Desert Fire - Tex Mex

Dining Category: Tex-Mex

Price: $$

Address:  7211 166th Avenue NE (Redmond)

Phone Number: 425-895-1500

Website: www.desertfiremex.com

Overview: Located in the Redmond Town Center shopping mall complex, this restaurant is off the beaten path for us both in terms of style and location. Trying hard to look like the first link of a future chain, the interior was generic quasi-Hispanic with the obligatory obnoxious music playing in the background.  From external appearances, Tex-Mex / Southwestern is the style, though there’s a big dollop of Applebee’s in there, too-- featured are ribs, sandwiches, and other choices you might not expect at a place like this.

Food:

Sweet corn tamales

B: We started with the sweet corn tamales. I’m a big fan of tamales and I’ve had lots of varieties served many different ways. The flavor of these weren’t bad, but the size and dimensions of the serving was off. More like big balls of masa (the corn meal used to make them), there was a little too much here. Smaller, more petite servings would have been more appropriate, especially given  that there was nothing in them except for corn kernels. The creamy sauce wasn’t bad, though a little much-- you can see how drenched it is.

Beans, rice and corn tortillas

B: As you can see from the picture, I had beans and rice. while I like the combination in general, the reason I ordered these was because nothing on the menu looked good to me at all, at least, given that most entrees seemed overpriced or had either cream sauce or sour cream as a main ingredient. This restaurant is definitely of the “American” Mexican persuasion, meaning that there’s way too much cheese on everything as a way of making the food more appealing to palates who may not be used to what more traditional flavors can be like. Besides that, I can’t go along with any restaurant that claims to be Southwestern and serves shrimp tacos with breaded shrimp. In any event, what I had was fine, but the menu was a sad mishmash of elements that left me wishing we had gone elsewhere.

Southwest chicken sandwich

G: Although my sandwich looked and smelled good when it arrived, as soon as I picked it up, I knew I was in trouble. just holding it in my hand caused grease to pour out the backside of the bun. Well, that maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it. The menu did a good job of making it sound enticing, but none of the flavors came through and were drowned out by the overwhelming amount of mayo. Needless to say, it was a disappointment. 

Service: 

Mediocre. the server was pleasant enough, though with as few people in the place as there was (only three tables were occupied in our section) a few more “how’s it goings?” would have been nice. seriously, if the place is three-quarters empty, you can afford to spend a few more minutes with the diners you do have.

Closing Comments:

G: Don’t bother. It was overpriced and underwhelming.

B: I agree. The restaurant wasn’t authentic in the least, being more like a TGIFriday’s or some other generic box restaurant than a place that’s worth going out to Redmond for. Even if I was already IN Redmond, I wouldn’t stop here again under any circumstances unless I was attending a Soccer Moms & Margaritas convention. 

Rating:

1 out of 5 - We're never coming back