La Vista Cocina + Cantina — Restaurant in Carrollton

I had high hopes when I first arrived. Pictures of their food online looked great, and inside it looked like I might have found a great Mexican restaurant.

Starting with the good, their margarita was awesome (specifically their top shelf, their house margarita was actually pretty bad). Our waiter was on the ball and responsive. Also, their salsa and chips tasted fresh and had a nice spice to them.

The first negative I noticed is the menu had no combination plates. I generally like to order combo plates so I can try several different things from the menu. I ended up going with their enchiladas, 1 cheese and 2 shredded chicken. The cheese enchilada was completely congealed, rather than being melted and stretchy. The chicken was shredded nicely, but had very little flavor. The chili con carne sauce also seemed pretty bland.

I then ordered the sopapillas. I grew up in El Paso and Southern New Mexico. Sopapillas out there are these fairly large fluffy pastry pillows. An image online showed two medium sized sopapillas, so I was excited thinking I might have found a place that makes them right. So when a plate of tiny little bite sized squares came out, I was already disappointed. When I bit into one though, I found the center to be non puffed raw dough. Even if it has been cooked all the way through, it was the completely wrong dough type. It honestly looks like it's a bag of little frozen dough squares that they just fry off.

The waiter offered to replace them with their flan, which sounded great. However, the flan that came out was incredibly dense and covered in chocolate syrup... The chocolate syrup did not compliment the caramel flavors that are supposed to be in the flan. I've made instant flan at home that was much better than this. Again, it seemed like some sort of premade frozen cup they just turned upside down and warmed. It had none of the delicate textures and flavors I grew up with.

Overall, what started as a really promising meal quickly went down hill when the actual food arrived. Maybe a better place for drinks and appetizers, but the food isn't the...

My husband and I ate at LA Vista Cocina for the first time today. The restaurant was very clean with a nice atmosphere. The staff were friendly and very gracious in trying to make sure we had a good experience. We were served salsa and chips, and although we loved the warm salsa, the chips had a taste that neither of us cared for. I'm not sure if it was the oil or lard that they were fried in, but we both noticed it right away. We still ate them because the salsa was really yummy. Both of us ordered the house tacos. The menu has a lot of interesting entrees, but I was looking for a combination type platter so I could try a taco, enchilada, and tamale, but there wasn't anything like that on the menu. We were served generous portions, and the refried beans were very good. The rice was dry and bland, but it was okay after I poured a bunch of salsa on it. The taco shells were on the stale side, and although my husband noticed the same odd taste that was in the chips, I had poured quite a bit of salsa in each of mine, so I didn't notice. Overall, the restaurant and waitstaff were top notch, but unfortunately, we didn't feel the same about the food we had. Maybe we'll try ordering something...

My husband was out of town and I decided to take myself out to dinner. I have dined alone in several countries and have no qualms with solo dining. This restaurant is in the neighborhood and I visited twice before and service and food were fine. The restaurant was quite busy for a Wed night and the manager told me it would be about 10 min until I could be seated. No problem and since there were no other people waiting, I took him for his word. The ten minutes turned into 20 minutes and children of guests began playing tag in the restaurant. They ran into me, and almost knocked over waiters and staff. The manager never once spoke to the parents. Just as I was reconsidering my decision to stay, the manager headed my way. My mistake, he was really headed to the four people who walked in the door. I was surprised that he grabbed 4 menus to seat them immediately. When I reminded him that I had been waiting, he said, it will be a few more minutes until I can seat you. I told him not to bother as I walked out. He seemed unconcerned since he was seating a party of four. I won't be back even when I have a...