage of his chipped tooth incurred at the hands of a nacho, he collapses in an unsettling mixture of depression and hilarity as the questions begin to arise. How did this all happen? Where did it all go wrong?
This tragic tale describes the dining experience of one person in our dinner party Tuesday night at Los Potrillos. The rest of us got off with only stomachaches.
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With a name meaning "little horses," Los Potrillos opened about three months ago on West Market Street on the periphery of the Downtown Mall. The Mexican restaurant certainly is in an auspicious location for aspiring restaurants, but they need to make a few improvements in their dining experience if they do not want to blasphemy the neighborhood that includes Petra, OXO and Metropolitan.
Los Potrillos does not differ in set up from any of the other Mexican eateries in Charlottesville. In fact, the menu is almost identical to those at Guadalajara, El Puerto and Amigos. They offer the same combination platters, even bearing the same numbers. As with their competitors, the chicken burrito and chicken enchilada combination is perplexingly labeled "#F." Honestly.
No one goes to such establishments expecting a gourmet fare. All that is expected is good food, served fast and affordably priced, and for those of age, good margaritas. Los Potrillos succeeds in all those areas - save the good food.
Decorated with the standard colorful sombreros, dried peppers and oversized inflatable bottles of Dos Equis and Corona, the open dining area provides a kitsch, south of the border feel. The numerous pictures of frolicking horses on the walls and the front of the menu seem to come alive and dance to the Mexican music on the stereo.
As per tradition, free chips and salsa greet you when you sit down to eat. The chips are standard but good and most importantly, the supply is endless. The cute bowls that the chips come in are very small, however, so one must be on top of the situation to flag down refills.
The appetizers include various cheese and salsa dips, as well as several types of quesadillas. The mushroom quesadilla ($1.95) leaves quite a bit to be desired. The tortilla was fresh and the dish included the perfect amount of cheese, but the mushrooms were soggy and quite frankly, disgusting.
The nachos supreme ($4.25) was uninspiring, including a plate of the same table chips with ground beef, shredded chicken, loads of shredded lettuce-in-a-bag, one dollop of sour cream and one slice of tomato. The nachos lacked flavor and there were not even any jalapeno slices to spice things up a bit. All of the ingredients were very standard and the dish is relatively dry, as well as perilous for those with weak dental structures.
If you are going to order the nachos supreme to start off, go ahead and skip the taco salad ($5.50) because it will look eerily familiar. The salad came in a large flaky tortilla bowl, and included all of the same ingredients as the nachos. The portion was generous, but then again it's easy to fill up space with lettuce-in-a-bag.
The main entrees fall into the categories of chicken, fajitas, seafood and steak. Fajitas can be made mixed, Texanas style or extra spicy. The "seafood" section actually means "shrimp" and you can order shrimp fajitas or shrimp quesadillas.
There are 20 combination dinners, which consist of the rearranging of about five different foods including tacos, enchiladas, tamales, chalupas and green peppers stuffed with a variety of ingredients. There is only a finite amount of ingredients one can find in these five items. The difference is mainly in their arrangement. Los Potrillos offers vegetarian options as well.
For dessert, the Xango ($3.50) is the best bet. Creamy banana cheesecake filling is wrapped up in a pastry tortilla. The whole wrap is fried until it's flaky and then sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.
Usually fried ice cream is a scoop of vanilla that mysteriously yet delightfully acquired a hot fried coating on the outside. This technology always has amazed and perplexed dessert eaters at Mexican restaurants. Evidently the chefs at Los Potrillos are amazed and perplexed, too, since they haven't figured it out either. The fried ice cream actually is a scoop of vanilla ice cream on a fried tortilla.
We wanted to like these little horses. We really did. The decor is fun and the service friendly, but the food is simply not up to par.
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