There aren't many of what you'd call fast-food joints (you call places 'joints' now. Shut up.) that are really so special that you have to stop and say to yourself "Shit, I NEED to tell people about this!". Salsa's, a Mexican food joint, is one of the proud and the few.
Its food and Pancho Villa are the two things of which Mexico should be proudest.
I went to Westfield Chermside to see... some fucking movie (Horrible Bosses, probably). Considering we (my girlfriend and I) were early and I'd eaten hardly anything in the 48 hours prior, we rolled down to the food court to get some quick eats before the picture show. Standing around near the generic asian place, I spied something across the way. "Holy dicks," said I, "did they demolish that Japanese place and put something else there?". As we walked across the food court, I actually spied the Japanese place next to where I thought it was; it was actually the lolly shop that had been squeezed out (turns out I'm something of a dumbass). What I saw made me giddy. Giddy as fuck.
Before me stood a chain I have never seen before: Salsa's. It promised me "Mex the way it SHOULD be". Fuck yeah. We gazed at the menu for a while before making our way to the counter and ordered.
"What name was that under?" the girl behind the counter asked.
"Frank."
"What?"
"Frank."
"..."
"F-R-A..."
"F-R-A..."
"F-R-A?"
"... N-K, yeah. Frank." I never thought my name was that hard to spell.
We were directed to stand by the side of the counter and wait for our order. It was a bit of a wait, but I failed to give a shit because I was so knee-knockingly excited about what was coming. Mexican food is fucking boss, god damn. Eventually, a confused-looking server came to the counter, read the name on the docket and asked to the crowd of customers (myself included) "Fra?"
Jesus fucking christ.
Okay, well, whatever, it fit the description of what we ordered. I had ordered a 'Baja Beef' burrito and whatever the hell their version of "chips" is. Also, a Sunkist. I picked it up and it weighed a god damn ton. "There must be so much fucking meat in this thing", I thought. We sat down and I unwrapped this behemoth. Awesome. I took a bite. Remember how I previously mentioned that Salsa's was something special? Something to tell the world about? This is where I realised it.
There aren't many places that make food that is so fucking disgusting that I can't even finish it. This is where Salsa's excels. As soon as my lips touched the slimy tortilla and my tongue tasted something that wasn't quite... Right, more red flags went up than in a fucking Chinese military parade.
Boom.
My mind was screaming "Dude! Just fucking bail!" while my chest hair was of the opinion "Fuck that! You just... Um... Paid for this or something? I don't know. Eat the fucking burrito!". Sunkist was sort of my friend for a second, but that's like using a steak instead of a bandaid. Doesn't do much. Anyway, I thought I'd have another go. There was no way that it was really that bad, right? I must have been imagining things, right? Maybe the tortilla was just a little gross, but the middle will be nice and delicOH FUCK IT WAS JUST AS BAD AS THE FIRST BITE. I quit. I quit that burrito so god damn hard. I picked some of the meat out of it, but it was chunky (meat in burritos should usually be shredded, but what kind of authenticity can you expect from a place with all the Mexican charm of a fucking McDonald's?) and still had that air of faeces that was so prominent in the flavour of the rest of the god damn burrito. Remember how I said the thing was heavy? That's because it contains as much rice as one of those bags the UN airdrops on poor people.
I had to resign myself to the chips that I had ordered. While they were nice and crunchy, they had too much salt and seasoning. Again, Sunkist was my friend. In fact, that orange soda was the best part of the meal. My girlfriend told me to get something else, but it killed my apetite. It left me broken, scarred. After she finished her food, I tried to kill the memory with a few pints of beer. I couldn't even bring myself to eat popcorn at the movies. It haunts me still.
Salsa's: One star out of ten.
(because the chips were kind of okay I guess)
