Popocatepetl — Restaurant in Rotterdam

Had dinner here last night with a couple of friends. The starters were fine. The mains were very disappointing. For main we had 2 carne asada which was just a piece of steamed steak that hadn't seen a grill. I had the enchiladas which were the worst enchiladas I've ever had in my life, they had a very weird almost floral taste, the meat was dry, they just dumped a small amount of cream cheese on them and a tiny amount of cilantro. The side was a clumpy flavorless bit of rice. Ordered extra cheese and the mole in hopes of making it edible but alas. The mole was more like a funky tasting Indonesian satay sauce. After complaining to the waitress I was offered a coffee on the house. The ribs were bland. Sauces you have to order separately which is a huge let down. For dessert I had the tres leches with lemon curd. The tres leches was bland and grainy, the curd wasn't a curd and they put 3 minuscule dots of it on the plate. The churros were ok and so was the cheesecake. Overall I really missed the Mexican flavors in every bit of food we had. I expected the staff to remove the enchiladas from our bill seeing as they were inedible but that didn't happen. I also had the mezcal mule which other than the cup it was served in had nothing to do with a real mezcal mule. The servers were great. Sadly some of them didn't speak Dutch luckily all 4 of us do speak English but I can imagine it being a problem for the non English speakers to eat here. I wouldn't recommend eating here if you're excited to taste Mexican food, you're probably better of buying a good Mexican cookbook and cooking at home. I had been wanting to try the food at Popocatepetl for a long time sadly it was a major...

Used to come here a lot with my parents before I moved out 2 years ago (and even then we went a couple of times afterwards when I visited my parents) and it was always a good experience, but when I went with some friends yesterday it was a very disappointing experience. They've recently changed their look from a nice warm mexican atmosphere to some abstract modern-ish theme, which hasn't been for the better in my opinion. The menu also changed, and it has taken its toll as well, the options are far more limited than before, and especially as a vegetarian my choices were very limited. Although the food itself wasn't particularly bad, it certainly didn't live up to the experiences I had before they changed. We also had to wait far too long for our food (for which they did offer us some free coffee/tea/soda, but that was a very minimal gesture compared to the time we had to wait) and once it arrived, they brought the meat containing Mexican Plate Deluxe for my (vegetarian) friends who had ordered the regular (vegetarian) Mexican Plate, meaning they had to wait even longer (for which they didn't offer anything extra as a compensation for the inconvenience). I'm sad to say that I don't plan to ever come back to this restaurant I used to...

The atmosphere is really nice. I like the colors and details of the interior design. The service is generally good as well. The reason I'm giving such a low rating has to do with the quality/authenticity of the food. I'm not sure you can call this Mexican in any way, shape or form. It's not even Tex Mex. It's more of a weird, flavorless Dutch Mex. My burrito had carrots and some kind of sweet cream cheese in it. Which was an odd combination. It was baked in a roll of paper for some reason until it was super dry. The only way I could eat it was smothered in guacamole, sour cream and hot sauce. I will include a photo showing the thickness of soggy, yet somehow dry (?) tortilla foundation of my burito. My boyfriend ordered the enchiladas which had a mountain of sour cream atop what looked like an upside down tostada with carrots, peppers, sweet cream cheese and 1 corn tortilla and zero-spice red sauce. I was warned that this place wasn't authentic but I thought hey how bad can it be? We spent 45 euros for 2 people (1 appetizer, 2 mains and 2 non-alcholic drinks) Man oh man was I wrong. My suggestion for the kitchen staff would be to try to use more chili powder and cumin and avoid carrots and sweet...