Catrina Taqueria — Restaurant in City of White Plains

Beware: Make Sure to “Request” Happy Hour or You’ll Be Charged Full Price

I drove down from CT, excited for a good experience at Cantina Taqueria. I was greeted warmly and seated while waiting for a friend. I ordered the small guacamole, but it was disappointing—more like pico de gallo than guacamole, with way too much onion and tomato and hardly any avocado. It lacked lime, salt, or pepper, which made it even less appealing. I even texted my friend to express my doubts about the place but hoped the food would redeem it.

When my friend arrived, we ordered flautas and enchiladas de mole. She enjoyed her flautas, but I found the enchiladas underwhelming. The mole sauce was just okay—I’ve had much better. While I finished my meal, the portion of rice was meager compared to the sauce. On the plus side, the decor was nice, and they played good music.

I would have rated the restaurant a solid 3, but the payment experience soured my impression. My friend ordered a jalapeño, and I casually asked if we were in happy hour. A server condescendingly replied, “Did you ask your waitress for happy hour?” I was surprised; I thought it was automatically applied, given its visibility on the menu and social media. She insisted we needed to request it because “it’s two smaller drinks,” despite my friend only ordering one. I decided it was fine for them to keep the extra $7 as a tip.

My friend, who had just returned from the restroom, was not pleased and also inquired about the happy hour. Once again, they reiterated that we should have requested it. A manager then approached, attempting to clarify, but when my friend tried to express her frustration, he interrupted her, saying, “Can I finish?” He offered a free drink, but it felt insincere—it was about the principle of being kept in the dark about the happy hour.

It seems clear they intentionally don’t inform customers about the happy...

As previous reviewers have mentioned, you aren’t given the lunch special menu by the servers unless you specifically request it. I try to start and end on positive notes and will do so now.

The atmosphere is quite nice, authentic music in the background (thankfully not too loud), the decorations are unique and very cool looking, very clean restaurant.

We started with chips and guacamole. The chips are not freshly made (some tasted bagged and a bit stale), both them and the guac needed a fair amount of salt for flavor. My drink was horchata which was overwhelmingly sweet to the point that I had to send it back. My meal was chicken quesadilla which was tasty albeit rather small. My wife had the chicken soup and sadly it was not able to be finished. The broth tasted like hot water with no flavor, the chicken seemed like it had no seasoning, their attempt at adding flavor to the dish was going overkill on bay leaves, lastly the broccoli/cauliflower (which isn’t even typically in traditional sopa de pollo) was wilting. The only truly delicious part of the meal was their homemade sauce, very fresh and spicy.

Ending on a good note, the service was great, the servers are very friendly and...

I stopped by during the summer last year. I came for happy hour after work, and it was the worst decision I've ever made. As everyone else has stated, they do not offer up the happy hour menu. You must ask even when it is happy hour and you are sitting at the bar. Once I received the menu, I ordered a coconut margarita, which I had to instruct the bartender on how to make it. I ordered tacos with guacamole, and everything about it tasted old and unappetizing. They had about 4 other customers in the restaurant seated at tables. The food did come out fast, but it was luke warm, and the rice was cold. which led me to believe they often use the microwave. The drink was not good either. It was not strong, and the bartender used orange juice instead of lime because he said they didn't have fresh lime juice nor the lime syrup. I didn't even think to ask for a refund on my food. The bartender saw i barely touched my food and asked me if everything was OK, and I just asked for the check and left. I will say, I left my debit card, and they held onto it until I returned. But overall, I swore I would never return,...