La Olla — Restaurant in Oaxaca

TLDR: Cold food and unresponsive management

I decided to eat at La Olla one my my tour guides told me about it. It was our last night in Oaxaca, and I wanted a special dinner. La Olla took that from me. We arrived at 5 p.m. on Ash Wednesday. There was only one other small party seated when we arrived. We were a party of seven. After we were seated, it took about fifteen minutes for them to take our order. The waiter brought us our drinks, and we sat.

A half hour after we placed our order, another party that arrived after us received their food. I asked the waiter to check on our order, and he said it was on the way. Another fifteen minutes later and forty-five minutes after ordering, our appetizers and meals arrived at the same time.

The soup we ordered was good, but that was it. Our mixed grill appetizer was room temperature. If they prepared it first then why didn't they bring it? But wait, the "mole enchiladas" were cold, too. How is that even possible? Mole is sauce that is poured hot over tortillas when making enchiladas. The octopus tostadas were cold, and the grilled fish. The other items we ordered were all meh.

I asked to speak to the manager. He came by, and I explained the situation, showing him our cold food and asking how this was possible when the restaurant was basically empty. He thanked me for my feedback and said it was helpful that we told him what was going on. I was ready to accept this as an aberration, but what convinced me that our group of seven diners did not matter to them is that he never asked how he could make things right or what he could do for us. I consider that a very poor response to a complaint of serious service and food temperature issues. I cannot recommend this restaurant under any...

We ate here the first night we got into Oaxaca. A friend who lived in Oaxaca told us to go there. I don't know if he simply don't know food or the restaurant lost its chef but the food was not very good. I had the mole negra with chicken. The chicken was chunks of overcooked and very dry chicken breast. The mole negra tasted burnt and I had a hard time finishing it. Don't know why nearly all the restaurants in Oaxaca only serve chicken breasts. I think the Mexican cooks thinks chicken breasts are the only part of a chicken gringos like to eat. Wrong! For anyone who likes to eat, the dark meat is the best part of the chicken. Cooking chicken breasts well takes attention; 10 seconds too long and the meat is overcooked and dry. Chicken thighs has a lot more fat (more taste) and can handle a few minutes of too much cooking and still tastes great. The other dishes were pretty disappointing too. Thank God that after this disappointment, we had much better food at places like Terraza Istmo, Labo Fermento, Ancestral Cocina Traditional, and...

Was really excited to try this place, but wasn't impressed enough to want to return. The service was very slow - to the point where we skipped out on ordering dessert because it would have taken another 30 minutes at the rate everything else was going. Ordering food was also more difficult than it should have been. I tried to order a beer from their menu, they didn't have it, I ordered an appetizer, they didn't have it, I ordered one of their specialties, and disappointingly they did not have it!

Minor detail, but they set our table with paper napkins while other tables had cloth napkins - not sure if they ran out or what, but that's tacky for a nice restaurant. The restaurant doesn't appear to be popular with locals as it was filled with just gringos.

The food Appetizer - Fish Quesadillas - okay didn't really have a distinctive flavor. Salad - Organica - this was good, but again nothing that interesting. Main - Black Mole - this was great. Had a little sweetness, spice, and smoke. Good overall...