Gallo Blanco is a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix that serves up some quality Mexican cuisine. No Tex Mex here, instead you can find street style tacos, a creative elote, and some pretty good happy hour specials. My Overall Rating - 4 Stars (Atmosphere, Service, Food, Return) Atmosphere - Gallo Blanco is adjacent to the Clarenden hotel, so if it's your first time you might miss it. Inside you'll find an open and modern space that matches the food perfectly. There's also plenty of outdoor seating and bright colors everywhere and a bar if you're looking for more than tacos. 1 Star. Service - Our servers were great. Even though the food took some time to come out, they checked in often. We sat outside on a cold fall afternoon, but our outdoor heater was out of fuel. They were kind enough to move a working lamp to accommodate us. 1 Star. Food - Get the elote. Gallo Blanco serves this up on a whole corn, placing the sour cream and spices on top. You then strip the corn off directly. It looks amazing, tastes great, and was a really creative way to serve elote. I liked it more because it limited the amount of sour cream. The guacamole was also great. Fresh, and with pineapples mixed in. They used big chunks too, and I thought it was great. They tacos were good not great. The beef reminds me of Korean bugolgi marinated beef. It was sweet (which is ok with me). Shrimp and fish tacos while fresh, weren't any more memorable that other places I've been too. So while the appetizers were great, our tacos weren't as good. 1 Star. Will I Return? - Yes. Kids eat free, and they have great happy hour specials. I'd return for those reasons and the elote/guac. Gallo Blanco is solid, cool, and definitely worth a return visit. 1 Star. My Yelp Rating Scale (Sum of all parts): 1 Star - Atmosphere - Is it a cool dive? Perhaps an upscale place? No matter the type, atmosphere plays a big part and I'll give a star if I like it or thinks it has great charm. 1 Star - Service - You can have a great meal with bad service. But that's also what can make a five star joint drop to four. It's important to the dining experience that service is great and on point. 2 Stars - Food - I'll award up to two stars for the food, since this is the main reason we dine out. Sometimes the extra star is given for value, but it's really all about the food. 1 Star - Will I come back? - If I know for a fact I'll return, I'll give this a star. A place has to make an impression for me to return. Each Category can be given up to 1 star except food (2 stars) because I consider all these categories important to the overall dining experience. I will sum them up to provide my final Yelp score.

positive

After hearing good things about Blue Restaurant and Bar, Denise and I were happy to try it out last night. To be fair, we knew it was pricey. So we were happy to give it a go, considering that someone else was picking up the tab! In any case, wanting to try something unusual that I can't get anywhere else, I chose the Wild Boar. Four slices of tenderloin and a small chunk of shoulder, served atop a bed of spinach, which in turn was on top of some sort of risotto (rice-like) mixture, and the whole shebang was highlighted with berries (huckleberries, I think). The tenderloin was average. Good, but a smallish portion, and nothing really special about it. The shoulder was excellent, and rivaled a tender pot roast. The risotto was good, as was the berry that highlighted the plate. The spinach just looked nasty (and I _like_ spinach), so I didn't try it. Beverage service was excellent. Rarely did I drink more than a bit from my water glass before it was refilled to the top. Same with my ginger ale. Bar service appeared to be pretty speedy as well. But food service was horrid. Slow, slow, slow. Several of the people in our party ordered a chocolate cake dessert at the time they ordered dinner - apparently it takes a while to prepare. Well, our server didn't really seem to notice that other people at the table might want some dessert, and was almost shocked when two of us asked for dessert menus when the cakes started arriving. An order of ice cream and another of berries went completely unserved, though we waited twenty minutes or so for them. I understand if one of the little cakes was ordered, it might take a while to cook. But how long does it take to scoop some ice cream and throw some berries on a plate? I doubt we'll be back, but it isn't completely about the service. The food just wasn't that great, and it was a bit pricey. Nothing wrong with paying up for great food, but Blue wasn't it.

negative

very disturbing to witness a shark being brought in a small tank!!! ...where it can barely turn around !?!?... amidst a super loud environment (to the VERY LOUD Touch a Truck children's event)! would you like to buy a ticket to witness animal abuse, anyone? WHO can i contact to stop this animal abuse madness? TWO THUMBS DOWN! poor sharks, damn. there is enough of this kind of stuff happening in the world, come on, mandalay bay, PLEASE KEEP IT HUMANE.

negative

Terrible food. Terrible service. The absolute worst. We stopped here for lunch and should have gone next door to Fajitas. The food was both greasy and dry ( I'm not sure how that was accomplished). There was only one waitress at the end of the lunch hour. She was nice, but could not keep up with serving the entire restaurant.
negative