Caliente

Average food at a ridiculously high price! To charge for chips and salsa is totally absurd, so shame on them for that. They were good, but COME ON. Most of the entrees cost around $ 20 but don’t even come with beans or rice! We paid around $ 120 for 1 drink and a meal for each of 4 people!!! If it was exceptional food it would be fine, but it was pretty average. Service was decent. Overall, no way are we coming back here again, it’s highway robbery!

This place charges for chips and salsa!!! A basic chicken salad at lunch costs $ 19!!! Three street tacos (with NO sides) cost $ 18!!! We thought about leaving after seeing the ridiculous prices on the menu, but for some stupid reason we decided to stay hoping the food would be phenomenal but sadly that was not the case. The food was good, but not great. Honestly, if the prices were maybe ¹⁄₃ of what they are this place would be worth it, but it is just horribly overpriced! Not coming here ever again.

This is probably one of the worst Mexican restaurants I have EVER been to. Everything from the food to the service. It’s just so very sad. The restaurant itself is beautiful and has an amazing location. You would think with the money this place must be they would have curated actual chefs to make this place a tahoe icon. Save you time and money and GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! Anywhere else! The chicken and steak fajitas were awful and rubbery… guaranteed to be cheap beef and chicken… even though they have one of the most creative and fun named drink menu, they are awful and cheap liquor is used in their well drinks. Worst place ever.

We had a large group of 8 celebrating a birthday and watching the Warriors game and Caliente was the BEST!
Shout out to our server Katie who was amazingly gracious and patient with our large table and orders. She also split the check for us– definitely the real MVP ;)
Food was delicious! Started with the chupacabra frozen cocktail which was tasty and deliciously boozy. The chips and salsa are great here – chips were still warm and were really light and crispy.
I ordered the fish tacos. One grilled and one fried. Really good and fish was fresh and flavorful. I tasted a friend’s shrimp fajita and they were perfect! Portions are HUGE here too and prices are reasonable.
We were celebrating a birthday and our server Katie brought out a lovely churro and ice cream dessert with candles for the birthday boy and it was so sweet! After dinner, we went upstairs and watched the last quarter of the game at their roof bar. There’s also additional seating upstairs and heat lamps. Great cocktails at the bar and a really wonderful place to watch basketball.
Overall, we had a great time at Caliente and I’d absolutely recommend it for dinner, drinks, and watching basketball!

Fun place! The Chupacabra drink is an awesome mango frozen drink with mucho booze-​o. You’ll probably be walking funny after two. The Happy Hour is excellent with delicious complimentary nosh. Recommend the Cinco de Mayo celebration where they host super cute Chihuahua races every year. Nice outdoor seating with heat on second floor which is nice to avoid dining right in front of street traffic.

Alright… This place has nice décor, but it is way way over priced (3 tacos $ 18 before tax and tip), the food is okay, and both times I’ve visited I received poor service. I get that Tahoe has a premium price, but this place is way out there, and the staff I’ve experienced doesn’t seem to realize that the only reason to spend that much is to have an eventful dinner.
Also, the manager seems to be frantically running around, looking disheveled and not setting a good tone for the staff. At this price point the manager should be calm and welcoming for both staff and guests.
Maybe I’d go back to purchase some overpriced margaritas on the deck in the summer, but that’s about it.

My wife and I went there on our honeymoon. I made a reservation thru the app Open Table. I ise that app to find fine dining and we are not wealthy by any means but this was a special occasion. The menu on on the high class joints had tiny portions for nearly $ 50 a plate ala carte! Anyhow Caliente looked good fun and decent price. I asked on Open Table if they would please seat us in a nice location and if possible comp our dessert. There is no guarantee of this they warn you on the app but as soon as we got there we were greeted by a friendly greeter and the owner came up and personally introduced himself, which I thought was great from a business standpoint. They asked if we wanted to go to a quiet section due to the bar playing some sort of fun game it looked like with the owner on the Mic. We declined due to the fun atmosphere. And it was cold and nearly raining out but they asked if we wanted the heater because I asked on Open Table for patio seating. Everything I requested was addressed and handled so well by the staff. The owner came over and said the desert was on the house. (Churros and vanilla ice cream with drizzled chocolate) It was Amazing! The food was far better than any super fancy resort restaurant. We highly recommend this place as choice to dine. Thank you to the owner.
–The Bells

LOVE Caliente! This place NEVER dissapoints and we’ve been here for our 3^rd time now. The food is delicious. I had the fish, hubby had the wet burrito with side of 2 tacos (I know, he has a big appetite and gains no weight! NOT FAIR! LOL) and my son had the chicken nuggets (his choice in a Mexican restaurant. sheesh) The service is always top notch but then again we get there fairly soon after it opens after a day on the slopes or hiking. I also like the décor. Super cute! Just overall a lot of fun.

