SPECIAL- Chino Bandido, Phoenix

Chino Bandido
15414 N.19th Ave. Suite K
Phoenix, AZ 85032
Phoenix Hours: Daily 11am - 9pm
(602) 375-3639

[While I normally blog about Orange County eateries, I happened to be on vacation in Phoenix and decided to look up the Chino Bandido, made famous by the Food Network TV Show, "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives".]

We arrived at Chino's last Saturday and found it to be the consummate "dive". Inside were very simple tables and chairs and a 6 foot, gun wielding "bandido panda bear" statue in the corner. I got the impression that the restaurant was painted by the employees during a very slow period. However, the food awards are impressive and adorn the walls of the establishment including a quite large autographed picture of Guy Fieri, the host of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.

The biggest disappointment happened quite early on in the ordering process. What a confusing mess! It's like they went out of their way to make it difficult. First, you are handed a list of items to order and there are so many variations and so many acronyms that it will make your head spin in the 115 degree desert heat. Fortunately, my family and I arrived at a time when there were very few customers and the employees were able to explain the ordering process to us.

I took a quick glance at their website at http://www.chinobandido.com/ and saw that they have an entire section on "how to order" and even have a menu DEMO. Maybe it's me but if you need a demo to place a fast food order, there's a problem!

This brings me to the place's biggest asset, the employees. The people on staff were very helpful and patient with me during the hellish ordeal I'll call the "ordering process". I was ready to pull out my hair about 20 minutes into it. I was there mid-afternoon on a Saturday and I am very mindful that if it were high noon on a weekday I might have had a much different experience. I am sure the employees would have been less inclined to cater to my confusion had there been 25 people behind me festering a lynch-mob mentality. I shudder at the thought.

On to the food. Generally, I give it a 7 on the proverbial 1 through 10 scale. My wife and I ordered the Chile Rellenos which were excellent. They were lightly fried in what appeared to be a cracker crumb breading. My combination came with Red Chicken, pork fried rice and refried beans. The pork fried rice did not knock my socks off and neither did the refried beans. The red chicken was as bland as the steamed rice.

My daughter ordered the teryaki chicken with steamed rice and the other three children had the cheese crisps (plain cheese quesadillas) because it was easy and I was DONE with the ordering process. All of our meals came with Chocolate Volcano cookies.

My 18 year old daughter loves Chinese cuisine but she was very unimpressed with her meal and we took over half of it back to our hotel in a doggy bag.

The best part of the meal was the end. We were very impressed with the Chocolate Volcano cookies. They're probably one of the messiest cookies I have ever had due to the powdered sugar which coated every gooey, chocolate cookie. It was a nice ending to a mostly mediocre meal.