Chiwahwah Mexican Cantina Bar — Restaurant in Christchurch

I'm giving it a 1 for some good reasons. Originally gave it a 2 but the owners like to let their business down by trying snarky responses to reviews that they don't like instead of taking constructive criticism on board and fixing their own faults.

When we arrived we were greeted and sat and all was very friendly. First thing we notice is everyone in the restaurant is just yelling so loudly that we couldn't even speak between ourselves. Way too loud and I don't know why. It was like this all night and my ears are still ringing the day after. For this I won't be returning.

The next thing is we sat for nearly 20mins eating for someone to come and take out order, even just for drinks. We were getting pretty pissed off by this point and was on the verge of leaving because we couldn't talk with it being so loud.

After a further nearly 20mins the food came and it was ok. The monkey bread was nice but was pricey just for a mini pizza....

The quesadilla was good.

The fried chicken was not. I've never had anything so oily in my life. I ordered the fried chicken sliders and it was just tasteless from the amount of oil onboard the chicken. No care from the chef. Just a basic thing to do...they need some basic chef training to learn how to not make the chicken drip with oil.

All in all waaaay too loud, too expensive and not that great...the artwork was cool though..you definitely get enough time to look at it because you can't talk because everyone was yelling.

We weren't the only ones that were complaining about the 2 large tables yelling and filling the entire restaurant with noise. Several others had the same feelings.

Never returning, not recommended. Go elsewhere for a better...

We took our son to Chiwahwah Mexican Cantina Bar for his birthday and, unfortunately, our experience didn’t live up to expectations.

Our early evening booking placed us at a table where one of the seats was awkwardly positioned under a stairwell. The lighting was so dim that we had to use our phone flashlights just to read the menu, which wasn’t an ideal start.

For our entrée, we ordered the guacamole and corn chips, which were okay, though the chips seem more like fried flour tortillas than traditional corn chips. Our mains included the Quesadilla De Bistec Y Queso, large chilli beef nachos, and the roasted cauliflower steak, along with a few cocktails.

The quesadilla was disappointingly small, barely a centimetre thick. The nachos were served with their unusual "corn" chips and the beef totally lacked flavour, and the dish was cold in the middle. The roasted cauliflower steak was undercooked and quite bland—the pomegranates were the only highlight. We even had to request their bottles of hot sauce to try and add some much-needed flavour to our meals.

Given the menu’s promising descriptions, we had higher expectations, but the execution fell short. For a bill exceeding $180, we left feeling quite disappointed. It would be great to see improvements in both the food quality and overall dining experience although the waiter...

We went for mine and my sisters birthday dinner out with a group of friends, arrived on time, stood waiting in doorway for 15 mins, once seated drinks ordered, one arrived, rest came a while later.. Ordered our meals, food delish, table staff lovely, manager was extremely rude, we were told we had 20 minutes to eat our meal before they had to pack table up for it to be a dance floor.. Cleared chairs and my glass of water away before I was to drink it, not offered dessert, told we needed to have paid our bill 10minutes ago, and that if we didn't leave shortly it would get awkward.. It took them an hour to prepare 8 meals and then we were at fault as we couldn't eat them in twenty minutes... Poorly run restaurant, with incompetent manager, once we had been rushed out... The dance floor was left for 8 teenage girls to dance with no drinks in hand... We were wanting to have dessert and buy another round of drinks but weren't given that option... So paid up then when the staff at the till asked how our experience was and she was told the manager was rude and we had 20 minutes to eat she argued and told us we knew when we booked we had a time frame... We didn't know they allowed 20 minutes to eat dinner... Pretty rubbish experience for our group of of lovely friends and my sister and I for our birthday... Won't be back. Poorly run...