Vallarta's Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

This was an extremely disappointing meal. Yelp is full of good reviews and pictures of how good and filling the meals are. Well, that doesn't apply to the nachos. My wife and daughter both ordered pupusas - $3.50 for each pupusa. I decided to go for the nachos, since the picture looked good [though, no pictures on Yelp].

The waitress seemed surprised that I was only ordering nachos, which should have been a sign, but at $15 for a plate of nachos, I was sure that would be enough. I couldn't have been more wrong. This was the most pathetic order of nachos that I've had in my life. The plate was small, especially for a plate of nachos, with about one and a half layers of chips. There were a bit of refried and cheese on top. And a dish of pico de gallo. I was severely disappointed.

When the two plates of two pupusas each came out, my disappointment grew. Two pupusas [$7] was larger than my plate of nachos. I looked at another table and saw a gigantic burrito. Depending on what was inside the burrito, it was either $13.50, or $14.50. Either way, it was cheaper and way bigger than my nachos. I'm sure that the nachos were way easier to make than either the pupusas or the burrito. And, nacho ingredients are not expensive, especially when I didn't get the meat add on.

How could that pathetic plate of nachos be more expensive than all this other food? The only thing I could think of was that the owner went to some restaurants in Vancouver, saw the price of nachos, but never ordered any.

We asked if these were really the same nachos from the menu. The waitress went to the back to talk to the owner/cook. Eventually she came back and said they were the same nachos. We asked it we could cancel the order and order something else, like the pupusas. She went back to the kitchen. Eventually, she came back and rather than come to our table with an answer, she went to clear off a table [it wasn't busy]. Once she finally turned around, my wife asked her what happened. She just shook her head and said the cook didn't want to do that.

I pointed out how small they were, how expensive they were in comparison to the pupusas and the burrito, and the difference between the picture on the menu and what I got - the picture on the menu shows a mound of chips [not a huge amount, but way more than I got], a bunch of topies, AND quacamole and sour cream! Not at all what I got.

My wife went to talk to the chef, and, apparently, her daughter got the menu done, and there's various problems with the new menu, but she can't get the phone number of the person who did it because her daughter went to Toronto. Taking a look at the Yelp pics, there are pictures of this exact same menu from almost 2 years ago! If there was a desire to get the menu fixed, it would have been done long before.

Definitely...

Stopped in because of the great reviews but found it less than satisfying. Some decent dishes but over all it felt like everything was done with a lack of care and attention to the important details of flavour and colour.

Tried the nachos with beef (best dish we tried) the chips were crispy, lots of beautiful melty cheese and the beef was quite tasty. The salsa and crema accompanying did not fair quite so well, nor did the pico; it all tasted watered down and they unfortunately did not have any salsa that was in any was spicy, very odd for a place serving Mexican food.

We also had the pupusas, fried fish and enchiladas, not even worth mentioning other than to say, save your money. Presentation was okay but flavours were not the best and the pupusas were more dough than filling.

Cost wise, fair price for the quality and size of portions.

The best thing about the place was the service, our server was lovely and took really good care of us.

If you need to fill a nacho craving go for it but bring your own salsa otherwise not really worth the 30 minute trip...

Vallarta's is a family owned restaurant that's an Institution in Vancouver. It's been at Renfrew/Broadway for decades, as long back as I can remember.

I went today and got some flautas and pupusas (one is enough). The flautas were amazing. Delicious, fresh cooked, I loved the sides of rice, beans and salad. The flautas were crispy, salad was a nice balance, and rice and beans were perfect.

The food reminded me of being in Mexico - it reminded me of food I had in Mexico City, way back in the 90's. The atmosphere of the restaurant felt like a relocation to Mexico as well - people that the cashier recognized came in, a concert was being broadcast on the t.v., people were quietly eating. The restaurant is small with small booths.

The cashier was the most welcoming person I've dealt with at a restaurant in a long time. Sometimes, places are staffed with unhappy, worn out people and maybe they have to deal with difficult public. I felt very welcome at Vallarta's, and now I'm comfortably full with a balanced, memory...