Let me start with the best parts of La Casa Sena. They have a lovely outdoor patio, occupying a large courtyard. With white christmas lights up tree trunks, running fountains, birds chirping and rustling leaves, it's a lovely place to spend time. They also have a nice art collection decorating the interior of the restaurant including original Gustave Baumann prints.

That said, it goes downhill from there. Most good food follows certain norms: not too salty, good texture, proper ingredient proportions and highlighting the main ingredients. Conceptually La Casa Sena got things right, like with the idea of a wild mushroom tamale, but they missed out by making a corn meal which was flat and uninteresting. Then with the hanger steak, which was good, they served flat vegetable strips, which were really more like peelings. They were so thin as to be without hunger abating merit. They were just too thin to be useful in the meal.

The halved quail was nicely cooked, but the savory strawberry sauce was bitter from over cooking. The blue corn muffin was very nice on its own while making no sense with the quail and its sauce.

It's at this point that the wife insists I mention that the mashed, cheesed potatoes in the chile, that went with her hanger steak, were very good and did help redeem the meal.

But to dessert...the green tea panna cotta was more like half plain yogurt, half panna cotta. It did come with a good cookie, but the cookie didn't complement or contrast with the panna cotta - it was just a mismatched pairing. And lastly the white peach and basil cheesecake. It was so sugary that even Jenny admitted it was too sweet. It was marginally saved by the basil which would go well with a proper cheesecake.

On the whole, visit Geronimo instead. For almost the same cost, La Casa Sena is an epicurean flop. It's the Windows Vista of Santa Fe restaurants, over priced and underwhelming.