Chili's - Waikiki

There used to be a Chili's on Great Western Highway ... back in the day. And my hubby used to LOVE the place and so, was immensely sad when it closed down. Hence, when we were in Hawaii and the big Chili's sign was in front of us when it was pouring cats and dogs, it was like a subtle hint that we really just ought to dine there.

Chili's

The place was quite populated and our waiter was slightly overly happy and enthusiastic. We took our time with the menu and at the end, decided on just ordering 2 things - the Fajita trio and a custom combo. The Fajita Trio came with plentiful steak, chicken and spicy garlic and lime shrimp with grilled veges, all sitting on top of a sizzling hot plate. Condiments were smaller than I expected with just timy scoops of guacamole, salsa, cheese and lettuce. The wraps were nicely kept warm and were tough enough to wrap the biggest piles of fillings :) I found that this was really tasty. The prawn seasoning quite decent - not too spicy, and garlicy in flavour. The beef was tender enough, and chicken strips are always good in fajitas (I think).

Fajita Trio

In our custom combo, we decided on half baby back ribs and half fried shrimp. It came with plentiful loaded mash (mahs with ham and cheese). The ribs were slightly too dry and not succulent enough for my liking, but they suited my hubby's taste-buds perfectly. The fried shrimp ('shrimp' in American English = 'prawns' in Aussie English) was tastiness but to me, nothing on this plate beat the deliciousness of the loaded mash. YUM. Super smooth and creamy WITH loads of melted cheese and bits of hammy savouriness throughout. Deliciousness!

Custom Combo

All up, it was a decent meal. It's not as oversized as other meals in the US, but filling nonetheless.

Ratings:
Food - 7/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 7/10
Overall - 28/40

Chili's (Waikiki branch)
2350 Kuhio Ave
Honolulu, HI 96815
Tel: (808) 922 9697

Giovanni Pastrami - Oahu

After the shockingly huge amount of food we experienced the previous night at BLT, we thought we had learnt our lesson ... but... at brunch the next day, it was obvious that we didn't learn well enough.

We stumbled across Giovanni Pastrami at around 2pm. My partner ordered a burger (a mini burger to be exact), and I ordered scrambled eggs with hash. My partner also decided to order an appetiser of nachos to share (it was like $5 so it had to be small... right?).

The nachos came out first. And it was like... HUGE. A full serving by Australian standards. It probably didn't have enough beef or beans in it, but it was nice and crisp and cheese and relatively tasty. By about half of this dish, my partner and I were both... umm... full ?

nachos (small)

Then came cheese pizza. Fresh from the oven, still sizzling hot melted cheese as it came out. Apparently, these are complementary when you dine in happy hour. We got TWO slices each (and these are BIG slices). They were actually extremely yummy - stringy melted cheese, tomato paste was just the right portion and the base was nice and chewy. I probably ate like 1 of these.

complementary cheese pizza

My partner's "mini" burger ended up being a quad of mini burgers. Four burgers accompanied by a generous serving of fries which were crispy and golden brown. The burgers were simply a beef patty, melted cheese, all on a potato bun. Not bad at all.

mini burgers with fries

Then finally, my scrambled eggs came out. Mushrooms, spanish onions and a dablle of bacon with a super awesome patty of hash. The has was delicious but I think I would have preferred my scrambled eggs a little less done. This came accompanied with a bagel and cream cheese and jam. The bagel was freshly hot, nicely chewy but unfortunately, I could barely eat any of it :(

scrambled eggs with potato hash

bagel with cream and jam

So this is our left-overs. Hectic huh? Could have been a full meal left. We managed to doggy bag it and ate it for a midnight snack LOL.

our leftovers :P

Ratings:

Food - 7/10
Service - 7.5/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 7.5/10
Overall - 29/40

Giovanni Pastrami
227 Lewers Street
Honalulu, HI 96815
Tel: (808) 923 2100

Flying Fajita Sistas - Glebe

Dinner meetup with a couple of close friends - just to catch up - took place at Flying Fajita Sistas in Glebe. We booked a balcony table for 3 at 7.30pm (which we later found out was a big NONO).

Fajita Sistas offered a decent variety of interesting beers (some unavailable when you try to order them), cocktails and other alcoholic beverages. My friend decided on the Bohemia, a light rich lager which my she said was pretty good.

