Sabor a Oaxaca — Restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga

After seeing some favorable reviews, we decided to give this restaurant a try. The menu looked interesting with some unique dishes. Ordered a few starters to get a sampling of different flavors. First up were the pork belly tacos. These were actually very tasty and the homemade corn tortillas were super yummy, though the presentation wasn’t the most appealing. Next up were the three mini tamales, which looked amazing. Unfortunately, they consisted of mostly masa. If not for the server telling us which one was which, we wouldn’t have been able to tell. Then, out came the tortas. These were extremely savory and had an ample amount of ingredients. We tried the asada and mole. The mole was absolutely delicious! It was, surprisingly, one of the best moles I have ever had! (Although, I’m far from being an expert on mole). We felt it was a little pretentious that they charge for chips and salsa, despite that, we did order them. We were completely disappointed. The chips were cold and almost on the stale side. The roasted tomato salsa was nothing special, but the green salsa was fresh and flavorful. Now, about the ambience. The restaurant was cute and comfortable. Until they propped open the door to bring in supplies...on a Friday night during a prime dinner hour (7pm). Rather than close the door in between loads, they let the cold air pour in, even though there was a hostess standing there that could have opened the door. We asked to move further away from the door, which they willingly obliged, but it was inconvenient and still chilly. Lastly, the service! We had Anna and she was amazing! She was extremely friendly and attentive. The food experience was underwhelming but the service succeeded our expectations so we tipped 25%. Not sure if we will give them another shot with so many other choices, but if we do, it will be because of the mole and service...and we will not be ordering the chips and salsa.

The owner responded to my review and focused on one small portion of it...that if we had mentioned that the door being open was too chilly we should have notified our server and she would have closed it. However, if you read my review, we did mention it, as it states, we requested to move away from the door. I guess I should have been more clear in my review about the situation. First we commented to them that it was cold with the door open, and they did not want to close the door, so we asked them if we could possibly move because it was quite chilly. They opted to move us rather than shut the door in between loads. (It was approximately 15 minutes, which significantly dropped the temperature throughout the small restaurant for more than just the time that the door was actually open). Moving didn’t really help. However, we wanted to try the food so we stayed. The owner’s response has made it so that we will definitely not revisit the establishment and we certainly won’t be recommending it. The owner could have addressed the other issues in my review or just been respectful and professional by simply apologizing for the inconvenience and not tried to make it look like we were overreacting and complaining without having tried to discuss the situation...

Meh... the place is small and VERY loud once the Mariachi band starts playing (and shoving their tip bucket in your face). It was very hot once the place filled up.

We started with some guacamole and chips and salsa. Guacamole was good. Salsa was tasteless (isn't that a crime in 27 states?). The chips were good but needed salt, badly.

And what is with not having salt and pepper on the table? Are customers running off with them? I'm starting to see a trend develop.

Now for the entre. I ordered the 4 enchiladas, which are available with carne asada, chicken, or grilled vegetables. I wanted some variety so I asked for 2 chicken, one beef and one veggie.... oh no.... can't do that... the waitress informed me that they can only do 2 and 2 of whichever you want... they somehow can't handle a 2-1-1 combo. So, I ordered 2 chicken and 2 beef.

Ok, moving on, I was then asked which sauce, red or green? I asked for the chicken in green sauce and beef in red sauce. Oh no... can't do that... the waitress tells me the cooks are "moving too fast", so the best they can manage is red & green stripes! Lol.... really??? They can manage to put both sauces on the same plate, but they apparently can't aim the green sauce at the chicken enchiladas and the red sauce at the beef ones. Instead, they just slather all of them with "stripes". Okayyyy.

The carne asada enchiladas were on the weak side, only about 6 little nuggets of beef... that's it... nothing else inside. The chicken ones were more plentiful, but they were dry.

The beans were very bland and the rice had kernels of corn, which wasn't too pleasing to me personally, but I ate it anyway.

After dinner, we were presented our checks (we were 2 couples). Lo and behold, they charged us an 18% gratuity. For a table of 4??

I am a very good tipper... typically 25%. However, it ticks me off when a place automatically charges you a gratuity, regardless of what you think they deserve. Sorry, I'll be the judge of how much gratuity to give.

On top of that BS, the bottom of the check has a blank line labeled: TIP !!! And they have a nice little section that does the math for you while suggesting other tip percentages to add on top of the gratuity they already charged. They even used the sales tax AND the gratuity as the base number for the calculation of the suggested tip amounts. In other words, it's like they taxed the tax !! Gimme a break.

I did not leave any extra tip. They charged me 18%... that's all they got. I hope the staff saw all that and didn't have to split it with management.

I get it. I love supporting local businesses. I can only imagine that running a small restaurant is probably the toughest business of all. However, when a business pulls shenanigans like forced gratuity, I call it out.

Bottom line is the food was just OK (you can get better at other local places). I won't be paying forced...

Sabor A Mi opened its doors on 2/3/2018 and I originally wanted to come to the soft opening but wasn't feeling well. I really wanted to try this place. I got my bonus and raise at work so decided to try Sabor A Mi for the first time for a small celebration. My husband and I stopped in on the way home from work. I knew ahead of time that this establishment was more on the upscale end compared to your average Mexican restaurant. They are located in the same plaza as Souplantation.

As soon as I walked through the doors, I loved the decor; nice and bright with textures and fixtures. Each table had it's own purse/coat hook? Photos included!

Like some of the other reviews mentioned, they don't start you with chips and salsa, but we did get a couple mini appetizers on the house. This amuses me. I don't know what it is.....but while we were there my husband was ALSO questioning why there was no chips & salsa (That is his favorite part of coming to a Mexican restaurant LOL) . The table we sat at was set for a party of 4, and they did not take away the extra plate settings. After our server dropped off our appetizers, she didn't give us any napkins and my husband had to get up to ask her for some. We were the only table in the restaurant by the way.

For our entrees, I ordered the Salmon en salsa de Jamaica (grilled salmon served on a cedar plank and mango pico de gallo) and my husband ordered the Cochinita Pibil (slow cooked pork loin) . Unlike his younger days, my husband can't eat anything spicy anymore so he asked our servier if the pork was spicy and she said it was not. I also told her to put in our dessert order; Creme Brulee Trio. The entrees are around the $15-18 range.

The Cochinita Pibil turned out to be quite spicy unlike what our server told us. I gave my husband half of my salmon. She dropped off some tortillas and told us they were hand-made, but we saw it was from a bag. Chef Hart came to our table personally to apologize and had to correct our server and said that the tortillas were pre-made, but that freshly made ones would be out soon. We did not get the fresh tortillas and so we received a free dessert (Capirotada - bread pudding served with dulce de leche, vanilla ice cream and mazapan). The bread pudding was absolutely delicious so I had to cancel my order for the Creme Brulee Trio.

Overall, not a flawless experience and wish that our server knew the menu better and there's room for improvement but from what I sampled I really like the food; lots of potential. I may have to return next time for a second attempt to try to Creme...