La Bocanita Restaurant — Restaurant in Arizona

I have been critical of restaurants in Rio Rico before if you read my previous posts so La Bocanita was a very pleasant surprise. The place looks clean, well lit, very friendly staff. And great live music Two plates. One was the carne asada tacos with flour tortillas with refried beans and rice. I started with the meat. It was great!!! Not chewy, not overly salty. Seasoned well and not greasy. I added the rice beans, julienned cut lettuce, and pico to the taco and this was delicious. Everything went well, all the flavors complemented perfectly with out over powering anything. Good thing the plate had three tacos. The carne asada plate was a great one. Great initial impression. The other plate was the chimichanga with beef. It was HUGE! It had red sauce (enchilada style) over it with melted cheese. It also came with rice and beans. The chimichanga was well put together, packed with not only beef but also with bell peppers and onions. Each bite was full of good stuff. The texture of the flour tortilla was awesome and it held up well to the beef and the red sauce on the outside. The refried beans were tasty along with the rice. For this dish be hungry. It’s a lot of food. After leaving the plate completely empty I was ready to come back for a future visit. Finally….a restaurant with great food in Rio Rico!!! I had begun to lose hope after visiting other restaurant. This one came thru in the best of ways. And the prices are very reasonable for the pocket. Lots of food for the money. And today (Saturday) they had a gentleman playing tunes and singing to them. The pleasant surprise was he also played a mean saxophone. And he played it well. I didn’t get a chance to complement him as he was in the middle of a song. When I go back I certainly will as he added such a great touch of liveliness with his singing and by playing a great saxophone. Thanks you sir!!! All in all, I had a great meal, great entertainment in a city I had almost given up on. I love being surprised like that. Keep it up La Bocanita…..you have a great thing going. I’ll certainly be coming back.

The menu prices on the pictures are current...

The food wasn't very good and the service was slow.

We ordered the queso fundido as an appetizer and it was served with corn and flour tortillas - this was the best part of the meal. Especially the flour tortillas, I think they're hecho a mano (made by hand).

Three of us had the large 3 person order, I can't remember the name, but it's $65 for 3 people and it's like a sampler platter, a little of everything. I think it was prepared ahead of time because it wasn't even hot when it came out and the mariscos (seafood) wasn't fresh, the pulpo (octopus) was chewy and fishy. The fish tasted good, but it wasn't even hot, I felt like we were eating leftovers. The bacon wrapped shrimp were very good, though again, they were only warm.

The staff and servers were all very nice but they didn't pay attention to our needs. We had to get up 3 separate times to go ask for a refill on our drinks, more chips, and chiltepin because the salsa wasn't spicy at all.

I really wanted to like this place because it's a nice little family owned restaurant and they have nice decor and music which makes it feel authentic. I think they need to pay more attention to the details and put more love into their food and it could be a...

We visited Restaurant La Botanica with high hopes and looking forward to a wonderful meal. The restaurant is a quaint Cafe that specializes in seafood. The servers were very friendly and took our order fairly quickly. My dining partner ordered the Shrimp in Green Sauce and I ordered the the Chicken Fajitas. The meals were delivered to the table 50 minutes later. The Shrimp in Green Sauce was well cooked but served warm at best. The food presentation was basic. The Chicken Fajitas was served barely warm and about 1/2of the chicken was severely under cooked and not consumed. The rice was overcooked and the refried beans were basic and underwhelming. After thinking about this for a day our recommendation is to consider other...