Bohemia - $7.00

We ordered a mixed platter entree to share ($23.90). It came on two plates, three dips with chips on each. There was guacamole, sour cream, pepian, salsa, queso fundido (ie. the one with melted cheese) and frijoles (ie. beans). It was an interesting mix of dips - some I favoured over others (eg. the green pistacio looking one was warm and no where near as appetising as the cold green guacamole one). What we learnt, however, was that we had to sit here and gobble up all the chips before the waiter comes to clean it up and give us our main. So yes - we were there chatting and chatting and chatting until the sun came down and we were sick of eating corn chips with dip.

Mixed Platter of guacamole, salsa, cream, pepian, queso fundido and frijoles - $23.90

For the main, we ordered the Sistas Double Fajitas ($45.90) to share between the three of us. We chose the chicken and chorizo for our fillings. The chicken was marinated well with herbs and lime which was then chargrilled till tender (and it was quite charred - you could taste the chargrill even though you can't really see it that well in the dark). The Chorizo was a little bit too spicy for my liking but had lots of lots of flavour (and again, chargrilled quite some). They were a bit stingy on the fajita wraps, however, giving us only 6 slices for a huge hotplate of meat. The fajitas also came with guacamole, sour cream and salsa, pineapple, jalapenos and very very little cheese, salad, black bean and rice. The very very little cheese made me a little sad (since I'm a cheese lover and would have loved to cover my whole fajita in cheese).

The Sistas Double Fajitas (chicken and chorizo) - $45.90

Other than the fact that they were stingy on the fajita wraps and the cheese, the fajita's actualy tasted pretty good. However, no matter how good the food tasted, my appetited was instantly stifled by the sighting of a HUGE HUGE COCKCROACH. Yes - I HATE insects, cockroaches especially. The fact that there seemed to be more than one crawling near our table and on the wall behind us really freaked me out to the point where I was sooooo relieved about leaving. Upon leaving, I had multiple intrusive thoughts about cockroaches - how I swear I heard one walking around in my bag, and how my leg seemed a bit itchy and I swear it was a cockroach crawling up. Luckily for me - cockroach did not follow me home.

Nonetheless, foodwise - it was okay, a bit pricey though. Service wasn't great. And I dislike eating next to cockroaches. Hence, probably won't be back - or if I have to be, I will like a table inside thankyou.

Ratings:
Food - 7.5/10
Service - 6/10
Ambiance - 1/10
Value for money - 5.5/10
Overall - 20/40

Flying Fajita Sistas
65 Glebe Point Road
Glebe
NSW 2037
tel: (02) 9552 6522‎

Mad Mex - Darlinghurst

Mad Mex

Hoping to eat Thai at Yor Yor, we unfortunately found it closed for lunch. As such, due to our laziness and the convenience of Mad Mex, we stumbled in. With supposedly 4 easy steps.
1. choose whether you want a burrito (normal, fajita or "naked" - ie. in a bowl), taco, nacho or quesadilla style
2. you choose your meat (beef, chicken, pork, vege)
3. choice of salsa and other toppings
4. pick your drink

It's actually a lot harder to choose than you think. My partner opted for the burrito with beef ($9.90). This was a soft tortilla type wrap with black bean, rice, pico de gallo salsa, cheese, cream and beef. There were instructions on the serviette on how to eat it so that it doesn't fall apart. It basically tells you to tear the wrapping off (not unlike an icecream) rather than to take the whole burrito out of its red foil.

Burrito - $9.90

My friend ordered nachos ($9.90). Corn chips with cheese, black beans, pico de gallo salsa, lettuce, sour cream and jalapenos (are the fillings sounding repetitive yet?). Guacamole came for an extra $3. I would have to say - nachos normally come with melted cheese. Cheese here was definately un-melted.

Nachos - $9.90

My choice was tacos ($9.90). They come in lots of threes - either soft white tortilla tacos or crispy yellow ones. As my voice was on the verge of being lost, I opted for the soft ones and that was probably a really bad choice. Again - guess what's in the filling... black beans, pico de gallo salsa, lettuce, cheese, sour cream and chicken. I told my friend to take one of my tacos as there were too many. She had a very wise comment - "they probably just taste the same anyway". I couldn't agree more - the same toppings cannot taste too different...right? Anyway - the downfall of my tacos were the shells. The tortilla wrappings were over floury, leaving a powdery unfreshly-made tortilla type feel in your mouth and basically just crumbled. And yes, my filling went basically everywhere as these crumbly floury powdery tortillas were not fit to hold any filling at all.

tacos soft shell - $9.90

Finally, my friend ordered something with fillings other those mentioned above and had cheese which was melted - and that was the quesadilla ($9.90). A large flour tortilla with melted cheese and sour cream and meat and salsa. I have to say - out of all our picks, this one probably looked the worse but possibly would taste the best as it was hot and melty. Downfalls with this is probably the the basket "plate" it comes in as it means that its very difficult to cut properly - unless you're eating with your hands.

quesadilla - $9.90

Overall, I have to say that I don't like Mad Mex and would probably not want to eat here again. However, to be fair, my partner did say that he enjoyed his burrito and wouldn't mind eating it again. But honestly, mexican food can be better - even if it's fast food. I mean - how hard can it be to just melt the cheese on the nachos?

