text: I love to cook. I go to new restaurants all the time to get inspiration for new things to try in my own kitchen. I didn't get much from Tommy Bahama's Scottsdale restaurant. We arrived for our reservation a few minutes early, checked in with the hostess, and my companion was escorted to the upstairs dining room while I parked the car. I joined her shortly and found that she had been seated in the walled \"back\" part of the dining room, that frankly looks like an afterthought to the much more pleasant and amply windowed main area. Not much of a view from here. But, the decor was very pleasant, and we set about ordering lunch.\n\nFirst, we had Tommy's Coconut Shrimp appetizer, billed as \"World Famous\". Nicely presented, crispy coconut, and a slightly too sweet papaya-mango chutney dipping sauce accompanied four good size, juicy shrimp. A good start! For lunch, we ordered the BBQ pork Habana Cabana sandwich and the South Beach Cuban sandwich.\n\nWhen the Cuban sandwich arrived, it was accompanied by a \"slaw\" of sorts that included chunks of orange, and slices of fennel bulb in a non-descript dressing. The combination of anise and orange just didn't work for me. Besides, the fennel was sliced across the width of the bulb, making relatively large  horseshoe shaped strips that were difficult to spear on the fork and even harder to fit in my mouth gracefully without cutting them individually. The Cuban sandwich was totally unimaginative. The \"roasted pork tenderloin\" looked to be the identical shredded pork that was the basis of my companion's BBQ pork sandwich minus the BBQ sauce and was somewhat dry. A few slices of what looked and tasted like supermarket deli ham were layered with some cheese and a big slice of sour pickle on a diagonally cut bun that was soggy from the ham inside and crunchy dry on the outside. \n\nMy companion's BBQ sandwich had an ample amount of shredded pork that had apparently been tossed in a thick dark sauce and piled on a nicely toasted round bun. Plain French fries accompanied the sandwich. On first bite, she immediately commented on how overly sweet the sauce was, so I tasted a little sample and had to agree. No offsetting acidity to the sugary blackberry brandy BBQ sauce that smothered the meat. Too bad too, because it mostly covered up the flavor of what appeared to be  a nice smoky meat and left a sticky sweet aftertaste instead of nice smoky BBQ.\n\nOur server was friendly, personable, and efficient. The food runner took away or forks as he cleared the appetizer plates and delivered the sandwiches, but did not come with new, so we had to flag down our server and wait for forks as lunch cooled. All-in-all, it wasn't the kind of lunch experience I expected for nearly $60 (no alcohol) including tip. Great location, lovely decor, but missing some really important points when it comes to the total experience. Lastly, for whatever reason, they subsequently reported us to Open Table as a \"no-show\". Nice.