La Playa Mexican Cafe — Restaurant in Harlingen

I'm just one of the many reviews.

Don't take my word for the verdict. Have any of you seen a short where a server in a Mexican restaurant tells her table of customers (for the short so no one other than the account holder is in the short) about the variety in Mexican food?

She starts describing the dishes and slows down and loses her excitement when she realizes she said fried rice (in my personal and maybe biased opinion Mexican fried rice doesn't compare to the Asian counterpart), beans, cheese, and salad?

That's virtually what you get with most of the dishes. Now like I said, don't take my review and star rating to be the verdict. There should be many of y'all who like that so you'd rate this higher than I would. I just wasn't a big fan of it.

In addition, I think they're short staffed. While I don't want to make things hard for folk trying to fill in gaps in their team, I didn't cause their team to be short handed either.

There was some messing up with our order. This was addressed and taken care of to someone's satisfaction... I just don't think it was ours. Our order was fixed, let's establish that! It's just that once it was fixed.... we wondered if this was it?! So I don't mean to blame them when I say the mixup was taken care of but not to our satisfaction. I just want to provide context, so you know you can just blame me again for this if you've been content and happy with all of your orders, properly handled or mixed and fixed.

Either way, this is okay. And I'll go again if my groups want to go here. If it were me deciding where we'd go, I don't think La Playa would be one of the options that...

My wife and I have been going to La Playa since 2007. It's been one of our favorite restaurants in Harlingen and we eat there at least 25 times a year. However, I'm sorry to report that the establishment has definitely gone down hill. We went there on August 8th for dinner and we were very disappointed. The staff were rude and inconsiderate. The place wasn't very busy but there was no one at the front desk. We finally got a waiter's attention and he acted like it was a great imposition to take us to a table. He led us to the first available table and threw the menus on the table and ran off. He never said a word. We picked up the menus and went to a better location where we waited for 10 minutes before being approched. The waiter acted as though he had more important things to do than wait on us. We ordered drinks and food and the waiter was very unprofessional. I almost walked out but my wife talked me into staying, even though she was very disturbed by the lack of civility. No one ever returned to our table unless we flagged them down. I never once saw any employee smile or interact pleasantly with a guest. My wife and I both left a bit stunned by the experience because over the years we've always felt welcome at La Playa. We were so disappointed that on the way home we both said that it would be a long time before we go back. The prices have gone way up and the service way down. That's not a good combination! Apparently, based on some other recent reviews here, we are not alone in our criticism of the unprofessionalism of the wait staff. It's sad because La Playa used to be...

June 15th visit for a pre Father's Day celebration. Greeted immediately and sat in the private room area. Much quieter. Went with the usual and they hit it just perfect as usual. Great visit. The server was a little blah and we didn't see her much but a friend of the family who works there took care of us either way and we ran into some family friends having dinners well. Had a great time, food was excellent. The time with friends and family was even better.

Food always good, too loud. 11-16-22 great dinner with friends. Had the fajita milanesa. Absolutely delicious. 5 stars/ 3-12-23 visit, 5 stars definitely. Skipped bfast due to driving in from out of town so we were hungry. Stopped in on a Sunday afternoon around 130ish. Absolutely fantastic. No wait, seated immediately. Server was very kind, pleasant and attentive. Started with chips & salsa as usual and moved on to an appetizer. We went with the Family appetizer cause it had a little of everything. It was absolutely delicious except the jalapeno. Great blend of seasoned ground beef apps and seasoned chicken apps. In the center was a beef filled deep fried jalapeno (same concept as the deep fried avocado). The jalapeno tasted very vinegary, like it came out of a jar. It wasn't fresh off the plant. Other then that it was good. Wife ordered the Fajita tarascas and I order the beef milanesa. No complaints, absolutely fantastic. It was all hot, fresh and fast. I think we know our new visit time for our next visit. Definitely be back. Atmosphere still gets 3 stars....it is always super loud in there.....I like the...