Hacienda Vieja | Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Drain

Recently had cause to go to Ashland, and was excited to knock a few towns off the Great Oregon Burger Bucket List (my quest to have a burger in every town in Oregon). Found a Mexican restaurant with burgers, La Pinata, in Drain, and headed over. Really cool local spot. Serves just about everything, friendly staff, welcoming atmosphere. Huge cookies!! Being sold to pay for trips to watch the Atlanta Braves, of which this is a mini Mecca for fans.

I asked if it was a decent serving of onion rings, and boy howdy!! They gave about twice as much as most places do. Great prices, $20 with the tip for a big bacon burger, lots of onion rings, large drink, and two huuuuge cookies. Onion rings were great crispy batter with a soft onion inside, mild taste to the batter. I don't normally use fry sauce for onion rings, but wanted to try it, and the fry sauce is very solid-a slight tang and very smooth. If I lived in Drain, I'd probably probably be here twice a month just for fries & sauce with a beer to wash it down.

I got the bacon mushroom Swiss burger, despite not being a typical mushroom burger guy, because it was recommended in reviews and is their top selling item overall according to the very helpful waitress. It was a burger you could smell the meat from while it was being brought to you. The tease of the scent alone promised a solid burger, and it lived up to its tease & reputation. Juicy beef and thick tasty bacon with a very generous helping of veggies on a solid bun. The mushrooms were great, just noticeable enough to know it's a mushroom burger without being...

Ok. Maybe Mexican food isn’t their forte’. Which to me is weird. The name kind of makes you think it is. But all the good reviews are for things like prime rib. So. I do not recommend ordering the chimichanga right now. The meat was not seasoned great. Tasted like high school cafeteria taco meat. The pork tamales were ok. But they were… square? Like they were made from frozen? But that’s ok i guess you can’t win them all. The other possibility is that is was some kind of quick tamale that was made like casserole and cut out in squares? Which would be even better, because you know, i can totally see a restaurant in drain making a tamales casserole as a standard tamale. Hey its ok, she said it was pre made. If it was frozen that might have been why it tasted ok. 👍🏻 but. Ok, learn how to season your ground beef. Change your fryer oil. either make them look like tamales or call them tamale casserole. So ONE good thing. The service was good. Server was nice and easy to help. But. She didn’t get my order right, i had to scrape sour cream and guacamole off my food. usually i can get through it like that. But this time nope. That sour cream was souuuuuuuurrrrrr cream on flavorless meat, in a stale tortilla cooked in old...

Good food. The owner, Sandi, is a huge baseball fan which I always liked. But I have to warn anyone with children, this place is not particularly kid friendly. I have a three year old and a ten month old and we travel not infrequently from north bend to Portland to visit family. The last time we were there Sandi actually got angry at my ten month old spilling a little food on the floor (seriously my ten month old). And I commented that our kids actually did pretty well and Sandi's response was: "I'd hate to see what your house looks like". Ha. I'd always enjoyed chatting with her, being a big baseball fan myself but I asked my wife on the way out of the restaurant "Has she said anything like that before that I just missed?" My wife's response: "oh yea every time we stop, you've just been away from the table every time and you seemed to love the place so I didn't have the heart to tell you." After one meal Sandi actually told my wife that children raised right don't act like our children. Ha. So I'm not going back there AGAIN for above average food and insults hurled at my children. Just too many other...