Sonora Grill

We visited Sonora Grill for a late Sunday lunch a couple Saturdays ago. It is a relatively new stall at the Midtown Global Market and we had seen it featured on a couple of food shows on TV. So we had pretty high expectations. First of all, we were a bit disappointed when we arrived and and found out they were sold out of the Sonora dog, the bacon wrapped hot dog. How do you run out of bacon and hot dogs? We we looked at the menu a bit, walked around the rest of the market and ended up coming back and ordering other menu items instead.

We each ordered the shrimp caramelos, and they were described on the menu as red tempura, cilantro and cabbage sonora style tacos. The tacos were quite tasty, and had just a tiny bit of spice. The red color made me think they looked like they would be quite hot and spicy, but I guess that was just an illusion. The shrimp were cooked well and this was a tasty taco. I think I liked this taco more than John did though.

We both ordered the beef skirt steak caramelos that had chihuahua cheese, sauteed onions, cilantro and salsa verde. We both thought these were good tacos with lots of steak and onion inside. The cabbage added  a nice crunch too.

I also got a side of the eggplant fries with chimichurri aoili. The eggplant fries were quite tasty, but they were also quite greasy. They really soaked up the oil they were cooked in. We ate about half of the eggplant fries and had enough of them. The dipping sauce that came with the fries was quite good and it gave some good flavor and spice to what is otherwise a very bland vegetable. The breading on the eggplant fries did not do much to give them more flavor either. I wanted to keep my arteries free for tastier greasy goodness.

Unfortunately, while eating my steak taco I bit into a piece of wood inside the taco. I should have taken a photo of it, but I forgot. (Major error on my part, I know.) I put it on a napkin and took it up to the counter and told them this was in my taco and I thought they should know about it. The employees did not seem very concerned. They said the steak is cooked on skewers, so that is where it came from probably. I told them I thought they would want to know about it because it ruined my meal for me. They did not offer any apologies or anything at all. I was very disappointed in how they handled the situation and would have at least liked a sincere apology. Their apathy led me to feel that they did not care if I returned again or not, which is too bad. So, to say the least, the service was not exactly great.

Sonora Grill
920 East Lake Street
Minneapolis, MN 55407
(612) 871-1900
http://www.midtownglobalmarket.org/sonoragrill
www.facebook.com/SonoraGrill