Alaburger — Restaurant in Oaxaca

WARNING TO ALL VEGANS!!! The so-called "Cueso de Papa vegan cheese" is NOT vegan cheese! It is a very careful blend of COW DAIRY CHEESE mixed with MASHED POTATOES & spices. I eat here almost twice. First time it was actually good & I was happy to find what I thought was the best vegan cheese in all of Oaxaca. However the second time my partner & I went there we where ordering to go do to the mass infestation of flies there from our first eating experience. We decided to walk away for a tad to visit the eclectic arts next door. When I wandered back to check on how the order was going I clearly saw them taking some type of cheese out of plastic wrap which puzzled me as it was cut & placed on the same table our pie was being made. I asked the employee what type of cheese that was & clearly said it was local made cow cheese. I then asked why dairy was on the same counter area as vegan foods & I was met with no answer. I am fluent in Spanish among many dialects of such. Other dough was being stretched out for another pie that was having cow meat put on it. They moved over our pie to place the meat in its place, the cut it put the meat on the other person's pie with the cow dairy & then placed our pie back on top of where they cut the raw meat without cleaning the counter first. I made a statement about this & the employee said quote on quote "fire will burn it away on the bottom when it cooks". At this point I knew I was not going to eat there ever again or buy this current monstrosity of a pizza pie. However since I was still waiting for my partner I decided I would hang around & watch the circus. Next thing they did was take the same dairy cheese, add it to mashed potatoes & place it on our pie. I then decided to make another comment & the answer I received quote on quote was "both are mixed to make thick for the vegan". So my vegan friends this is most certainly a place to avoid like...

The burgers are very good, and cooked well. The meat is very good. Drawback: There are no French fries here. They do make delicious baked potatoes. But, get your food to go.

The condiments are basic American condiments including pickles, which is great because not many restaurants have this.

Problem for me: There is a massive problem with flies at this restaurant, the flies were landing on my food the entire 5-10 minutes I was eating my burger. Which....they must be dumping food somewhere and the flies are coming to lay eggs. Like....So many flies it was disgusting.

I highly recommend the burgers, but get it “to go”. Because literally as you are lifting the food towards and into your mouth, the flies are landing on it. Almost getting into my mouth....

And in the cooking area the flies are swarming around the food preparation area. There are so many flies — it’s THOUSANDS of them swarming around the preparation area.

I recommend this restaurant to try to get some pest control for the patrons, kitchen area, And also for their food preparation area, because it’s repulsive. Some restaurants put ventilation fans above the kitchen area to deter the flies. Or I wish this restaurant would do another thing in the kitchen/food prep area to deter the fly population.

I noticed after I wrote my first review they started putting citronella candles at the tables, to help you eat in peace at the tables. That was helpful.

But the food preparation area is on a whole other level of bad sanitation with the flies swarming around the meat, vegetables,...

Extreme disorder. As someone with a long history in food service, I'm baffled.

Our server knew less about the menu than we did, abruptly yanking the menu from us to double check items. It took a very long time to get our first round of drinks and take our order. My second drink took longer than thirty minutes after a third request for it.

Sometimes the server disappeared, leaving us to wonder if he had forgotten our order entirely.

Naturally, I'm a patient person when it comes to service, but I was beginning to wonder if the pizza was worth it. Servers were literally tripping over dogs sleeping underfoot in the sand, the mosquitos were beginning to destroy me, and I had given up all hope of ordering a third beer.

Luckily, the pizza was decent, probably the best in the area, or I was simply starving. Ingredients were good, it was piping hot with crunchy bacon and oozey, melted cheese. Not to mention, the home made salsas- chili oil, habanero, and chipotle mayo- were all flavorful. Props to the ladies in the kitchen. The burgers a couple next to us ordered also looked good.

Arbitrary numbers and bottom line: Service: 1/5 Food: 3/5 Ambience: 3/5 If you have the patience and are specifically craving pizza or perhaps burgers, the food is decent, but I can't recommend based on complete lack of service. Better service always means more money, even from low maintaince tables who simply want to pay for...