SOL Mexican Cocina — Restaurant in Scottsdale

Bring your calculator! ('Why' at the end of this review)

The Good: FOOD - 5 stars! First, I want to say that it was so refreshing to find an amazingly-flavored Mexican restaurant in the Phoenix are that takes the essential Mexican meal choices and brings them to an extremely high level. Both of our main dishes, and my Michelada beer, were real treats. My wife got the Plate Ensenada (substituted with grilled fish instead of fried); and mine was the Mushroom and Poblano Burrito (with the red and green sauce and cheese aka 'wet bandera' style). We both opted for the black beans and spicy slaw sides. (The slaw is amazing, but yep - spicy!) Everything tasted delicious, not over-salted, and was very plentiful.

ATMOSPHERE - 5 stars! Also pleasant was the atmosphere. The décor is very well thought out and all the Mexican earth colors went well together. It's a very attractive restaurant and they don't freeze you out with cold air conditioning. The outside area seems really nice, misted when hot, and also decorated well. The whole restaurant has a lot of seating and really flows well with Mexicna Feng Shui.

The Not-So-Good: 2 stars. Service was well below par for this type of restaurant. It was 3pm-ish, so not busy at all. We just drew a short straw for a server, because the table next to us had a great server. When we needed a couple of minutes to look through the menu, we finally saw him ten minutes later and had to raise my hand to catch his attention to take the order. He suggested the 'wet bandera' style, but didn't mention that it was a $6 upgrade to the $15 burrito. I probably would have still taken the upgrade, but it would have been good to inform of the hefty fee. Other server faux pas: Our water was not refilled once No check-in to see if the served food was okay Our plates sat empty on the table for a long time while he went past us multiple times

The Very Odd: Minus 10 stars. Bring your math skills or calculator!!! Upon receiving the bill, I stared at it a bit longer than usual. It seemed strangely high for what we got. My wife looked at it and said, "That's not right!" Indeed she was correct. Somehow there was an invisible $10 added to our bill!!! Our items were as such: Michelada $9 Plate Ensenada $16 Burrito $15 Burrito upgrade $6

Total $56

Um, nope. Those add up to $46, not $56. I had another employee summon the manager who looked shocked at the bad math on the ticket and resolved the discrepancy immediately, also saying he would check with the IT person. We paid cash and were on our way. But WORD TO THE WISE - check the math on the bill at this restaurant. Maybe not only this restaurant, but others as well. Computers don't do bad math. I'm not sure how this happened. My wife and I bounced some theories around afterwards, but are just going to check every restaurant ticket from here on out.

Conclusion: SOL Mexican Cocina is really a 5-star Mexican restaurant in regards to the food and atmosphere. We just had a bad server and handed a flawed total, which cost this...

I was here yesterday evening for a friends birthday. There were 6 of us total. The bday girl & myself had never been. My strawberry & basil martini was great. I ordered the elote relleno Chile. I added chicken on top. I was not informed by my server the seeds were kept, makes a huge difference! Thankfully I can take some good spice heat! This dish was made to perfection. A relleno done right! So much flavor!! The server also didn’t start off introducing herself by name & asking if we’ve ever been there. I would have liked to know for future if there was HH here. 📍Unfortunately the menu was also insufficient. My server, Jaz/Jasmine(?) also regretted to inform me none of the sides were listed on the menu.🤦‍♀️ This is on management. What’s the point a fancy menu not done right!? Also, my dish just said “included” it didn’t specify rice & beans. There was no small description that said a protein can be added on top for a up charge. When I added chicken the server never confirmed the up charge price. It would probably be efficient to just list up charge prices to save the customer & server having to ask & remember.📍The salsa was a bit watery. The first drink I ordered, a frozen mango marg (?) was also a bit watery & I couldn’t taste any alcohol. I’m no light weight, lol. For those who are light weights or not I’d ask on drinks. Fair warning ⚠️ the restaurant lights dim at a certain time! For a date sure, but for those hard of seeing I’d pack glasses! 🙃 Most of our whole party has been or is in the restaurant industry. We know how things can be handled. We were all trying to be nice, however the bday girl, her sister and our whole party was getting very annoyed regarding the wait time of our checks. We had been there for a little over 3 hours! A good portion mostly stalling & waiting on our server. Sure we had gifts to open but I didn’t like seeing my friends lose there happy vibes over this. Even after business had died down and after we opened gifts we were kinda forgotten about. It was sweet that our server was trying to be low key about getting & getting a bday dessert comped. However, it was hardly worth the extra wait time! It was literally cinnamon & sugar tortilla chips w/some whipped cream & chocolate stuff thrown on top on a small plate. Not impressive. A 15 year old can make that. We were also never given dessert menus or at least asked. I didn’t even know they had dessert until she brought that kids sized “bday dessert.” I would come here again and I wouldn’t mind getting the same server. She was informative and friendly otherwise. I DO HOPE next time is a...

NOT safe for gluten free folks!!!

We came to this restaurant because they advertised gluten friendly options online. Three people in our group, including myself, have gluten allergies and have to be careful where we eat. However, we heard good things about this place. It's a nice restaurant in a high end area, and we are familiar with several other establishments nearby that are great about providing gluten friendly options (i.e., True Foods).

We requested gluten free menus and told our server MULTIPLE times that the three of us were gluten free when ordering. The server asked if we wanted beans and of course I said yes, not thinking to double check the menu. When they brought out the food I noticed the beans tasted funny. My partner immediately identified that they tasted like beer. I looked up the regular menu online and saw they were called "borracho beans" (drunk beans). We asked the server who went back and found out that yes, the beans have beer in them and they are not gluten free. First of all, I find it very weird to put beer in beans but maybe that's just me. Second of all, we should have been warned when ordering that they were filled with gluten! I felt like they failed us multiple times: the server should have known better, but if she didn't then the kitchen should CERTAINLY have known better and caught it when prepping our meals (that is, if the server did in fact write down that we were all gluten free on our ticket).

The server was apologetic and we got some money off of our bill which we of course appreciated. It's ultimately not her fault, she should have been provided better training because she didn't seem very knowledgeable about the menu as a whole and I don't think she even understood what gluten is. However, I am still very upset with this supposedly "high end" restaurant that openly advertises gluten free meals and then made me and my family members sick when we repeatedly asked for gluten free food. I am writing this review to warn others about our experience and hope it will encourage this establishment to either train their staff on gluten free options or stop advertising them completely to prevent anyone else from...