Panclog #31: Tortilla Ranch
Rockin’ at the Ranch
1/25/2017
Good day to everyone who is laying eyes on this fine blog. Also to those of you are lucky enough to have a pretty person reading this to you. Audio-book style. Thank that reader with a gift like a bouquet of dandelions. But before you go out to look for sub-par foliage in the middle of winter, you should probably wait until you’ve finished reading about our breakfast adventures at Tortilla Ranch.
Tortilla Ranch is a Mexican restaurant located at College Blvd and Antioch Road. They are open from 7 AM to 9 PM. But on Friday and Saturday you get an extra hour to dine because they close at 10 PM!! Don’t try to go there on Sundays, as they are closed. Be nice and check out their website.
Location/Environment: The environment in the restaurant is nice. The chairs are straightbacked and wooden, and as such, can grow uncomfortable after a bit of time. The breakfast buddies do tend to overstay their welcome at restaurants. The wooden motif creates a warm atmosphere in the restaurant. Tortilla Ranch is also located less than 3 minutes away from Brent and Jared’s jobs, respectively.
Service: The service at Tortilla Ranch was standard for the order-first sit-later style that is becoming popular in fast-casual restaurants. Our cashier was very friendly and happily gave us water cups when we forgot to ask for them.
ait time for food: 4 minutes.
Menu/Selection: Tortilla Ranch tried to be as authentic Mexican food as can be. They have a fairly small menu. Smaller menus usually show that the restaurant is very proud of these items and do not want to stretch too thin to make a product that does not live up to the other items. We were able to witness the staff prepping all of the produce for lunch service. This shows me that they use product that is fresh. Much appreciated. The breakfast menu on the website does not include everything that they offer.
Food:
Breakfast Bowl (Brent)
Your intrepid cloggers have opted to venture off the beaten path of traditional breakfast places opting to breakfast at what I consider a good burrito lunch destination, Tortilla Ranch Mexican Grill. I have been to this fine establishment a few times for lunch but never realized TR served breakfast. Needless to say I was surprised to hear this restaurant suggested for breakfast by Jared.
Meeting at our usual time of 7 am, we walked into the nicely decorated restaurant and perused the menu. Lunch type items with the addition of eggs filled the menu thus making them all the options,”breakfasty”. Not necessarily a bad thing. I ordered a breakfast bowl filled with chorizo, potatoes, eggs, cheese, pico, and avocado. There were some onions in there too I think.
Looks lovely does it not.
This combination of flavors is quite good, but powerful. In all honesty, the dish was overwhelming as a breakfast option. I guess I prefer to ease slowly into my day. If I had this for lunch, I would have enjoyed it a great deal.
Nonetheless, the potatoes were tender but retained their texture; seasoned well if not a bit salty. The chorizo in the dish is also good. The remaining ingredients, like the pico, avocado, etc. are fresh, tasty, and well portioned. The downside, as noted earlier, is that there is a lot going on in this dish and it does not offer a place to relax. As each bite mounts, so does the intensity of the experiencing. The dish is not spicy hot; it just has many flavors that add up. To compensate, one must drink a copious amount of water or coffee to get the palate cleansed.
The coffee is good and inexpensive, just a dollar, if you buy a breakfast item.
While I would not recommend going to breakfast at Tortilla Ranch, I do highly recommend going there for lunch and/or dinner. The freshness of the ingredients, the care to which they prepare those ingredients, and the simple combinations assembled for their dishes is noteworthy. The next time someone wants to buy my lunch, an open invitation, I will be sure to steer them in that direction.
Breakfast Enchiladas (Jared)
Breakfast is the king of meals. Would you disagree? If you do, I am quite shocked that you are reading this fine award-winning blog. My wife said this was a good blog. That is an award. She has a BA in English! So, she can award people awards. Because breakfast is king, restaurants have been trying to sneak other foods into the breakfast category. Some are very successful. I.e. Pizza, Burritos, sandwiches. Some foods just don’t go over very well like porridge, soup, and perhaps even enchiladas.
If that doesn’t tell you what I tried at Tortilla Ranch, maybe a picture will help.
Now that looks like a great picture. I have been striving to become the Ansel Adams of food photography. I prefer natural light and a subject that will be in my stomach soon after the photo is taken.
Take a journey with me through some of the people and things that tried to go outside of the box and did not succeed, Michael Jordan as a baseball player, Pop Tarts in Crush Orange Soda flavor, Watermelon Oreos, Vince McMahon as Owner of the XFL, and now enchiladas as a breakfast food.
I am not saying these enchiladas are not good. I am simply pointing out that they were too strong for me to fully enjoy in the 7 o’clock hour. In fact, this enchilada would be incredible for lunch or dinner. Another thing I really enjoy but not at 7 AM: beer. Check out Brent and me in our other article series, Thirsty Thursday. We talk about a famous person we want to have a beer with and then pair a beer that we think they would enjoy. It is almost award winning. Megan, please give us another award. We work fairly hard.
Tortilla Ranch’s coffee is only $1 when you get a breakfast item. I truly enjoy this incentive pricing. I believe that more restaurants should do this. As Brent calls it, “Coffee is just dirty water.” So come on down on the price. If you can get away with it, please try adding horchata to your coffee as a fancy creamer. It adds some lovely sweetness to your coffee time.
I will absolutely be visiting Tortilla Ranch for lunch or dinner for some authentic fresh Mexican food. I suggest you do the same.
Breakfast Enchiladas: $6.95
Coffee: $1.00
Overall: Tortilla Ranch may be a pass for breakfast, but we both strongly suggest them for any other meal. The fast-casual type of ordering will allow you to get some authentic Mexican cuisine for a quick lunch.
Grade:
Brent – Overall, I would give Tortilla Ranch Mexican Grill 1.5 stars out of five for breakfast, which bums me out. However, concerning lunch or dinner, let us make that 3.5 out of five stars.
Jared – D+ for breakfast. It would definitely be higher if I could get this breakfast enhcilada for lunch or dinner.
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