YOLA cocina mexicana — Restaurant in Corpus Christi

I was spending a week working in Corpus and decided to try out this place, the reviews seemed promising. When we arrived, there were only two tables sitting, one was already served. We ordered drinks and appetizer (chicharrones con salsa). The pork belly appetizer was decent. It was obviously deep fried and a bit bland but tasty. Before getting the appetizer we ordered some drinks, a caipirinha and a margarita. The margarita was overly sweet, the caipirinha on the other hand was apparently made with a squirt of lime and a shot of cachaça. The lime was not muddled with the sugar, at least not enough. The drink was basically a shot served over ice and all the sugar remained at the bottom. Asked if I wanted another, I said "definitely not". After this the service went downhill quickly. We ordered the Birria tacos which came with a choice of refried beans or charro beans. The refried beans came with a sprinkling of white cheese and the charro with the usual bacon and cilantro. They were decent. The rice that came with the order was a little on the salty side, over-cooked with water but undercooked with a noticeable hardness in the grains. The Birria tacos were ok, a little bland but not bad. The corn tortilla Birria came with three tacos and a very small side of consomé, the flour two tacos. The food itself was not bad but the service was poor considering that at no moment there were more than three tables in the restaurant. Apparently, and I'm assuming here, for saying I definitely did not want another caipirinha, the server / bartender Abby, took offense. I worked in restaurants for 6 years in my younger years and gave considerable effort to give good service. I did not bring my personal problems to the table, my job was to make the guests feel welcomed and offer the best service possible. This was not the case here. After finishing our meal, the server came and cleared the table, but she did not clear anything from my side even though I had everything stacked neatly to take in one go. She returned a second time and again did not clear the table on my side. I had to take my plates and place them on the bar myself in order to clear my side. After dinner, my coworker and I decided to have a small digestif. We ordered some mezcal, neat. After taking the order, the server decided to go into the back for 5-10 minutes. It would take seconds to pour the drinks and serve but again, perhaps, we were being punished with delay. In any case, we eventually got our drinks after some time. This was all during a time when there were three tables and three servers, although one was shadowing another for training so technically two. Regardless, the service was very poor considering the prices. The food is ok but hardly worth the price and the service is definitely lacking. Mediocre food can be made great if service supplements what is lacking. Service is as important as the food served and if service fails, it doesn't matter how good...

Overall: This is a great place to get nice food and drinks. This place has so much potential and id love to see it packed on a Saturday night. I love going out for drinks and this place will be on our rotation from now on.

Atmosphere: My bf and I came here on a Saturday night around 9:15 pm. For most of the meal, we were the only people there. It’s a beautiful restaurant with a beautiful and well stocked bar. It was kind of awkward halfway through the meal because they turned off the music and it added to the fact that no one was there. I was confused because I thought they were closed and we were overstaying our time because of it. We wanted to get another round of drinks but we elected to leave because it was awkward.

Service: Jayden was our server tonight. She was so kind and knowledgeable of the menu. I appreciated that she took the time to explain everything to us and showed genuine enthusiasm for the dishes and drinks.

They offer Acquia Panna as their water which is always a good sign in a restaurant, especially since corpus tap water is horrible.

Drinks: Fantastic and a great value!! For the quality, drinks are so affordable. Not pictured, but we also go the mole Manhattan. They served it with a Luxardo cherry so that was a great sign. It featured mole bitters which added a nice spice flavor (maybe star anise or cinnamon) to the drink. Pineapple pisco was delicious. It had a good amount of alcohol and it wasn’t too sweet. It was the second time I had pisco and the sourness of the pineapple and the egg white foam complemented it well. About $10 - $15 a drink. We moved here from Dallas and this establishment was comparable to some of the places we frequent (like Paradiso but cheaper lol). This bar alone should be keeping the place packed at night but for whatever reason, this isn’t the case. Our server explained that this area is a residential area with an older population but that shouldn’t matter because Corpus Christi is small to begin with so it’s not like people would have to drive far to get here. Perhaps people don’t know about it? Or maybe cocktail bars aren’t popular here?

Food: food was delicious! Jayden recommended the Queso fundido to us which was excellent. The salsas it came with were great and had a good spice level. Agua chile had a beautiful presentation. I do wish the shrimp had absorbed more of the flavor of the liquid. Robalo was so good! I love a whole fried fish and I’m so glad we ordered this. It was more than enough to share. They only gave us 2 corn tortillas with it though so next time I hope they offer a few more. The carnations as decorations were kind of unnecessary though.

We will be back and I hope next time this place will be packed as...

TLDR: Best Mexican food in Corpus Christi. 10/10

Despite being an architect and someone who operates in the world of culture, I generally avoid designer restaurants- especially for Mexican food. Usually, I just go to the nearest hole in the wall and convince myself that the food was good.

Unless I have a meeting with a client, I usually dress very, very poorly to blend in with the local populous and generally want to be left alone and not seen, so stepping to a place like this can be intimidating, lol. But since my Instagram algorithm had been feeding me videos of really proper tacos from all over the world, I decided to not suffer the usual bad Corpus Tex Mex and go for some real stuff.

Being from San Diego, California and having grown up eating predominantly Mexican food, my standards are pretty high. I have also eaten Mexican food in almost every Mexican state. That is a conversation for another time (California vs. Mexico vs. Texas Mexican food), but I’m just laying down my credentials.

Anyway, it was late on a rainy Thursday night, so I felt like there wouldn’t be a crowd of hipsters or loud people, so I drove over from my house a few blocks away and went for it (after 2 years of avoiding).

I was aware the owner had some other businesses including something with tile, so I knew the interior would be pleasant, which it was. I could go deeper into the interior design review, but I’ll save that for later.

The staff were really nice and easy on the eyes.

I ended up ordering the Birria (to be trendy) and one Al Pastor taco on the side. Birria on corn tortillas with refried beans and rice and a single Al Pastor taco on flour just to see if they knew what they were doing. The Al Pastor was exceptional. Yes, they did do the annoying south Texas thing where the flour tortilla is as thick as damn Indian naan bread, but in this case it was actually really good. Birria was crispy and cheese was good. Rice had good flavor. The refried beans were like a hip, homemade black bean version with that classic white cheese on top- very good. And I tried all the salsas. The orange habanero and green were the best. I don’t like verde, but I really liked the green salsa in this case.

I will definitely have to come back to try more menu items. Great job. I think they could do equally as well, in a more efficient, Fordian arrangement- like an In and Out or like some of the Los Angeles and San Diego places, where it is less sit down and less experiential and more about the food alone… but I guess that sit down, vibe aspect gives it a draw. And people do drink alcohol. What I am saying is the food is good alone. The design is a secondary nice plus. Best authentic Mexican food in...