Bowie Restaurant Project: (51) On the Border

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For a list of all the Bowie Restaurant Project reviews, look here.

On the Border, 16403 Heritage Blvd.
Most Recent Foursquare Check-in: 04/25/2012
Total Foursquare Check-ins: 2
Pre-Foursquare Visits: No
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
I'm running out of non-sit-down restaurants to review, and with twin toddlers in tow, it's hard to get to the sit-down places (where I feel I have to eat in at least once to get a full measure of the place). Last Sunday, the desire to get the boys out of the house on a rainy day, along with a coupon, led us to On the Border.

As Christina said after the meal, "At least they have food." It's not exactly high praise. Her chicken tortilla soup was incredibly salty, and the rest of the food was mediocre. The boys, as usual, loved anything involving beans, rice and tortillas.

The best thing I can say about our trip was that the service was excellent. Our waitress was very attentive. But I can't imagine why we'd want to go back here rather than to Monterey (half a mile away) or Mi Hacienda.

My follow-up visit on Wednesday was via the take-out process. Since they have dedicated take-out parking, I hoped this would go well, and it started out in a promising vein. After being put on hold as a Yaz song played, my order was taken my someone with a distinct Latin accent.

Christina suggested I ask what they recommended, but I decided I had better had something in mind in case they weren't forthcoming with a recommendation. I settled on the chicken fajitas. (Particularly since fajitas aren't something you can order when you have kids who want to grab everything placed on the table.) So they recommended, of course, the chicken fajitas.

I picked up my meal at the bar, and it was served with an extremely generous portion of chips and salsa. I thought that was a nice touch to include the complimentary chips that you would have gotten as a dine-in customer.

When I got back to my office, after wolfing down the chips and salsa, I opened the takeout container to find...a grilled chicken breast, vegetables and tortillas. I know fajitas are assemble-your-own, but you're generally not supposed to have to cut the meat into strips yourself. (Particularly since it should be cooked that way.) The food was once again mediocre. It was edible, but I wasn't eager to finish every last bite.

So once again, great service, but it's another one of Bowie's unnecessary restaurants. It's rare to find a chain restaurant that can out-do a good, independent ethnic eatery, and Bowie has two fine Mexican places where you'd be better off spending your money.