Last Chance To See 600 sq mi: Hidden
Missed Connections: Gefilte Fish...and "Chain Connections"
H-Town Rock
Rock Talk, Vol. IX
While driving through the Galleria area over the weekend, Houstonist stumbled across a new Tex-Mex restaurant dubbed “Maggie Rita’s.” Never one to turn down the opportunity to guzzle a new margarita or two or twenty, we decided to make a night of it at the newest bistro to grace the strip mall at the intersection of Sage and West Alabama and skip out on our traditional Saturday night dinner at Chuy’s.
Bad choice.
To say that Maggie Rita’s proved to be a poor excuse for an eatery is but to put it mildly. However, we had an inkling that our evening was not destined to turn out as desired after reading several online reviews prior to our arrival. Nevertheless we decided to throw caution to the wind and ignore the plethora of negative commentary found all across the Internet. Well, what we found was that the wind shifted a few minutes into our evening, as caution sure did come back and hit us squarely in the face! Just as we had earlier read in the poor reviews – we experienced the holy trinity of a dreadful restaurant – problems with the food, the prices, and the wait staff.
Food
The food was extremely bland for a Tex-Mex joint located in the city of Houston – a town world-renowned for its fine Mexican dining. All of the dishes that we ordered, from the enchiladas to the nachos to the tacos, were drenched in cheese. We tasted little to no flavor in our food due the massive amounts of cheese that coated our dishes. In our experience, excessive cheese has often lent itself to lazy chefs who take no pride in attempting to create some sort of personal sabor to their food via an array of seasoning.
Strike 1!
Prices
We’ll be honest. What really caught our eye when we first learned about Maggie Rita’s (and checked out their menu online) was a drink called the “Martini Mexicano,” which seemed to mimic our most favorite of all margaritas – the Mexican Martini found only at an eatery called Trudy’s in Austin. After spending last weekend in our great state’s capital attempting to complete the Trudy’s Trifecta (mission not so accomplished), we craved a replacement drink in our very own backyard only seven days later. It almost seemed like fate when we learned about Maggie Rita’s.
Upon arrival our first order of business was to order the Martini Mexicano. Imagine our surprise when the drinks proved to be an adequate substitute, only much, much smaller than anticipated. We went on to order a second beverage within minutes of purchasing our first. However, when subsequently glancing at the menu we nearly experienced whiplash after successfully executing doing a triple-take. The Martini Mexcianos were going for $11 a pop and we were throwing them back once every five minutes. A quick bout of math proved there was no way we’d be able to afford to keep drinking the Martini Mexicanos at our current rate, unless we took a second mortgage out on the house before dinner. Thus we were forced to switch to the cheaper house margarita, which proved to be as tasty as an old shoe drenched in Jose Cuervo.
Strike 2!
Wait Staff
Our waiter spent much of the night ignoring a large portion of our party. When drink orders were taken, our waiter often forgot to go around the table and would leave certain members of our party with a great thirst and no means to quench it. Drink refills were hard to come by and at the end of the night, the waiter made a mistake on our bill. When we pointed out the error, rather than offering an apology – we were served with nothing but sheer attitude and sass.
Strike 3! Maggie Rita’s is out!
Heed our advice. Stay away. Go to Chuy’s. Order a “New Mexican Martini.” That’s what we plan to do every weekend from here on out. That will teach us to venture outside of our usual hangout spot!
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
$11 for a glorified martini? Damn.
Good review, Amol. There are way too many good Tex-Mex places in town for us to suffer a bad one. I hope for their own sake they get their act together soon. Houstonians aren't a forgiving bunch when it comes to enchiladas and margaritas. ;)
Wow, My boyfriend and I had lunch there yesterday and we had a totally different take. I got the fruity Margarita and while I did have sticker shock, it was so large I only needed one. I loved the enchiladas. My boyfriend got the tripe plate and I had the cheese, I don't eat meat and I was thrilled to have the classic cheese taste without the meat sauce.
I will admit it was pretty empty but our waiter was super attentive.
I do agree that the food wasn't a standout, but it was good.
Sorry you had a bad experience, but just driving past this place I can tell to avoid it. Strikes 1-3 are the name "Maggie Ritas" - Do they expect anyone to take them seriously? This is clearly not a place to order food when sober. All they need is for unsuspecting tourists staying at the Galleria to wander over in search of "local cuisine" ... nevermind that the locals know to avoid it.
But then again, even the East-Coast staple Houlihan's (aka Expensive Chili's) couldn't make a go in that location, so it'll probably be something else 6 months from now and you can forget all about it.
There are lots of bad Mexican restaurants in Houston. Just add this to the list with Chuy's, Cafe Adobe, etc.