Ratings:
Food - 5.5/10
Service - 6.5/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 6/10
Overall - 25/40

Mad Mex
Shop 2
241-247 Crown Street
Darlinghurst
NSW 2010
tel: (02) 9331 7788

Tequila's on Main - Rouse Hill

Tequila's on Main

For a friend's surprise dinner party, we went to Tequila's on Main in Rouse Hill Town Center. Although the first thing that crossed my mind was ribs - I was okay when the higher order decided on the Tequila's Fiest Banquet ($37 per person).

So the night carried on and food filled out tables. There was garlic buttery bread with chili flakes (which, by the way, was not part of our banquet menu). Some of my friends liked it, some not.

Chilli Garlic Butter Bread

Then there were buffalo wings - just enough for one each. Extremely extremely BBQ-saucyness. But really - although they claimed it as "Tequila's special BBQ sauce", you could probably make this at home just by chucking in a bottle of your generic BBQ sauce with your chicken wings.

Buffalo Wings

There were Nachos - topped with beans, beef, chicken, salsa, guacamole and sour cream. This was your average nachos. Nothing special and not too bad. I probably would have preferred it to be more cheesey on top (rather than below the corn chips).

Nachos

The next thing was, in retrospect, probably the "Flautas" - which is a chicken mix rapped in tortilla (supposedly "fried crispy" - which it wasn't) and served with quacamole and salsa.

Flautas

Whereas this dish, was probably supposed to be Tauito Bites - crispy rolled corn tortillas filled with beef, topped with cheese and salsa and served with jalapeno dip. Lets just say that the beef was close to black - tasted like a weird spice-y (not hot type spicy) type deep fried thing. Wasn't very appetising.

Taiuto Bites

Then we had three huge plates of corn chips - with Guacamole and Salsa Dip.

Corn Chips with Guacamole

The amazing thing was, the waiters tried to convince us that that was all the food for our table of 20... only to be told a bit later that - no, more food will come out providing that we finish what was on the table already. It was supposed to be an "order as much as you can" type thing but you can't waste food. It would have been an okay concept if we didn't think we had to finish 3 huge plates of just corn chips and dip. And it really would have been preferred if ALL the food on our banquet "menu" could come out before we had to ASK for more food. For instance, our $37 banquet menu was supposed to include American Skins (potato skins), Chicken Tenderloins, Mexican rice and creamed potato along with the other stuff we already had out. The fact that they didn't even let us sample the whole menu was quite dissappointing (especially since there were two cheaper banquets we could have orders $33.90 and $30.50 for probably the same amount of food we had for our banquet).

So after practically begging them to bring more food out, they came up with this - creamed potato... nothing more needs to be said about this.

Creamed Potatoes

Mexican rice - being Asians, we all probably could have made better tomato fried rice.

Mexican Rice

And "potato skins" - or rather, just half a potato with salso or ham and cheese on top. Hmm... where's the crispy, crunch "famous" potato skins we were imagining???

Potato "Skins"

And the Chicken Tenderloins??? Non-existent~

At the end of the day - each of us (20 odd people) forked out around $40 for the banquet (where not all food came out. I didn't really like the way the waiters didn't tell us upfront that we could order more of whatever we wanted on the menu - and I didn't like the fact that they stopped bringing us food when the table was filled. What happens if there was a dish we really didn't like and we didn't want to finish? Would that mean we wouldn't get any other types of dishes?

So, overall, what can I say about this place? The food is very average - worse than what my partner could have whipped up at home - but more convenient cos I don't have to do the cleaning up. For close to $40 - I think we could have experienced better quality food elsewhere. I guess, objectively speaking, the mains at Tequila's isn't that pricey - just don't let them talk you into the banquet menus!!!

Would I come here again? Hmm... probably not- the fajitas and tortillas and nachos and basically everything else tastes a bit (or quite a lot) better at Chilis (another Mexican chain).

Ratings:
Food - 4/10
Service - 5/10
Ambiance - 6/10
Value for money - 4/10
Overall - 19/40

Tequila's On Main
Shop GR082 Main Street,
Rouse Hill Town Centre
Rouse Hill 2155
Tel: (02) 9629 5055