Before I get to the details, let me first instruct the reader to go eat somewhere else. This restaurant is bad, overpriced, and you'll likely leave hungry. If that's what you're looking for in a dining option, then, by all means, you do not need to continue reading. If you do, however, prefer restaurants that provide quality food at a fair price that leaves you satisfied, the Sunset Cantina in Snowshoe Village is simply not for you.
I did not think it was possible to screw up a Mexican restaurant experience so badly. But it happened. The Sunset Cantina committed this crime at approximately 8 PM on Saturday, January 31, 2015. The victims were an innocent and unsuspecting crew of 10 young adults intent on demolishing some delicious Mexican food after a long day of great skiing. See the major details of this crime below:
Chili Lime Marinated Chicken Fajitas ($19): I have never seen a look of despair quite like the one on my friend's face when he received his plate of the very much not-sizzling strips of chicken that looked like wet rolled-up napkins. I get that most Mexican restaurants overcharge for fajitas these days. When one orders fajitas, he or she is typically willing to overpay for the complete assurance that they will be 100% full and possibly hurting from eating their meal, and I can understand why some restaurants exploit this attitude by charging higher prices. But if a meal of fajitas can't deliver on any of the crucial levels (taste, quantity, and sizzle), we can't possibly stay silent and let these people get away with it.
Grilled Chicken Tortas ($15): Does the act of taking a half sandwich and cutting it into two pieces truly produce two sandwiches? The good folks at Sunset Cantina certainly believe so. The combined size of the "two" tortas might be just short of a 5" sub. Oh, it comes with fries.
Beef Tacos ($12): Wow. Where to start? The beef tacos experience was the "1st degree murder" equivalent of food crimes. I cannot name one redeeming quality of this joke of a meal. The two "tacos" presented on the plate was nothing short of a double whammy of embarrassment and awfulness. First, let's address the "bang for your buck" element of these things. The tortillas used for these tacos we're approximately 3 inches in diameter. I don't even know where to find tortillas that small. Honestly, you could finish your entire plate in four awful bites. For those of you not following closely, that's approximately $3 per awful bite. Second, the taste. These things tasted bad. I would be more forgiving if a beef taco wasn't arguably the easiest meal in the world to throw together with minimal effort. Grocery store flour tortillas, shredded cheese, ground beef, lettuce, and a long braid of hair would have been an enormous improvement over what was served. Was there even any beef in these tacos? Most likely it was a mixture of ground pale pug with a hint of diced mooseman hooves and absolutely no trace of cow. The image of that plate of "food" will forever give me the bugaboos.
Beans and Rice: One of our tablemates unwisely ordered a side of beans and rice to compensate for the beef tacos disaster. Traditionally, beans and rice at a Mexican restaurant go together as effortlessly as Dr. Quinn and Sully. Sunset Cantina would not have it so, apparently. Plain white rice. Plain kidney beans. Nothing else. This side plate was truly an additional insult to the injury that was the beef tacos. Another win for Sunset Cantina, and yet another heartbreak for our table.
Conclusion: I'd rather spend the rest of 2015 stuck in a windowless room with the kids from Laguna Beach or have no arms and legs than eat another meal at Sunset Cantina. The entire dining experience hurt like a swift kick to the groin by a rodeo bull. After paying our comically overpriced bills, our group bolted like a pack of hungry running wolves back to our condo and immediately demolished the remainder of our snack supply to remedy the nearly irreversible damage that had just been done. Sadly, I will not be able to post up outside the Sunset Cantina entrance and protect others like Toto protects Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. The best I can do is write the review and beg you to avoid eating at this restaurant at any costs. Austin. read more