Cactus Taverna — Restaurant in Salisbury

My wife and I wanted to try this place because of the good reviews but we should have checked the bad reviews, since they are all spot on.

You get free chips and salsa at the table. Not much salsa and the chips are really bland with no salt. You will find that bland is a common theme here. Plaza Tapatia or La Tolteca offer better chips, better sauce, and more of both.

We had shrimp and crab dip as an apetizer and this was pretty decent. Nothing to brag about, but decent.

I ordered the surf and turf. This turns out to be a small cut of steak with crab imperial on it and 4 regular shrimp. The texture of the steak was off. It did not taste like a real steak, but more like if the hospital served you a steak. Or maybe Denny's steak. The whole thing had the taste of a meal that had been cooked and frozen, then heated up to serve. That's just a guess. It was edible but not good.

The wife tried the lomo saltado. Not sure about spelling. If I were you, I would avoid this one altogether. Bland sauce. Bland veggies. Extra bland beef. It just tasted like something thrown together and not cooked together since the beef had not absorbed any flavor from the sauce.

Service and decor are both pretty good. No real problems there, but not good enough to make you want to pay good money for bad food. I like to support local small business but this place should be avoided....

The service was good and the owner came by and personally greeted everyone. The ambiance was cute, but it's a little dark inside as most restaurants are any more. The menu was relatively limited though they also add daily specials. The number one reason you go to a restaurant is for the food. If the food isn't great, you will choose a different place next time. I had coconut shrimp as an appetizer which were excellent. I ordered the grouper as an entree. The fish wasn't cooked all the way through and still looked fleshy. I asked the server about it. Instead of being apologetic about it, she gave me a dissertation about white flaky fish falling apart when its cooked because it is such a wet mild fish. She said it's like you had sushi today. While I am sure that comment was meant in humor I didnt appreciate paying 24.00 for a piece of fish I couldn't eat. If I had wanted sushi I would have gone to a Japanese restaurant. She advised me to tell them to make it well done the next time I order it. Why would I order that again if it was a bad experience the first time???? Looked like alot of locals go to this restaurant as everyone knew everyone so it must be a well known restaurant for this area and relatively popular. I could have just ordered the wrong thing on the wrong day. I won't go back though because there are alot of other...

Have always had a good dining experience in the past. My wife ordered the pollo aspargo and really enjoyed her choice. Her chicken breast was very moist and the scallops were excellent. I ordered the stuffed chicken and the breast was so dry I couldn't eat it, it was overcooked. I took it home for our dog and she had a hard time eating it, it was just too dry with the edges way over cooked (brown edges). The side black beans and rice had no seasoning and were definitely Al dente. Ordered the lemon cream cake which was excellent. Surprised the owner didn't make his usual rounds tonight. The wait staff was outstanding (Server Caroline) but the bartender and possibly one of the owners was walking around in a T-shirt and shorts???? The restaurant appears clean. One issue I had was they charge 3% if you use a credit card. However after the meal the server advised us of the charge and even went so far to make sure we knew it was posted on the front door. So when we left, there was a small note on the door about the charge. The average person won't have seen this note about the charge. This sign needs to be bigger since we don't usually carry cash. Very dark inside. Parking can be challenging if they are busy. I usually don't return or recommend restaurants that charge the CC fee especially with their higher than average prices. Probably...