La Ristra New Mexican Kitchen — Restaurant in Chandler

In a nutshell, this is my new favorite restaurant crush in Downtown Chandler. Sorry didn't take any pics, of our food.

So I like New Mexican Food... I mean I REALLY like New Mexican food. Give me a dish with Hatch Green chiles in it and I'll wrap my arms around it and and protect .... my PRECIOUS!

I've been lamenting the fact that there just doesn't seem to be any good green chile burgers in Chandler. I've been going through green chile burger withdrawal for a while. I've even resorted to roasting hatch green chiles and making my own burgers just to get by. They always taste better when someone else makes them. Unfortunately I did NOT try the green chile burger this time, but I will go back to try it.

You see my rule of thumb with trying a restaurant with Mexican roots, be it New Mexican, Tex-Mex, Arizonan, or Mexican, is to try the Chimichanga. I mean I REALLY like Chimichangas! I DID try the Chimi at La Ristra last night. Actually you can get any of their burrito menu items done up "Chimichanga Style". Of which they had 4-5 different options, all of which sounded good. I went with the Green Chile Carne Asada Burrito, chimichanga style, with beef. I didn't get any enchilada sauce on it, but I might next time. I can say the chimi was good, it was really good. The best I've had in a long time. It may be from the fact that I haven't had a green chile carne asada chimichanga in a while, but I really liked it. I saved half of it to take home for breakfast and it was still good this morning.

The dish comes with two sides, I got the green chile mashed potatoes and the calabacitas. Both of which were quite tasty. I ate them all and I'm not a sides kind of person.

Calabacitas, if you don't know, is kind of a squash hash, with green chiles and cheese. It's good, you gotta try it.

Our friend ordered the Adovada Short ribs and let me try some. It was SPECTACULAR! It made my mouth water for more. I will go back and order that dish for myself in the future, wrap my arms around it and call it "MY PRECIOUS".

My wife got the Shrimp Diablo Pasta... There aren't words to describe how good this dish was. It was divine. It was heavenly. If you made this dish for your date, you would stand a good chance of a proposal by the next day when the withdrawals kicked in. I kept saying to my wife "DID you see that over there?!". To get here to look away from her dish so I could steal some more. I had to fight the urge to wrap my arms around her plate and protect my new PRECIOUS!

Everything we ordered was spicy, if you don't like spicy there may be items on the menu that may interest you, I don't know. If you don't love Hatch Green Chiles, I would suggest that Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas are probably not the appropriate states for you to live in. But that's just me being silly.

The food came out quick. The portions were generous. The staff was on spot with refills. The staff was very friendly without being overly friendly. I have no critiques of the wait staff. A gentleman who I think was the manager came around and asked us how our food was and nobody at the table hesitated to say "VERY GOOD"! Which made him smile and thank us as we were thanking him.

So I for one am ecstatic to have this restaurant as a SOLID addition to downtown Chandler. It's my CLEAR favorite out of all the restaurants in downtown Chandler, with Serranos being a close second. I personally consider these two restaurants to be the anchor restaurants of downtown Chandler. Do keep in mind that the rest of them are NOT anything to...

Sunday at the end of September was our first visit. I say first because there will be more. Our leader has indicated that a different location will be preferable. We ate on the patio and while the weather was perfect, the ambiance was infected with unpleasant noise. We were near an open access to the bar and a big ventilator above it roared. We were adjacent to southbound traffic and some of the cars were operated by rude individuals contributing to the unpleasant noise and to cap it off was live music to the south with severely amplified sound, especially bass. Overall the sound was very disgusting. Our visit was bad enough to assure us that we will NOT return to this location. We also had to wait on the sidewalk for quite a while, even though tables were available. They were understaffed in the kitchen, so we weren't given a choice to sit within the restaurant perimeter. Now, the reason I still give 5 stars. The food was unexpectedly great. Most unique cheese crisp ever. I can't handle spicy food like most people, but I have a taste for tasty Mexican food. The only sopapillas I've ever had have been dessert and delicious. La Ristra has the idea to use them to serve dinner inside. One of the group had his with ground beef inside. I had mine with shredded beef inside. We each ate ours as served, but afterward, we decided to swap halves on the next trip, so we can each have ground beef and shredded beef. I can't remember what sides he had, but I had pinto beans and Mexican rice. The portions are generous. I stuffed my guts like an idiot. Should have taken half home. A quick thought on the chips and dip. The chips are a mix of regular yellow corn and nice blue corn. Not mixed in the individual chips, but both types in the baskets on the table. There are three types of salsa along with the chips. Our waiter indicated the heat levels. Unfortunately the mildest was also the least volume. That dynamic might be due to the emphasis on burning the customers' mouths. Anyway, next time I'll be sure to let them know to not scrimp on the mild and skip the green version. I would have put some of the mild on the cheese crisp slices, not just the chips. Continuing, I had to ask for drink refills of Dr. Pepper. I know it's a bit of a quibble, but this is a New Mexico based restaurant emphasizing spicy dishes. As such, they should be very on the ball with refills. I had looked at the menu through Google maps before we went to the restaurant and I had been considering the dessert options, however we had far too much to eat to even think about having some sweets for the final course. On our next visit, I may have the entree to go and enjoy a dessert of flan or fried ice cream. Churros and sopapillas sound good. Even the Choco Taco sounds and looks decadent. We already have a go-to Mexican restaurant that we've been dining at for a very long time and this won't replace them, but it is nice to have another option, especially with the incredible...

This was my first visit to La Ristra. It was a Monday night evening and we found parking right in front, easily. It was 6 pm and there was only one couple sitting on the patio and a group of 4 at a high top inside. We met another couple and we were seated right away. The atmosphere is nice and the restaurant was clean. Music was at the perfect level. Drink: I ordered a skinny margarita. Tasty! Food: chips and salsa, to start (obviously!). A basket of yellow and blue corn tortilla chips which were not salted (and the restaurant does not keep salt and pepper at the tables). They he chips come with 3 salsas. Meh. It was all just okay. Our friends ordered the Queso Blanco Chorizo Dip as an appetizer. Even though I wasn’t excited about their chips, I really liked this dip! It was flavorful and had just enough spice for this not-too-spicy girl. I recommend this app, for sure. For my entree I had the New Mexican Traditional Burrito Plate with pinto beans and rice. When my food arrived it was only warm and the rice was crunchy (I think it sat under the heat lamp a little too long). My server was accommodating and offered me another side so I ordered the mashed potatoes. They were delicious! I also tried my friend’s side of elite and that was great, too. I chose ground beef and red sauce for my burrito and this was my favorite part of the meal. The portion sizes were good. Because we had a birthday girl at the table our server brought out fried ice cream. I’d pass on this. I’ve had good fried ice cream before (straight out of the fryer) where this one was a chewy outer coating on the scoop of vanilla. Nobody at the table cared for it because of the chewiness. Overall, decent experience but I’m hoping management pays attention to the reviews to tweak the few small things about the food. Our server was friendly and very accommodating. I wish I’d gotten her name to...