My son Jack and I visited a Mexican restaurant at 7859 Nashville St. in Ringgold. The cute little strip of places along Nashville Street had an old home-town feeling. There was a lot of booth-seating spaced out comfortably, but our table was not very clean. Jack said it was sticky on his side.
Anytime Jack eats Mexican, he likes to get a margarita but this place didn’t serve alcohol. All I cared about was getting something spicy!
We started off with queso dip appetizer for $3.25 and they brought complimentary salsa, but the salsa was not hot at all. There were two bowls brought out to us, so I expected one of them to be hot. The smaller bowl just had more chili powder or some sort of spice that made it darker, but it wasn’t hot.
Jack didn’t get his margarita and I didn’t get my hot-fix so I didn’t figure this was a place to ‘get your kicks’. I have noticed that sometimes Mexican or Asian restaurants that are just a cracker-box-place can be generic and really don’t have anything special, but this place wasn’t that type of place - it was a good size and in a good location, so I still had hope.
The queso dip was actually a bit different. It was chunkier than I was used to and had more of a twang. I liked it. When I asked the waitress if there was anything spicy on the menu, she said they really didn’t offer any hot items but that I could get a side dish of red chili-sauce. I ordered the Steak Chimichanga for $8.95 and Jack got a platter with a burrito, enchilada and tamale for $6.95.
Our drink glasses were so big that the straw sunk down into the glass and any time we took a drink, we had to fetch the straw.
When our waitress brought our meals, she didn’t warn us that the plates were hot. It wasn’t on one of those wooden caddies either. When she set mine down, she had it too close to me and I reached to push it back a little and felt how hot the plate was! It didn’t harm me, but it sure was hot to the touch! I guess when I asked for hot – I got it!
I believe the waitress had said that the sauce on the side was a habanero sauce. It had the kick I wanted. It wasn’t trophy-winning hot, but after a little while my nose was running, so it passed the Willie Mae test. Jack said his food tasted a bit bland, but I think that was just an excuse to reach for the salt (I had been on him lately about his salt intake). That boy salts everything before he even tastes it!
My Chimichanga was very good and it was steaming hot! The steak was tender and I liked the lightly crispy shell that was also soft. That thing stayed steaming hot until the last bite - must have been the hot plate!
Refried beans and rice came with my meal, but I never eat them. I am not fond of Spanish rice and I don’t like the texture or refried beans … refried anything doesn’t sound like anything I want to put in my body. Jack ate them for me, but I still got full on my Chimichanga! It was big and almost too much.
All in all, I did enjoy my meal. It was better than those cracker box places and I liked the seating and openness. There was even a precious train whistle in the distance that made the place charming - I liked the area. If you try them out, you will probably like it as well as other Mexican places (but don’t tell them you ‘like it hot’ or you may burn yourself).
Hours: 11:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.