Sueño — Restaurant in Dayton

We went to Sueno last night and had a nice time but that was because of the company, not the food. Overall I give this place 2 stars, let's start with the pros: Pros: The environment is nice. It has a cool vibe. Tall ceilings with some unique wood beams. There is a large open fire which they do their cooking on. Their restrooms are nice, individual unisex rooms that lock and have their own sinks. The place was very clean and smelled nice. The service was good. There are a lot of employees from hosts, to servers, to kitchen staff. The food is brought out quickly and the servers were able to give suggestions and answer questions. Cons: The food. Mind you nothing was bad but nothing was really good either. Its like someone removed 50-70% of the flavor of each of the dishes we tried. The prices - I don't mind paying extra for good food. I love good quality ingredients and unique flavor blends but at the prices of this place I was expecting food that was really good that. I was hoping I would try something new and delicious, something I would crave to have again. Nope. Portions - this is designed for sharing and the portions in general were small...again for the price. If the food tasted amazing, the price and the portions would not be a problem but it was bland and overall gave a bad experience. Drinks - they only have bottled beer and a poor selection, they have a lot of wine (something Mexico is not known for), and the mixed drinks seemed like they have 30 ingredients and told the staff to pick 4 to 5 per drink and give them fun names. They didn't even have a margarita, what's up with that? There wasn't a list of good quality tequilas (something uniquely Mexican, its like going to an Irish place and not having Guinness or whisky).

Individual Items with rankings - (1 - 10), level 1 = 5 day old garbage, level 5 is not good but not bad (this is the worst a restaurant should have), 10 = the best dish of that variety you have had. Appetizers: Salsa Trio - 3 different salsas each good but nothing with great flavor, you get about 1 tablespoon of each salsa and about 20 tortilla chips. Let's compare to a place like El toro or any traditional less expensive Mexican place. You get a whole bowl - probably 1 cup of salsa that has flavor and a whole basket of chips for free. This place 20 chips and 3 tablespoons of mildly flavored salsa - Rating 5/10 again not bad but certainly not good.

Guacamole - about half of an avocado with some seasoning but not much, it really just tasted like an avocado, again about 20 chips. Rating 5/10

Small plates: Pork Tacos - you get 3 small tacos and the main flavor is...pork...not seasoned pork just regular pork. There was cabbage or radishes or something else but I don't remember because it didn't have much flavor. Compared to any Mexican food truck these were sad. Rating 5/10

Sopas - these looked like they were going to be great, but the only flavor was some mildly smoked meat, rating 5/10

Enchiladas - these were probably the best thing we had. You get 3 small enchiladas with a sauce on the top. You again can only taste the smoked meat. You don't taste the cheese, or the sauce. The enchiladas did have a crunch so I gave these 5.5/10

Large Plates: Fish - this was a large portion of a white fish covered with a green sauce or rub. It looked like it was going to taste amazing but when we ate it, what did it taste like...a mild fish without seasoning. The best part was putting lime juice on it. Rating 5/10

Veggies: Potatoes - the description on the menu makes you think these are going to be delicious and unique. Then you get 5 to 6 small baked potatoes. They did have a smoked flavor which was nice but that was only on the outside, the inside was only a baked potato but no butter, no toppings, just a baked potato. 5/10 Overall I am just disappointed. I love Mexican food but the places I go use low quality ingredients. I was hoping for strong flavors with good quality ingredients. I am sure there were good quality ingredients here but it's like they forgot the...

This was one of the best dinning experiences my boyfriend and I have ever had! That atmosphere is classy, warm, inviting, and overall so aesthetically pleasing. The service was TOP TIER! Our server was Matt and he was so unbelievably helpful, informative, and made the whole dinner so enjoyable. We both had never been before and just moved to Dayton and wanted to experience the area, and this was a wonderful welcome to Dayton. Matt walked us through the whole menu, and made wonderful recommendations based on what we usually like and it was all incredible. He also gave us a back story on certain items, how they were created, and where they originated from. I myself am a history buff so it was so fascinating and made me appreciate the cuisine ever more! For drinks, we started with a smoked old fashioned & the signature margarita which I will say, was one of the best either of us have ever had! For food, we started with the piquillo peppers with goat cheese & chipotle butter and the salsa del dia & totopos. They were amazing! The goat cheese was exquisite and the salsa & chips were some of the best I’ve ever had. You could tell everything was made fresh and in house. I think had the Pollo Al Carbon as my main entree and my boyfriend had the Carne Asada. Let me just say this was the most amazing chicken I have ever had in my life. It was cooked to perfection and was so tender it cut like butter. The highlight of the meal was absolutely the smoked piri-piri sauce… it was so incredible I could’ve drank it if I was given a straw, I ended up asking for more! My boyfriends carne asada was also grilled and seasoned beautifully and they gave us fresh tortillas to make tacos. We then were given a complementary tres leches with chiffon cake, meringue frosting, & strawberry and let me just say, I will be dreaming about that dessert! Everything came out in a matter of minutes so when we were done with one course, the next would be waiting for us! We will 100% be coming back and will be telling all our friends and family to come. This is an amazing restaurant with wonderful staff that has perfected quality & hospitality. We will be asking for Matt to be our server...

For the price I paid I had much higher expectations. It was good and maybe deserves another shot, but my first impression is there has to be better options in Dayton for the $275 I spent for my party of four.

With a reservation we were seated right away and asked for drink and appetizer orders about 10mins in. We started with guacamole and a bottle of wine. The guacamole was great but there’s nothing special about the chips - might even be store bought. The wine was great - don’t remember which one it was.

After about an hour our food order was taken. We weren’t in a hurry but the pace was feeling slowish already. Probably another 30mins pass before we received our food.

We got carne asada x2 and some kind of fish plate - I don’t remember what it was called. It was overall very good. It’s obvious the chef has come up with some nice recipes But the execution didn’t wow me. The steak seemed cheap and the beans underneath the steak were literally cold - so cold I thought maybe it was intentional and I missed a detail on the menu, so I didn’t say anything. But that detail caught me off guard.

It only took us about 15mins to devour our food and eventually we were placing a dessert order. We got a cheesecake and some other kind of cake - the cheeses was by far better so we got another one.

Altogether we were there almost 3hrs and that was with reservations and no wait. Again, we weren’t in a hurry, but if we had any other plans for the evening it would have been a bit much.

Oh last but not least the atmosphere is cool but the bathrooms need more attention. I normally take more pictures but there’s plenty by other reviewers showing the cool vibe. The bathrooms are these individual little rooms that are unisex. It looks cool in theory but my wife wasn’t impressed because it had not been tended to well. That just ruins the whole bathroom experience for the ladies. Just being...