Lola's Tapas Bar — Restaurant in Hoboken

I’ve always stopped by for a drink & appetizer. It’s a pleasant place. The food is good from what I’ve tried. Unfortunately, I decided to take my mother out in Hoboken prior to Mother’s Day & her birthday. I was ok with sitting outside even though it was chilly. It wasn’t the end of the word each time the manager came over to say they’d have a table ready for us in 5 minutes. 20 minutes later it was just 5 minutes. My mother had mentioned her hearing him say it before but she didn’t complain we just chuckled and waited. When we got a table we were seated outside and almost immediately got our drinks. The service seemed great! We ordered our soup and 3 tapas all together and they told us they would bring us the soup and shrimp appetizers 1st and then bring the others as an entree. We waited 1 hour and 15 minutes for soup and shrimp in garlic sauce. Literally 1 hour 15 minutes. They must have said the food would be ready soon 3-4x each time saying just 10 minutes because “they were busy”. Well after we ate our soup and shrimp the couple to my left had already finished their pitcher of sangria and pizza while a party of 6 had already finished their dinner. Both parties arrived 10 minutes and 15 minutes after us respectively. We received multiple apologies and a constant offer for one free drink on the waiter. After 1 hour and half I decided it was as enough. It was cold. That was when the waiter came up again and I told him the truth, had it not been for my mother I would have left without saying a word. She offered to pay but I refused to let her. They said that the reason the other tables got their food first was because some food takes longer to cook. I got upset here and loudly said, “shrimp and soup?! Is that a joke? I’m sitting here just so you know this is wrong. What you did was wrong and I won’t make my mom run away from a tab. We’re walking away from this shameful experience.” As I finish typing this up I’m across the street at Baja and already have my dinner in front of me. I’ll never go to that restaurant...

My favorite parts of the meal were the bread and cheese at the beginning, and then when we left at the end.

My BF and I had been wanting to try this spot out for a while. We always passed by it and saw that they had HH drinks/tapas til 11 at the bar, M-F. We came in on a Monday at around 8:30 and the place was pretty empty. Maybe because it was a Monday? But I don't think I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, because the food was pretty terrible so I think that was the reason. It was like they just pulled in anybody who was available for the night, put them in the kitchen, and said "hey, whatever you think this tapas dish is, make your interpretation of it with whatever we have in the kitchen.

Here is everything we had:

Chicken wings - these were smothered in some kind of sauce. It tasted like AYCE wings that you'd get from a Hoboken bar. Not really sure what we were thinking when we decided to order this.

Lomo embuchado - so we didn't know what this was and they told us it was thinly sliced pork. But I just Googled it and it's actually dry-cured pork loin. What we got was a thin, and dry piece of salty pork. Not exactly the same as dry-cured.

Croquetas - pretty basic. These are definitely refried again and again, if they can't sell them all

Meatballs - salty and dry

Seafood salad - we were told that this was ceviche but in actuality, it was just boiled shrimp and squid, covered in an old salsa

Shrimp ajillo - this was the only thing that was actually not bad. But it's not enough to make me want to come back

Drinks were no better. I had a cosmo and BF had a mojito and both were straight sugar.

Maybe the regular, non-happy hour hour menu is better? (doubtful) Try the "tapas" at...

The restaurant is in desperate need of updating. The decor feels very dated. Also the service felt very uncoordinated and awkward. The restaurant was mostly empty but there were 7 waiters standing in the middle of the room just lurking. We had multiple different wait staff come to serve us at various points during our dinner, most of which seemed like it was their first day on the job.

These things seem minor and could be overlooked. But the worst part of our experience was the food. It was VERY disappointing. Given the very expensive prices of the menu items, we expected high-end quality.

We ordered the paella Valenciana, which is a traditional regional dish, typically containing rabbit, chicken & duck. But ours inexplicably had a mix of seafood, chicken & sausage. All flavors that do not mix well together. Plus the quality of the ingredients was very poor. The clams & mussels did not taste fresh and they left a fishy after taste in your mouth. The chicken was tough and overcooked. The sausage was rubbery and bland. The rice was flavorless and watery. The vegetables felt like an afterthought, with vinegar peppers thrown on top at the end. It really was a let down. Epecially when our check came at the end. For the quality of the food served it was SEVERELY overpriced.

I've been told that you cannot find a decent paella in the US or anywhere outside of Spain, but i was hoping to be proven wrong. Sadly, that was not the...