La Palma Mexican Restaurant #2 — Restaurant in Corpus Christi

I’m disappointed in posting this review, I usually don’t post negative reviews, but as an Island resident and as a paying customer I will have to sadly say no more will I eat at this restaurant. On multiple occasions, not just this one the food has been horrendous.

I’ve had an Horchata that tasted spoiled and sour, I’ve had parts of my order missing after picking up food for the family on more than one occasion, and surprisingly, more often than not when I pick up breakfast, I’ve had onions or some type of other ingredients in my taco when I did not order that specific ingredient. At one point, the cook actually came out to the drive-through window to question me about it as if it was my fault, mind you after finally bring it to their attention after multiple times of this happening.

Today marks the last straw. I haven’t ate there in a couple of months, I decide to give them another shot, sadly there were two pieces of hair in one of our breakfast tacos. I cannot begin to tell you the disgusted feeling in my stomach. I used my fork to point out that a small hair is actually embedded in the potato. The other one is a long strand that was mixed into the egg and potato.

I understand tourists and people who are not from the area may enjoy this restaurant, but compared to other Tex-mex restaurants in the area and across the bridge in corpus. This restaurant definitely falls short. I hope they can get it together or speak to their cooks about better food handling practices. Maybe they need to sit through the food handlers course again for refresher. Sadly will not be...

My sister and I arrived at 9:00 PM for a late dinner. After ordering our meals and a margarita the food arrived but I had a ask again for the margarita. It was very small but I was charged full price of over $4. I ordered a chile relleno with very little rice and beans. The portions looked nice. After trimming off the stem of the chile I ate the bottom slice, which was soggy and not crisp. I cut into the next portion of the chile where I found the cheese had not melted and was refrigerator cold. Since the waitress had not checked back to see if the meals were satisfactory I took my plate of cold chile relleno back to the window where I explained the situation to the woman at the cash register. She volunteered to warm it up but I declined. When I went to pay the check she charged me full price for the meal and refused to consider any form of recompense. After I left in disgust my sister tried in vain to talk to the same woman who happens to be the night manager. Her reply to my sister was, "Well you win some and you lose some. We'll just get more customers." She offered that her husband, Victor, is the morning manager and we could talk to him the next day. I asked if it would do any good and she shook her head "no". She determined that I had eaten too much off the plate and should have come up earlier to complain. I won't be back there again. Ironically we had eaten lunch there the day before and I had an incredible seafood soup. What a difference...

This was not our first, second, or even third choice of places to go for dinner but I'm glad we ended up there. It was full of mostly (if not all) locals. It isn't anything much to look at from the outside, just another Mexican restaurant. But it was a really good Mexican restaurant. We were greeted by a guy who could tell we weren't locals but told us to sit where ever we wanted to. The server, who was very friendly, came by and took our drink order and gave us our menus. After looking over the menu we decided to split a plate and a burrito. More than plenty of food. The quality of the food was way better than expected. The salsa was awesome! It's not every day you find a nice place like this in such a touristy area where you can go and feel relaxed instead of rushed in the frenzy of people. The traffic on the road next to it was a bit busy but we made it over there fairly easily. Parking was easy and they kept up the cleanliness inside. Tables were cleaned withing a couple minutes of people leaving. So if you're in the mood for Mexican food and aren't wanting to spend a fortune doing it, this is the place.

To wrap up. The food is great, the staff is friendly. They keep the place clean, and parking isn't crowded. A must for your trip...