LA ROSA MEXICAN GRILLE AND TEQUILERIA

Suncoast Casino, North Beach

Call 031 942 6750 or 083 554 1306

Open: Daily 11am to 11pm

THE secret diner is always wary of Mexican food and that’s because one is often disappointed. It’s a cuisine that has been filtered through Texas, pasteurised and homogenised through the American big-food industry and shipped to the world in convenient bottles. It bears little resemblance to anything that might be produced by an authentic Mexican eatery.

But perhaps La Rosa Mexican Grille and Tequileria, which recently opened in the new Suncoast extension, will prove the cliché wrong.

La Rosa is a Johannesburg chain voted that city’s best restaurant in 2017 (the website doesn’t say by whom). It says: “Are you prepared for a nuclear attack on your senses? The exploding flavours, the electric atmosphere, the vibrant colours, the festivities! The magic of Mexico is here.”

The answer is “Yes, we’re prepared, but no it wasn’t delivered”. Which is sad.

The restaurant is certainly stylish, with funky and dramatic murals, rich fabric patterns and vibrant tiles, but the atmosphere was more noisy than electric and the well-fed families seated at long tables gave it a Spur-type ambience.

And the food… well, the flavours fizzled out – we were actually searching for them.

We started with the jalapeno croqueta (R60) and corn poppers (R55). The croquettes tasted of little but packet smash and they were very soft.

The corn balls faired a little better, but they, too, could have been crisper. They came with some sort of salsa but it tasted of so little we couldn’t work out what it actually was.

For mains my vegetarian friend – one of my hopes was that there would be a good vegetarian selection, but there wasn’t – opted for the vegetable tacos (R70) which were filled with grilled peppers, black beans, corn, mushrooms etc. He felt they were very heavy on the peppers.

But I would have swopped his dish for my Californian burrito (R106) which was basically steak and fat chips wrapped in a flour tortilla with a hint of guacamole on the one side. There was very little evidence of the pico de gallo (a spicy Mexican salsa) or sour cream. It came with a pile of purple slaw on the side which was horrible.

By now I was even more wary of desserts, but the churros (R50), a Spanish-style doughnut, were really good. My traditional rice pudding (R50) really bombed. It was dry and heavy and was only saved by the cinnamon on top.

We finished with tequila, which did add a rosier glow to the evening. The tequila menu is extensive, with shots ranging from R25 to R600. They were served in funky, skull-styled glasses with a chunk of fresh pineapple.