Cielito Lindo — Restaurant in California

Being new to the area, I looked in the local Yellow Pages (People still use those? Yes, some people do.) to find a Mexican food restaurant. The ad stated something about "Voted best salsa bar in Santa Maria!" Well that sounds encouraging, doesn't it? Who doesn't like a good salsa bar. How many salsas do they have, I wondered? With visions of perhaps as many as six varieties of exotic flavors dancing in my head, I walked in the door with my family.

It's a quite narrow restaurant, being in the corner of a strip mall, and laid out quite awkwardly. At the back I found their salsa bar, with a grand total of two salsa bowls: one large bowl for the mild salsa, one small bowl for the spicy salsa. In fact, both bowls were fairly small, and I guess technically it was indeed a salsa bar, but to me it barely qualified. If this is the best in the area, it is only because nobody else has one. Seriously, I'm much more impressed with El Pollo Loco's selection.

Ah well, brushing aside the disappointment we moved onto dinner. The first time, I ordered hard shell tacos. They were pretty good, and I had a good feeling about developing a liking for this place. The beans and rice on the side were ... well, they were beans and rice. They're never that great, but some places somehow serve better than others. These folks are not among the top with their beans and rice, but they will do. The rest of the family consumed their food, but the consensus was that it was serviceable food.

The next time I ordered a chile verde burrito. It was bland and disappointing. I ended up dumping salsa and Tapatio all over it to try to liven things up a bit, but it really didn't help much. To top it off, I ended up with a nasty upset stomach that night. I wouldn't say the food made me sick. Hey, it's Mexican food, sometimes that happens right? Still, I haven't been back. It seems the risk of upset stomach outweighs the tasty factor for this particular restaurant.

These days I find myself cooking my own food when I get the hankering for Mexican flavors rather than head over to this place for a ho-hum burrito. I may return soon to try their hard tacos again, but don't hold...

My wife and I were on our honeymoon and were very hungry and craving good Mexican food. We came to this restaurant and the waiter have us a basket full of tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa, got our drinks, and then later got our order, my wife and I finished the chips and the salsa, which was very soupy by the way, and never got anymore. We normally always have chips and salsa to eat while wait for our food, but ok. We ordered fijite for two and, boy was it disappointing. It was not seasoned right. On the menu, it said it was somewhere around $22. But when we got our ticket, we charged $30 plus drinks and tax which totaled near $40. I consulted with our waiter and he, pretty gruffly, told me "you ordered fijete for two" and I told him "It said $22 on the menu and it says $30 on the ticket." Well, he corrected the error, but we waited for him to come back and get our ticket and let us pay it. We just left the ticket on the table with the exact amount of money due and left. Needless to say, he didn't get a tip from us. So overall, no refill on the chips, we got overcharged, as well as the ones at the next table over, we waited too long to pay our bill, and the food...

RUDE!!!! We ordered something from the menu and the guy on the phone told us that they don’t have it available so they made a suggestion that is similar to it. We agreed to it. They never put that order in and then argued with us saying that we never agreed to get it and we shouldn’t complain since they never charged us. I told them that we don’t even know since they didn’t give us a receipt for it and the math isn’t adding up. He then was upset saying that I tried ordering something they don’t have and this is my fault. When I told him that it is from their menu that they have online and at their restaurant and no where on there does it say it’s no longer available. He finally said that he will make the food even if it’s our fault but we will be charged. I don’t mind paying for it so I said ok, but he continued to say that this is my fault and not theirs and we shouldn’t expect things for free (I never asked for it to be free). At this point, I just hung up. Wherever the miscommunication was, ok I understand… but he really did not want to help and once he did he was really...