Anne & I stopped in the relatively new Baja Sol for lunch today at the Hamilton Road location.
I would say that of the other fast-casual mexican (FCM) concepts, it most closely resembles Baja Fresh both in terms of their menu and ambiance of the restaurant.
Anne & I both ordered the Fajita Burrito, hers was sans-meat, mine had Steak. I was very close to trying the fish tacos, but for some reason I always get turned off when the menu doesn’t say what kind of fish you’re getting. It reminds me of ordering a cheap steak where the cut isn’t identified. Like a “Waffle House Steak” ™.
Anyway, by the time we had placed some chips and a few different salsas from the award-winning (according to a sign in the place) all-you-can-eat chip-and-salsa bar on our tray and filled our fountain drinks, our order was called to be picked up. Nice and speedy.
We grabbed a seat and dug in. I liked their pico de gallo a lot. The green tomatillo salsa was also good. Anne gravitated toward the mango-peach salsa and enjoyed it. They had around 7 or 8 different salsas and a few other toppings including minced jalapeno and fresh cilantro. Probably the best salsa selection I’ve seen in an FCM joint, and the all-you-can-eat-chip aspect was a step above Baja Fresh.
As for the burritos, they were pretty much ok. Nothing spectacular, but not bad. I somehow overlooked on the menu that lettuce was included in the burrito, so I unfortunately didn’t opt out of that. Traditionally, Mexican burritos do not contain lettuce. American ones do. I side with the Mexicans on this concept. My burrito also seemed to be a bit heavy on the sour cream in the top half. I wasn’t sure if there was even any salsa or guacamole in it until I got into the bottom half. Could have been distributed a bit better.
Anne seemed to enjoy hers about as much as I did mine. By no means at all a bad meal. Better than Qdoba (which we didn’t like at all), but not quite as good as Chipotle (which we love). We’re on the fence about Baja Fresh these days as they changed up their recipes and menu several times since they were sold off by Wendy’s.
As far as the ambiance goes, I think it could use a few small tweaks. Felt a lot like Baja Fresh (bright, clean, American) but nothing really unique or interesting. There was a “TouchTunes” jukebox on the wall, which I thought felt out of place. It belted out the greatest hits in alternative rock from the late 90s and early 2000s. I guess “Going the Distance” by Cake is a good song to help you finish a large burrito if you’re not quite as hungry as you thought you were when ordering. There were two large, muted flat-screen TVs mounted high up on the walls. The one Anne was facing was playing the OSU game. The one I was facing was playing some sort of infomercial for corrective eye surgery. There were no closed captions turned on, but it made me laugh when the doctor was talking into the camera and the camera would move up and down to indicate that the patient was nodding his/her head in agreement with whatever the doctor was saying. It was also very cold in the restaurant. Almost unbearably cold. A common problem with restaurants in the summer. When it is 90 degrees out it doesn’t need to be 60 degrees inside.
Given that the location is so far out of the way, I can’t say that we’ll be back anytime soon. It’s tucked into a strip-mall off North Hamilton Road. I couldn’t tell you which one though, because I don’t think any of them have names or addresses. They sure do have a lot of decorative fences out there though. I assume that they’re decorative, but they mostly just block visibility from the road so that you have a harder time finding what you’re looking for.
I know that Baja Sol is supposed to take over the Don Pablo’s location near the Lennox, but I haven’t heard any updates on when that will be. We’d be more likely to go back to that one. I’m interested to see how it will turn out, actually. Don Pablos is more of a sit-down restaurant and I’m wondering if a Baja Sol there would still follow the same FCM style or if they’d made a sit-down version instead.
Anyway… those are my two cents… anyone else try this place out yet?
We tried the Lennox location 12/28/08 for a late lunch. I had fish tacos, which were very bland. The “sides” of rice and black beans were served in tiny plastic cups, so you get about a forkful of each. The rice tasted of cumin and was OK. The beans were very bland and tasted like they were unseasoned and straight from a can.
Wifey had a steak quesadilla, which was also very bland. The meat seemed to be a low-grade cut that was prepared a few days ago and then reheated and served.
We sampled four of the salsas from the bar and found they were generally OK. The habanero is very hot, so be careful. Overall, the menu was very Americanized and rather unremarkable. The Don Pablo’s which preceded it, was vastly superior (and Don Pablo’s was never that spectacular of a restaurant). Don’t waste your time at Baja Sol. Go to Chipotle instead. Hell, even Taco Bell is a step up.