El Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Hastings

Full disclosure: I do live in Minneapolis and I eat out quite a bit. I wanted so badly to write something great about the sweet little Red Rock Cafe on our trip to Hastings, alas, I was sadly disappointed in the food quality. Location = great. Interior = great. Staff = lovely and attentive, Coffee= great....Food = blech. I'm in the meat business, both raising it and selling it, so that is my top criterion of how much care (and money) a restaurant puts into the food they serve. My assessment was that quality is not a priority at RR. When I asked if they ever had anything "local", our waitress replied that they use a "local distributor", translated: Sysco or equivalent. The "sirloin steak" that came with my breakfast was possibly the worst piece of meat I have ever tasted in my career. Was it Soylent Green, or maybe ground-up used telephone books? Perhaps worse, I'd ordered it "rare", as it was served, safety dictates that a ground meat product must be fully-cooked. Of my mushy, grey rectangle of "mystery meat", I took one bite and ditched the rest, not sure it would even be something my dog should eat. My wife ordered bacon which was paper-thin and over-cooked into Dorito-dryness, but also bland and fat free, not worth eating. My other quibble was that we ordered sourdough bread, and our friends ordered the marble rye. These are white bread variants, folks, no rye, no real sourdough. I'm pretty sure, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the biscuits and french toast are pre-made products, shipped in, and warmed-up, also the potatoes appear to be frozen, pre-ground for hash browns, (which is very common these days). I don't believe the "butter" was butter either, most likely margarine, but I've been picky enough, I just avoided it. It's too bad that it's getting harder and harder to visit a quaint little town and enjoy food that is even one degree above bottom of the barrel "truck stop" food. Hastings, you are settling for too little... Pay...

I would say that this place is always a great experience but since there is no email to contact the manager about this one time experience I suppose I will post it here which I don’t like doing. It was from today 7/13 at 11:00 when we got there. My reason for posting is just so the person who cooked my food will not do this ever again for anyone else. I was eating (everything was amazing as usual) and then I hurt my tooth on a pebble. I wish I took a picture before I had the waitress see it because she took it and said she would ask about it and returned explaining that they “had nothing like that back in the kitchen.” Well I assume a pebble would be on the ground from someone’s shoe. So it seems as if one of your cooks dropped food and picked it up off the ground. I did not eat after that. They took it off my tab which is better than the initial discount they offered but this was still a horrible experience and now my tooth is bothering me. So please speak to all cooks working at that time because other than this your food...

I recently moved to Hastings for the first time in February. Whenever I move to a new town, I search for my go-to safe haven mexican restaurant where I can feel comfortable surrounded by my culture. In hastings, this is it for me. They are very nice, welcoming, and they cook great food. I tried other Mexican places in town, but nothing compares to this. Their horchata is amazing. The tres leches is delicious. The tacos de lengua and chilaquiles are completely worth it. Everything here is authentic. I come here 1 or 2 times a week either in restaurant or through their delivery with Doordash, and they never mess up my order. They are very good about catering to any substitutions you ask for. I have brought multiple people to this place with me, and they all loved it. The corridos they play are also so nostalgic from the early 2000s. I love it. Simply said, this place is great and I feel comfortable here. Muchas gracias por el servicio...