I don’t get the negative reviews. Our party of 9 had great meals, everyone enjoyed their dinner and the drinks were very good. I had the Caliente Trio with shrimp, a braised pork chimichanga and a cheese enchilada. I thought the chimichanga would be small but no, it was a meal in itself and really good. Even the enchilada was huge. I would definitely come back here

Terrible food. Terrible service. Wasn’t just the food that left a BAD taste, Bartender apparently thought it was ok to be condescending from the get go. $ 18 for a salad! A SALAD! Fajitas were awful and bland. Skip this joint…

Reasons to go: flavorful specialty Mexican food, beautiful newer space with great ambiance that’s a cut above other older Tahoe funk restaurant spaces, home made cocktails, sauces, salsas, chips, etc (or at least they seemed to be), shareable entrees like the fajitas, large big screen tvs, summer rooftop patio.
Reasons to skip: tourist-​centric hang with no local flare, expensive, up charges everywhere, $ 3 chips & salsa, no go-​to favorites like a regular burrito, enchilada platter, tamales, etc., small overpriced kid meals.
Takeaways: good food quality but you feel nickel and dimed and question overall value when the bill comes. Not a place that would seem to get a local following but other reviews may have a better handle on that. Felt like I was getting squeezed so I found myself skipping things I would normally order for that complete family Mexican feast.

Came out here with family and we had a good time. First off this is a pretty pricy restaurant for Mexican food. Most items on the menu are 10.00 or more and drinks are pretty pricy too. With that being said I thought the food was very tasty. The fish taco can be battered or grilled and I chose one of each. The service was quick and our waitress was very nice and checked in on us often.

The food tasted good when I was there but today I have food poisoning. I know it’s from here because me and my roommate both ordered the wet burrito and it’s been a bad day for both of us.

In short: We had the place to ourselves on this dead Sunday evening the weekend after Labor Day weekend. Share the fajitas with a friend — they are HUGE! So. much. shrimp. Be prepared for a bit of spice with this dish though.
Should you try it? Yes
Ambience: Dark, cozy. There’s a bar area and a separate large dining area.
Service: Very good service.
Location: Great parking lot out back. Could hold lots of people.
3 Key Tips:
1) Their chips are super thin and the salsa is amazing. Come hungry!
2) The shrimp fajitas are incredible large and could be shared between 2 people.
3) Parking lot out back for easy access!
Recommended Dish: Shrimp fajitas — very spicy, but so good!

I was here in Tahoe this past weekend to watch my SO participate in the (last) Lake Tahoe Ironman and Ironman 70.3 event. Caliente is one of the restaurants near Kings Beach (near the water start) and was on a list of recommended restaurants participating in some sort of a reduced-​price deal for race participants. My SO, his family, and I came the day after the race for hassle-​free food. We had been cooking all our meals before the race and this was my SO’s post-​race reward/​splurge. I wouldn’t say this was my first choice of restaurants since I’m from San Diego and I have my pick of amazing Mexican food, but we wanted to stay close to the home we were staying at.
There’s a heated patio, a bar section, and a nice-​ish indoor restaurant area. They have TV’s at the bar and near the front of the restaurant seating where they were playing sports. Something I’m not used to is the $ 2 charge for chips and salsa (?!). I’m used to stuff like that being complimentary at most other restaurants that offer chips and salsa at the start. It wasn’t amazing salsa, no fresh tomato chunks, no herbs; definitely store bought and mediocre at that, so I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that we had to pay for it. The cocktails were also meh. Since it was a Mexican-​themed restaurant I was hoping that the margaritas would be decent, but they were too sweet with too much of the mixer. The group consensus was that the julep was probably the best out of all the drinks we tried.
Food-​wise I had the Caliente trio — the pork chimichanga was yummy although my SO didn’t like that there was too much of the (fried) tortilla and not as much of the filler. The cheese enchilada was so salty I couldn’t finish my half of it. The chamoy-​glazed shrimp was okay, six pieces lying atop some rice. I liked the sauce which was sweet and sour with a bit of heat, but my SO didn’t like it. He got all four of the tacos offered (for $ 22) — carne asada, chicken, pulled pork, and shrimp. My favorite was the chicken. The carne asada would come second. The skirt steak was tender and had a bit of red at the center (which I prefer), but didn’t have the marinade flavor that I normally associate with carne asada. The pork was a bit dry for me and the shrimp was okay.
Overall, I think this restaurant’s business benefits from its location and from its participation with the Ironman event (s). The food is okay, though the price is a bit higher than I would prefer to pay for the quality and quantity. If I’m ever in the area again I may try some other places around the area to be adventurous, safe in the knowledge that if all else fails, there’s a solidly «okay» place to fall back on.

