THE MISSION, Scottsdale – Downtown Scottsdale – Menu, Prices, Restaurant Reviews & Reservations – Tripadvisor

I really don’t know where our group went wrong, but we all thought the food was poor.

– we ordered all the recommended dishes and this is what we all had to say

– Fresh guacamole and chips was excellent, super fresh, made at our…table was pretty cool and the meal was off to a great start along with the great drinks. It would take a lot to screw it up from here as that stuff was amazing.

– The recommended duck starter (Duck Carnitas Empanada) – honestly? Firstly the chef needs an award for putting fois gras in something and still managing to make the disk bland and tasteless. The plate was oily and leaking greasy cheese crap all over the plate. The lack of taste was a view held by all at the table (we had 3 orders in our group). Other starters were not great either (grilled sweet corn – rubbish). The kicker on the duck was that it was not only tastless but probably 5000 calories a mouthful.

– The mains… the recommended roasted pork shoulder. Actually the pork itself wasn’t too bad, but the tacos themselves were disgusting. Yes the little round hand pressed tacos that really should be the easy bit for a place that focuses on tacos. The edge of them were all hard (like they were either stale or overcooked or both) – so bad I actually peeled the rim off the tacos before I made them – they were still not quite right, tasted too dense and Arizona has plenty of mama pappa Mexican places which do incredible tacos at a fraction of the price (I loved Nobu which was 5 x the cost of this place before people think it is a $$$ issue).

It is a real shame as the atmosphere was good, the venue was nice the guac was delicious and the drinks great – but if your starters and mains are rubbish you have failed. The chef is classically trained in Paris – well as someone who has lived in Paris I can tell you he needs to go back for more or needs to taste the food he sends out – and the french would hang him for the wasteful use of fois gras (one of my favorite things in the world).

It wouldn’t take much for this place to be an all round great.