Sauce

I love this place!! I have long since forgotton how many times I have been to Sauce, but the one thing I can remember perfectly well is that the restaurant has never once disappointed. Their salads are excellent and one is easily enough for two people. Their pizzas are totally delicious with a wonderful thin crust. This is one of those restaurants that produces the same quality food every time.

When you walk in the menu is on the wall as you approach a cashier. You place your order taking your beverages, and an order number stand for your table. In the restaurant you are looked after by a young, very pleasant staff that is well supervised. There is no server assigned to your table, but you are always well attended should you want another beverage, an extra roll, or whatever. I do not believe I have ever been in Sauce that there was not a management person supervising the operation of the restaurant.

Sauce's other menu selections are all very good, though I admit to rarely eating them because I generally go for the salads and the pizza.

Conveniently located next to Frost in Casas Adobes Shopping Center. This one is an easy call.

Grade : A

NoRTH La Encantada

Silvia and I have a good thing going for the moment at the restaurants owned and operated by Fox Restaurant Concepts (www.foxrc.com). This company presently has 11 restaurants including Sauce, Wildflower, Zinburger, and NoRTH - all of which have provided us with numerous excellent dining experiences, but unfortunately, a few bad ones as well.

So my Valentine wanted to try NoRTH La Encantada (2995 E Skyline, 299-1600) for her Sweetheart dinner this year. We had had two excellent meals there since Christmas so it seemed a good choice.

We arrived to the intense hustle and bustle typical of NoRTH on a Saturday night.The vibrant up-scale crowd gives a nice energy to the restaurant, and I am not too old to enjoy the delicious decolte and short skirt of the young lady who opened the door for us. We had reservations of course, but we never mind a short wait at the bar. It is pleasant and the service is superb. We once choose to split an order of the calamari served up with argula while we waited, and it was exceptional!

On this night we had a very short wait and went to our table for two. I was totally surprised that it was a prix fixe dinner. We had about five choices over each of three courses - none of which appeared very special. We ordered a bottle of wine and settled in for our romantic celebratrion. The waiter said he couldn't bring olives (a NoRTH tradition) because all the dishes were dirty. He promised to try again shortly, but no olives ever appeared. The wine was a good chianti but grossly over-priced.

We finished our huge appetizers and agreed that there was certainly no motivation for consuming any more food. Portion control with balanced pricing seems a thing of the past in virtually every restaurant these days. Frankly, an excessive amount of food does not add to my dining pleasure - and it didn't at NoRTH on this evening either. My steak was small and average at best, and my bread pudding with a scoop of vanilla ice cream was as blah as it was unimaginative. Silvia's chocolate dessert tasted like the chef grabbed it at the last minute off the Nutella web site.

After searching to find a bag for all our "doggie containers" (we had four), our waiter presented me with a check for just over $160. NoRTH had conviently added an 18%+ gratuity so I could not even discount my missing and forgotton olives. The wine was $29 by the way.

I still like NoRTH, but I will never, never go again for a special day meal (like Valentines, New Year's, etc.). We felt robbed, even if we did eat the leftovers for 2 days. When I made the reservation there was no mention of prix fixe, set gratuity, or any of these fun things! We will need a little time to recover before trying NoRTH again. $160!!! Don't you just hate being ripped off?? I know I do.

Restaurant Grade for Valentine's Dinner : F
Average Grade for NoRTH : B+