The bad: The food is like basic Mexican food, but made by a really white person, and disguised as being ‘Mexican with a flair’. The menu is also pretty expensive ($ 14 for a bean and cheese burrito).
The good: you’re in Tahoe.

I had THE BEST burrito ever here. Awesome service at the bar downstairs. I can’t remember the bartender’s name, but he was very personable. The upstairs area has a really cool atmosphere and it is fun to sit and watch what’s going on outside. We will be back!

A spontaneous pleasant find on my part!
Coming down the hill from Mt Rose, heading back to Squaw Valley, I was hungry and thirsty (not for water).
Stopped at the stop light, I looked up to my right and saw an open deck type of place and quite a few full tables and then the glistening margarita ‘tubs’ on some of the tables got my attention. Hey, I’m solution driven, and a problem solver, and yes, this place was the solution for my hunger and thirst!
Parked our car at the small-​ish lot, noticed the main restaurant down stairs was closed, but big sign said ‘upstairs bar and deck open for lunch’! Very happy!
Headed upstairs to the open deck/​patio area. Really liked the vibe — chillaxed, beachy, airy feel. A huge bonus for the comfy bar seating and nice and big bar counter.
I was actually surprised by how tasty the fish tacos were — both grilled and batter fried. The fish was fresh, flaky and well portioned. I didn’t love the sweetness of the slaw in the fish tacos, but it was not too bad after i sprinkled more lemon on them. The fresh guac was yummy and not too salty like some places would make them.
The prickly pear margarita I had was Sooo delicious. Kudos to the young bar tender for giving me a heads up that this was a very sweet margarita, and asked if I wanted it to have toned down. And of course I asked for it to be a little tart and a little sweet– very vague on my part, but somehow this young man got it!
If I’m ever in Kings Beach/​incline/​tahoe city– I will definitely visit again and try out more of their yummy Ritas and bites!

Nope. No-​go. I’m *that* person who isn’t a fan. Staying close by, I popped in on a weekday evening during off-​season (read: it wasn’t crowed and it was fully staffed). Apparently happy hour is only honored in the bar area, so I waited and waited at a table for someone to acknowledge me. Staff was milling around talking to each other and waiting on other tables. I checked with the hostess to be sure it was ok to be seated where I was.
While I waited I checked out the menu. Overpriced food and drink, in my opinion. I wanted ‘standard’ Mexican and a damn good margarita. After about 15 minutes — and having asked the hostess once again if I could get service — a waitress finally ambled over. By that time I was so annoyed and put-​off by the nonexistent service and unimpressive menu (which I’d had ample time to review), that I left for Las Panchitas, where the service was much better and the food was awesome. I recommend going straight for Las Panchitas, which is ¾ mile down the street.

Delicious food | Good menu variety | Nice atmosphere
$$
My group totally missed their happy hour/​special deal for the fish tacos! We had a large group and they took us in right before another large group with reservations, so we missed the special.
Excellent menu variety. They have ceviche appetizers, fish tacos, chicken quesadillas, short rib flautas…
Yes, I had the short rib flautas and i regret nothing: D There were three and I felt satisfied after that. Others had the nacho burger and fish tacos.
Décor is nice and the atmosphere felt like a family dinner place, at least the time we went. Great place, I’d go back again.