Tequila's plays it safe in Old Saybrook

September 18, 2014 12:00 am • Last Updated: April 10, 2015 2:12 pm

Many folks judge a Mexican restaurant by the quality of its chips and salsa. Good chips and salsa promise good eats and vice versa, they say. As it turns out, the middle ground can tell us a lot about a restaurant, too, as demonstrated by the so-so chips and decent but tame salsa at Tequila's Authentic Mexican in Old Saybrook.

When we saw that word "authentic" in the name of the restaurant (and, heck, the word "tequila") we were excited to give it a try. My household could run on a fully Mexican-inspired kitchen if the opportunity arose, and Old Saybrook is a lot closer to us than our ultimate favorite Mexican restaurant, Baja's in Orange. Off we went to celebrate our new local cantina over dinner and margaritas.

If service and decor were edible, Tequila's would be a foodie destination, indeed. From the moment we walked in the door, super friendly staff in jaunty charro-suit-inspired uniforms looked after us well. The gaily colored walls and festive decorations definitely put us in the mood for a fiesta.

As for the margaritas, we kept it simple and ordered the basic house marg ($7.50) from a list of several margarita options that can be prepared from an even longer list of tequilas stocked in-house. (I counted more than two dozen varieties, from silvers to reposados.) Part of the appeal of the house marg was its lack of sour mix, an ingredient I cannot abide in a margarita, having long ago learned the wisdom of using actual lime juice in one. Points for authenticity there; the drink's natural base made for easy, refreshing sipping.

Of course, one gets to know the nuance of the lime base well when the other crucial ingredient - tequila - is lacking; as in, not enough of it. My dining partner concurred. At the risk of sounding boozy, I would argue that a weak marg is not the greatest expression of margarita-dom.

Undeterred, we plunged into the complimentary chips and salsa as we perused the dinner menu.

The chips were a mixed blessing: as huge fans of chips and salsa, we tend to overdo it when great examples of both are put in front of us. Tequila's very ordinary offerings ensured we did not fill up on either before dinner. But for research purposes, we wanted to try another popular dip and see if that wouldn't redeem the cheery-looking yellow, red, and green chips, so we ordered the tableside guacamole off the appetizer menu. No dice. Our waitress apologetically explained at length as to why the guac was not available that night (in short, they were waiting on an order of hard-to-acquire avocados), so we opted for the generally fail-proof queso fundido app ($4.99) instead.

Now, queso fundido is glorified cheese dip, no matter what you call it. But as we learned, there's an art to glorified cheese dip. Based on the delicious queso fundidos I've had elsewhere (that, say, arrived tableside sizzling in cast-iron crocks), at Tequila's, we got a dishful of what looked like the jarred, Frito-Lay supermarket variety. Unlike those salty, gelatinous mass-produced cheese dips, Tequila's queso fundido at least offered a hint of real roasted pepper flavor and mild heat and maintained good texture. Still, we couldn't shake the image of Cheese Whiz from our minds as we sampled it.

For dinner, I selected the carnitas, one of my all-time favorite Mexican dishes, that, pre-Tequila's, always entailed slow-simmered, shredded pork awash in exquisite flavor. Tequila's menu noted that its canitas plate ($13.99) features fried pork, with the customary rice, beans and pico de gallo, plus a cactus salad. Under the assumption that frying makes anything better, I didn't expect Tequila's carnitas to present a diversion from the norm of any bad consequence. What I envisioned was perhaps tender, shredded pork lightly fried before serving.

In reality, what I got was a pile of fried cubes of pork nestled among the rice and beans. Also, no tortillas arrived with my meal, which, while not noted as an accompaniment on the menu, have accompanied the carnitas anywhere else I've eaten them. I pressed on in the spirit of adventure and assumed perhaps this was a regional preparation with which I was not familiar. Besides, the crispy exterior of the pork showed promise, so I tucked into a cube and commenced chewing ... and chewing ... since it was dry to the point of making my jaw hurt from all the chewing. Flavorwise, the pork wasn't bad at all thanks to smart seasoning, and the rice and beans were decent enough to round out the meal. The cactus salad was toothier and less tangy than others I've had, but it was a nice touch overall.

My husband's combination plate with one soft taco and one burrito ($9.99; other combos available) encouraged us a bit more. From a list of six or so meats with which to fill your wraps, he selected carne asada for the burrito and pastor (spiced pork) for the taco. Both were amply filled with the requisite lettuce, onion, pico de gallo, cheese, rice, etc., and the meats within each were tender and fairly flavorful, although in a blind taste test, it might've been hard to determine which one was the steak and which the pastor. Perhaps both meats got similar spicing in the kitchen. In the end, a slight hint of char on the steak saved the day.

But true redemption came another night, when we sampled the Tequila's Steak entree ($14.95), a dish of seasoned steak with rice, refried beans, grilled Mexican cheese and cactus salad. A zest of lime and pleasant spices lent a refreshing, enjoyable flavor to the tender steak (which I ordered and received cooked medium), and the thick layer of grilled cheese atop the steak provided a delightful culinary change of pace.

The one entree split in two filled us both comfortably, and the rice and beans were much better (read: flavorful) than our first batches.

Which is good because the black bean soup we ordered as a side-dish - one of my other all-time favorite foods - was another disappointment. Priced well at $4.99 for a full bowl, a prevailing tanginess whose origin we could not identify amid the celery, carrots, onions and spices within turned us off quickly, despite good texture and appealing presentation. It's a flavor I've never encountered in the many black bean soups I (and my dining partner) have sampled and we're pretty sure it wasn't a lime juice overdose; perhaps what we have here is another case of unfamiliar regional ingredient.

But a conversation with our waitress revealed much about Tequila's: When asked for some hot sauce, our waitress brought a well-made peppery green hot sauce and assured us we should never hesitate to request it. She added that the food is generally prepared with the restaurant's usual spice-averse clientele in mind - information that would've been helpful before we ordered.

Some promise emerges from all our tastings at Tequila's. If you want a basic taco or burrito, you'll likely enjoy them. If you go looking for a more authentic Mexican fare, you might find the food decent but unremarkable.

On Twitter: @TheMDesk