Cicada Cantina

I agree with the first reviewer. Cicada Cantina just is not very good. There are a lot of Mexican restaurants in Redding that have great food. This place is not going to make it. The owner owns several restaurants in town, you would think he would know the restaurant business. Cicada does not demonstrate that. My advice is to try Guadalajara on Cypress or my favorite La Cabana on Market between Shasta and Tehama, family owned the prices are very fair and the food is very good.

1/2 through our school clothes shopping we decided to try Cicada Cantina out. I heard the beans were to die for. I guess I heard wrong, the beans you die from. We came in on a Saturday afternoon around 2pm. There were about 6 tables total that had people sitting at them.



The hostess was great until we sat at a table that was very unstable, sending the salt & pepper shakers sliding all over the place. We opted to move to a different table, only to be sat at a table that leaned to one side. A napkin under the foot seemed to help.



The Chips were way too greasy, but we were hungry. The salsa tasted like it had beer in it instead of tomato juice.



The waitress (Jasmine) was pretty and polite, but after fetching our drinks and getting lost on her way back to take our order, we were able to decide that she was either inexperienced or just-didn't-give-a-crap. (Which was what we thought about her tip...we didn't leave one)



My husband and I ordered the Chicken Zopalco (or whatever it's called) tacos. The dried out corn tortillas were the size of my palm with about 2 table spoons of shredded sub par chicken, topped with inexperienced chopped onions and cilantro, sided with green rice and black beans (dried to the plate from sitting under the lamps too long) that were topped with some kind of "cheese". As soon as the waitress put the plate in front of me I wanted to hurl. The nastiest smell came wafting up into my face. I'm not even joking, I'm pretty sure my children left that smell in their diapers before. I didn't even taste it. I wasn't going to risk it. My husband said the beans were ok, but didn't touch the rice.



My daughter had the fish taco's and didn't eat the beans or the rice or the tortilla's or slaw on top. She ate only the fish because she was hungry. The waitress noticed my daughter picking it apart and said, "Oh you don't like your taco's honey?" and that was that. She didn't offer to replace the food with something else. Just a pointless and obvious question.



My other daughter had the Mac n Cheese and finished as much as she could and took the rest home. She would have ate it all but it was too spicy for her.



Then we got our bill, $61.39 for a @#$% lunch. You've got to be kidding me! After receiving the bill, we proceeded to wait for almost 20 minutes for the waitress to come back from her break or nap or where ever she kept disappearing too, so that she could run our credit card so we could leave.



Never again will I waste my time or money on a craptastic place such as Cidada.



Note to the establishment: Spend more money on training your wait staff and your food rather then your furniture and lighting.