Ortega'z Southwestern Grill and Wine Bar — Restaurant in Manteo

I honestly waffled between 4 and 5 stars for this review because those chips are amazing!

The star of the show was the pork nacho appetizer. It was loaded and... Those chips! The best kind plus very fresh. Absolutely delicious.

My Roanoke Island drink was really great. Most of the time, drinks can be too... Alcoholic on the first round like they're trying to reel you in. This one was a great balance and wonderful to sip on thought the meal.

The rest was okay - good. Not as great. Maybe if the nachos hadn't been so good?

I do want to point out that our meals came out hella fast. That would, back at home, be a big plus for us and probably is for most people. It wasn't bad, but the server even apologized for how fast they came out. We weren't done with our nachos yet 🤣

I got the carne asada tacos, which were kind of tough and dry. I get them all over, and they just didn't match up. They weren't bad; don't get me wrong. The flavor was good and the tortilla was good, but they were just not as good as the nachos. My rice was a little crunchy and the beans a little bland. Obviously we ordered too much food, though, so I didn't need them.

My partner ordered the Hawaiian quesadilla and said it was good. He actually brought half of it home. He did say the balance was a bit off because it needed a little more pineapple. Not a bad review of those, though.

The service was just okay. It took a bit to get to order things, which annoyed my partner a bit. He said our server walked around the dining room without looking at us a lot. I was facing the wrong way to see that.

All in all, we liked it. We'd go back (definitely for the nachos...

No vegan options - I only "lucked out" because there was a special with cauliflower tacos which was cauliflower and salsa verde (that's it) in store bought flour tortillas. The guacamole seemed days old and brown with overfried chips and "salsa" that tasted like tomato sauce from a can. The street corn my partner got was old and brown and seemed like it had been rolled in ranch rather than real cojita. The only thing that was passable at this restaurant was the drinks because they actually did not water down the alcohol. I imagine they pre-make a lot of their food and it sits for days in the fridge before someone orders it. All the food seemed old, past freshness, no spice, no flavor. Beans and rice came also came with my tacos but I did not touch it because there were random hunks of old dried meat in it (see corn pic)? It was as if they scooped leftovers from someone else's plate and mixed it into their bean and rice sides. Do not go here! I promise you, anything you can make at home is better than this. I actually feel bad for the wait staff having to serve this food because they probably know it's old and gross. We ate what we could only because we were hungry and not a lot of restaurants were open in town, but we ended up not eating like half of it all. I was actually put off my appetite because the cauliflower tasted vaguely fish-like. The worst $90 (yes, 90! for a barely eaten meal) I ever spent. Editing to say that I had a stomach ache later that night from the...

We were in town for a concert at Roanoke Island Festival Amphitheater. We stopped here to eat before our concert. Love the outside seating at the front of the building. What a cool vibe. We ate inside, which had a fun, funky vibe as well. Our first encounter with our server was a bit off putting. He introduced himself, we hesitated for a moment on our drink orders and he seemed distracted. Then said he would be back in a minute without taking our order. We started to second guess our decision to eat here. But the rest of the evening things went great. All our drinks were very tasty. The food was delicious. We all ordered different dishes and tried bites of them all. Very impressed with all the dishes we had. The stuffed mushroom app and onion rings were amazing. So glad I ordered the onion rings as a side with my salad. Definitely a must try. The server made great suggestions throughout the meal. At the end of our meal my husband decided we should take a shot before we left. Our server recommended a tequila shot with a house made chaser. I don't love the taste of liquor so I didn't love it, but it was a huge hit with the rest of the group. Highly recommend this restaurant if your are in the area. The atmosphere is a great representation of the local area and serves amazing, fun and unusual dishes utilizing fresh catch/local fare. Mid level price and fun and...