Romesco Mexiterranean Bistro — Restaurant in Chula Vista

My suggestion is that you stick to the Mexican tapas dishes on the menu, as the entrées and pastas here have consistently disappointed me -- for example, the "Spaghetti Martha" is a pasta dish smothered in a tomato sauce that is so sweet that it tastes like ketchup. The "Asado de Arrachera" is made of a cheap cut of skirt steak and is tough to chew, a legitimate problem when you're paying $30 for a steak.

When I've treated Romesco more like a tapas bar than a regular restaurant, I've been delighted. The late, great Jonathan Gold once described this restaurant's "Bone Marrow Sopes" as "maybe the single greatest antojito I have ever had the pleasure of tasting." I emphatically agree. Plascencia is no longer associated with this restaurant, but the kitchen has not changed this dish, perhaps his Mona Lisa.

The sopes themselves are crunchy but tender little discs of masa harina, sturdy enough to stand up to rich, buttery bone marrow. Just writing about the beef sauce in this dish makes me want to head to Romesco as soon as I'm done with this review: it is a thick, viscous reduction of beef juices, almost syrup-y in consistency, heavily concentrated and flavorful like a French demi-glace au boeuf. A spirited red sauce provided on the side helps the dish achieve an acetic and semi-sweet balance against the intense savory flavors, in addition to being filled with fire. The sapid essence of these sauces will linger in your mouth long after you taste them.

The "Huitlacoche Quesadillas," filled with parasitical black mold scraped off of corn (aka "corn smut"), are also a hit. Here, this is a fried quesadilla made of masa, thus resembling an empanada more than the quesadillas typically served in this region. The earthy, homey flavor of this snack is sublime, and is well complemented by the zesty salsa verde served on the side.

If you're still trying to decide between pasta and Mexican food, you can have both in one bite with Romesco's "Tacos Fideo," which features a spaghetti in a spicy red sauce in tiny corn tortilla tacos. The spaghetti is crisped on the edges, some ends clearly burnt, and so too did the tortilla shells blister and over-char a bit. That said, the "burnt" aspect of this taco contributes a more "homemade" flavor to the food. I've always found it fascinating that restaurants can sometimes get away with serving burnt food, because it takes us back to a place and time in our lives when our parents made imperfect meals, but served them to us with their love. Our minds can thus sometimes trick us into associating love with poorly-prepared food. That said, my rational mind can't get on-board with paying $8 for two tiny tacos made with burnt spaghetti but, if I were to ignore their price, I don't hate these.

The "Tacos Gobernador" are similar to the fideo tacos, served in blistered and burnt corn tortillas, but these are not anywhere close to as charming. The shrimp have been chopped up and mixed with onions and cheese and is served with the house's salsa verde, which I don't believe to be the right sauce for these tacos, as there's no piquancy to it. This puzzles me. This is a Sinaloan taco; Give me some heat, man! Also, why would they chop the shrimp as they do? I know, of course - because they couldn't fit more than one normal sized shrimp in these tiny shells or it would have looked absurd.

Overall, I continue to dine at Romesco, but mostly for the excellent bone marrow sopes and huitlacoche tapas dishes I mentioned above. The rest of the menu, the spotty service, and the fairly long drive to get here from the city (be careful, there is sometimes a DUI checkpoint on Bonita Road on the weekends), make it difficult for Romesco to be a place I visit more than once every year or two. Just...

To start off my review I will state that I do not recommend going to this establishment. The servers here don't have any name tags so good luck getting an honest review about the customer service when referring to particular employees.

Our server strongly implied that I eat a salad, a sexist remark. To which I laughed and said a snarky remark about how I can EAT and my man eats off my plate.

The bread was stale and hard. The balsamic vinegar was nice and you can't really mess that up since it's not from this restaurant. I had wished they added some roasted garlic to the olive oil, but that's just me.

The mushroom appetizer dish was mushy, soaped in sauce. My husband felt it still had some debris in it and wasn't washed thoroughly. He felt there were rocks while he was biting into the mushroom. The dish was served cold instead of warm. I felt there was no flavor in the dish no salt or anything else.

The presentation of the food was very beautiful. The Ranchera steak, recommended to us by our server. The meat itself was charred, fatty pieces, no spices, little flavor. The inside of the steak was soft, it was a bit chewy. The tortillas were good it reminded me of street taco tortillas. The Ranchera steak came with a side of "guacamole", which was puree avocado with no flavor, chimichurri sauce and "salsa", pasta sauce with no spice or kick and a saucer of diced onions and cilantro. To say the least my husband was not a fan of this dish. His caesar salad was very plain and bitter. I would not recommend ordering the salad. His comment is that that is the worst Caesar salad he's ever had thank you.

I ordered the Short Rib Tacos, "Cazuelitas de Res" that also had a bitter taste in the sauce. Again the presentation was the star of this dish, the taste was not desirable. The meat was similar that of a Beef Wellington dish. The salsa again was a pasta sauce with no spice, I found myself grabbing chimichurri to add some type of flavor and freshness to the tacos as they were not something I finish eating.

The tea was very delicious so I inquired where they got it from or if they brewed it in house and the second server could not tell me at all where they get it from what the process is nothing. I was a bit surprised because the comment was so rude and fast.

Recommendation to this restaurant to better their service and food is to introduce more ingredients from Italian cooking such as natural fats, herbed butters, oils etc. Maybe even try out a seasonal garden. Hire some new servers and do some interviewing tests on potential servers to see if they are fit for the job. Unfortunately I met two servers that night who were either rude or sexist. I do recall one bus boy, an older gentleman who was very kind and welcoming. This establishment needs more of those kind...

I was pretty excited to finally try this place as Chef Plasencia's Mision 19 in Tijuana is amazing. First off they have two different dining experiences - the nice sit down and then the bar area/room. Both rooms aren't very big so i recommend making a reservation if you'd like to get a spot in the dining room. Also maybe request not to be sat at the tables directly in front of their kitchen. It gets quite noisy.

Their menu is ridiculous with options. Tons of tapas to choose from and entrees (if you have room for that). We settled for the gambas al romesco (shrimp and fries in their signature romesco garlic sauce), fonduta con chorizo (cheese fondue with chorizo), and the pulp asado a las brasas (grilled octopus) for tapas and ordered the paella to share for an entree. Now tapas are small portions but after sharing those three dishes with the bf it was more than enough. The favorites of the night are in this order - shrimp romesco, octopus, fonduta, and the paella. The romesco garlic sauce is just so tasty. A tomato based garlic herb filled sauce was not only good on their shrimp and fries, but we also used it to dip their table bread they provide you. It's a pretty big tapa too compared to the others. The octopus was the smallest of all the tapas and was grilled perfectly and non-rubbery. Definitely wanted more of it. The fonduta which we sadly did not consume as fast as we should have was really rich in flavor but if you don't eat it as it comes out then cheese turns solid and well i feel that the flavor they wanted to portray wasn't really delivered solid. Then the paella. Sadly this was the dish i was most excited to try but was most disappointed with. I felt their was something lacking. Idk if it was the lack of salt or pepper or that the dish seem particularly dry but paella i have had in Barcelona was of higher caliber.

Romesco was all in all a good experience. Also check out their daily specials as Tuesdays is all day half off tapas in their bar area. Will be...