A Senor Tequila location recently opened up in Westchase on Race Track Road.  It’s a spacious restaurant, but they’ve got it set up with two entrances so if you go in the wrong one, you have to walk through the restaurant to get to the hostess station even though there are servers standing at the other entrance.

I’ve actually been twice, once with a friend for lunch & then again for dinner.  Lunch service was slow to get the food out, but it seemed better at dinner time.  For the lunch visit, I had a chimichanga and my friend had the enchiladas with mole sauce.

This is pretty generic Mexican food.  The flavors are ok, but nothing is overly spicy or overly flavorful.  When Loren & I went for dinner, we started with some queso and then got the fajitas for two.

Loren said the salsa was vibrant.  Had a fresh taste to it.  The queso dip wasn’t too spicy.  The fajitas were a mix of chicken, beef, shrimp, and pork.  It was plenty of food for two people and the meats were all very tender and cooked well.  The lunch entrees ran about $8 and dinner with a drink was $35.

Senor Tequila
12950 Race Track Road
Tampa, FL
(813) 510-3488

Always on the look out for a Mexican restaurant, we stopped by El Texano in Palm Harbor tonight.  It’s in the space that used to be a Thai restaurant.   At first glance, we didn’t think they were open.  The parking lot & the restaurant were empty, but we ventured inside anyway.  They started us off with some chips and salsa.

Loren said the salsa was tasty and I couldn’t keep out of the chips.  They were warm and fresh with just the right amount of salt on them.  Very addictive.  For his entree, Loren chose the carnitas.

One bite and I was hooked.  They were very tender and very tasty.  I’m not usually a fan of carnitas, but I’d absolutely order these again.  I went for the chicken fajitas which also came with a side of rice and beans.

The fajitas were tender and had a good flavor to them.  The rice and beans were pretty generic and I was surprised that they wasn’t a dish of lettuce, cheese, tomatoes/pico de gallo included.  I did ask for a side of sour cream though.  Overall, the food was very good.   Our waitress was very nice, but maybe a bit too timid.  Overall a tasty dinner for $$25.

El Texano
35903 US Hwy 19 N
Palm Harbor, FL
(727) 934-7289

We went over to Carmelita’s Mexican Restaurant on East Bay for dinner tonight.  We haven’t eaten here in a long time.  Loren munched on the chips & salsa while I dug into the chili bean dip.

 

There was a bit too much jalapeno in the bean dip for me, but Loren liked the salsa.  He got some beef fajitas for his entree.

 

The meat wasn’t super tender, but he said overall it was ok.  I went for the crispy tacos.

 

I love crispy flour tacos, but there was no way you could actually pick this up to eat it.  This was a definitely a fork & knife kind of dish.  Neither of us liked the refried beans.  They just had an odd flavor to them.  Total bill with a drink was $30.

Carmelita’s Mexican Restaurant
5042 East Bay Drive
Tri City Plaza
Clearwater, FL
(727) 524-8226

Every so often we go back to one of the chain restaurants in town just to remind ourselves why we don’t eat there regularly.  For whatever reason, the Chili’s in Oldsmar is one of the slowest restaurants we’ve been to.  We started off with some queso and chips.

 

It was ok.  We ran out of chips before we ran out of queso.  We decided to split the chicken fajitas.

 

Nothing special here.  They were just ok, but took forever to come out of the kitchen.  The restaurant wasn’t very busy either which made the wait that much more confusing.  Total bill with a drink was $23.

Chili’s
3701 Tampa Road
Oldsmar, FL
(813) 814-7769

We went over to Salsa’s for lunch today.  Loren got some chicken fajitas and I went for the shrimp chimichanga.

The chimichanga was cooked well this time.  It had a nice, crispy shell, even after being drenched in cheese sauce.  Loren said the fajitas were pretty good too.  Simple, filling lunch for $19.

Salsas Mexican Restaurant
3970 Tampa Road
Oldsmar, FL
813-749-7159