La Costanera — Restaurant in Half Moon Bay

We have been to La Costanera a number of times and while it has always been good enough to not complain about, it has never been good enough to rave about. The food has always been a plus while the actual restaurant and the service would leave a bit to be desired. Unfortunately, that was the case until last Saturday night.

We made reservations for 2 for a relaxed anniversary dinner as we didn't want to splurge for the Four Seasons and were in the mood for their Peruvian menu. I'm going to keep it to an outline to avoid going on and on and to keep my irritation at a minimum. We were sat at approximately 6:50 pm at a table for 2. Both an empty 4 top and a 2 top were next to us. At 7pm (10 min wait) I grabbed a busboy and requested water...he brought over chips and forgot the water, I re-requested & he brought a pitcher over. I let him know that we'd like to order drinks. -At 7:05 (15 min wait), after watching both the 4 top and the 2 top get seated, I flag down the hostess who had originally sat us and let her know "please let your manager know that I've been waiting for 15 minutes without being greeted and I'm pissed." Yes, it was probably a bit too aggressive, but it was honest. -We wait for 5 more minutes while no one comes over to us -7:10 (20 minutes of no service) - I walk to the front and tell the hostess that we still hadn't been seen and that I was ready to walk out. 7:12 Now the whole crew bursts to life. I see the hostess talking to a server and the manager. A different server approaches, apologizes for a mix up, and takes a drink order. Then the manager comes over and offers a big apology and a free drink.

The rest of the evening was fine, I got over my seething anger, my dinner was decent (paella), my wifes was fantastic (ahi tuna), and we have a nice time. My real problem boils down to the time from 7pm - 7:10. Everyone makes mistakes and forgets a table...but when I specifically asked for help and then had to wait for 10 more minutes and ask a 2nd time? That's just stupid. Maybe I needed to leave my black card or keys on the table to let them know I could afford a nice meal, who knows. I won't as I won't be going back.

The restaurant is loud and crowded. The food is good, but not worth the trouble in my opinion.

PS - Parking is awful! If you have a sedan or sports car, beware their extended lot that will absolutely rake the bottom of your car. This time I parked across the street...loved running across PCH with my wife in the...

Pleasantly surprised by my dinner here the other night.

We came as a group of 12 as part of a company offsite. The restaurant was incredibly accommodating and had set aside a large table for us. We had one person order for the entire group and the server was great in terms of making sure we had enough food and telling us how many of each item were in a plate so we could order accordingly. We shared a ton of plates:

Yucca balls - the server told us there were three to an order, but we actually had four on each plate. Creamy yucca with a crisp fry on the outside, serviced with a light curry sauce to add some spice and depth to the heaviness of the yucca root. 5-stars.

Pork belly skewers - pork belly is usually an easy win for me, but these tasted like burnt grill flavor, not fatty delicious pork. 3-stars.

Ceviche pescado - not fishy at all, fabulous kick, loved the creamy sweet potato on the side. 5-stars.

Ceviche mixto - normally a win for me as I love seafood more than straight fish, but for this, I found the fish in the pescado ceviche soaked up the sauce better, while the seafood here remained somewhat unflavored. I did appreciate the variety of seafood here, with two shrimps, a mussel, a clam, some squid, and some fish. 3-stars.

Chicken chicharrones - crispy fried chicken, not the most moist I've ever had but still tenderly delicious, served with a thousand island type sauce on the side. 4-stars.

Beef empanadas - different flavor profile than I'm used to, tasted like chili in a buttery flaky crust. Super delicious, 5-stars.

Pulpo a la Parilla - not big pieces of octopus, as expected, but seemed more squid sized. Heavy grill flavor, but not burnt, and a little rubbery on the texture but still had good flavor. 4-stars.

Camarones - large and juicy with flavorful tomato sauce, and very garlicky bread. Lots of sauce, required extra bread! The bread was perfectly crisp and burned on one side, still fluffy inside. 4-stars.

Lamb Riblettes - suuuuuuper tender and fatty. Four to a serving. Yummmmmm 5-stars.

Lomo Saltado - Traditional, nice darker flavors from the soy in the tomato sauce. A good mix of potato softness and crunchiness on the fries.

The only issue we had was when we went to order cocktails, we were told there was no bartender so we had to stick to beer or wine.

Overall, really delicious, especially...

February 14th, 2023:

I’ve been in this restaurant many times, even back when they were at the old location. The food and service here is always impeccable so I thought why not reserve a nice dinner spot for Valentine’s Day for the first time. I looked at their menu for that day and they had it advertised as a fixed menu for $135/person, which is a bit pricey but looking at what’s being serve for that day, and factoring my experience with them in the past, I gave it a go and made a reservation few weeks in advance for 7:45 PM. Fast forward to our dinner, we just barely started on our appetizers when we heard the waitress talking to our two next table neighbors that they had ran out of Lucuma Cheesecake and Dragon Fruit Tres Leches, which is the two exact desserts that we have ordered. At first I thought, maybe they just ran out at the moment, and they will magically have some more when it’s our turn to have our desserts. Nope, I was wrong! Here comes the same waitress telling us that the only dessert option is the Chocolate Carlitos (flourless chocolate cake), and another ricotta type of dessert that’s not part of the special event menu but from their usual daily menu since it’s available, I guess. My problem here is: 1. how do you ran out of desserts by 8:PM from a $135/person fixed menu that should’ve been accounted for from all the x numbers of reservations you have for that day. 2. Anything less than what was promised on the advertised fixed menu is unacceptable because we as customers know exactly what we have signed up for (in advance) and therefore we expect you to deliver. And 3. I gave La Costanera the opportunity to “hopefully” correct their misfortune by offering us free drinks with our meals or perhaps some hot espresso to go with our Chocolate Carlitos & Ricotta desserts which left us with no other choice by the way- but they didn’t do anything on their part. And that to me left a really bad taste in my mouth just like the two desserts that we both had and...