It's my friend Woody's birthday, so Z and I decided to take him to lunch. He wanted Salsa Brava. After doing 5 days of Mexican last week, I wasn't super enthused, but hey, he's the birthday boy.

I rode my motorcycle, and got to the restaurant a few minutes before the other two. The hostess sat me quickly, and told me my waitress would be right with me. Then a guy brought chips and salsa to the table, and told me my waitress would be right with me. As he walked away from my table, a manager stepped up, and told me my waitress would be right with me. This all happened within the span of about a minute and a half. The amount of effort put into appearing friendly and welcoming was nearly comical, and turned out to be a rather sharp contrast to the actual service.

The others arrived, and we dug into the chips and salsa. By default, we had been served two types, the mild was kind of like a pico de gallo, not spicy at all, but frankly, not much flavor either. The second was much darker and had a very good flavor. I think it was supposed to be "medium", but it didn't really taste spicy to me either. Woody knew something I didn't, and asked our waitress for "pineapple habanero salsa". This is apparently a third, hot, salsa they have, but they don't hand it out unless you ask for it. It was great! The flavor starts off sweet and mild, you can really taste the pineapple. Then it builds into a very spicy and rich flavor. Delicious - and I highly recommend asking for it if you are fan of chips and salsa.

They had a special, which was two enchiladas, beans, and rice - I asked the waitress how much it was, and she had no idea, and had to run to the kitchen mid-order to find out. I ended up ordering it, but with extra beans and no rice.

It tasted good, but not awesome. I liked the refried beans quite a bit, but the enchilada itself was somewhat average, and had too many onions for my taste.

Once we got our first round of drinks and food, the service deteriorated rapidly. We asked for more of the hot salsa, and the waitress said she'd get it, then vanished. The next time we saw her, we asked for it again, and this time she got it - but we were out of chips.. which she didn't notice. We sat the empty chip bowl on the very edge of our table, literally hanging off the edge, hoping that an employee would rush by and knock it off, but we had no such luck.

Finally, someone came by, and we asked for more chips, which we received quickly. After enjoying the chips and salsa and food for a while longer, our waitress checked on us again, and I asked her for more iced tea. She brought me a new drink, and quickly ran off. Then I noticed that it was all tea and no ice. I took a tentative sip, and found it to be about room temperature - gross! We didn't see our waitress again.

I had a one o'clock meeting, and was eager to get out of there, but waitress hadn't came by in a while, and we needed to pay. Finally we were able to flag down a manager, and she took our payment.

Decent food, but pretty bad service sums up this trip. Woody likes Salsa Brava quite a bit, and assured me that it wasn't normally like this. I'll have to go again and find out for myself. But hopefully not for a while.