Mexico Restaurant — Restaurant in Honolulu

Zero stars! If I could. The customer service is lacking. If they’re going to set a drink limit they should let it be know upfront. Post it on the menu, signs, etc. Expectation management. Not make people feel a type of way by cutting them off because of your own prejudices. Never have I ever been stereotyped in my own home town where I was born & raised. I was out in KALIHI with a bunch of my local friends who we all grew up with since kindergarten to celebrate my 20 yr retirement from the Air Force & celebrating our other friend who served in the army for years and was home the same time. It’s been years since we been together. We decided to meet up at Mexico Restaurant. After two, couple rounds our waiter Ignacio started making comments about cutting one of us off after ordering our second drink. We shook it off as a joke. Then we ordered another round. Then our waiter went MIA. Because of his action we preceded to the bar to order our next round of drinks. Then 2… then 3 because our waiter was not around in which we paid for separately. Our waiter never came back to the table to see if we needed anything or announce last call. Needless to say we spent over $700+ to hear that usually Hawaiians come & don’t pay their bills & act stupid when they drink so thats why he presented us with our receipt before we even asked when we weren’t done with our meal & drinks. All in all we still paid him 16% gratuities because we were a group of six even though he was undeserving. No one should be mistreated or discriminated against/profiled. After we closed our bill at 9 we tried to order another beer and was told that it was not possible because it was past last call. They closed at 10. Not once was it communicated to us that it was last call. Being born & raised in Hawaii on Oahu from MWH and leaving when I was 18 yrs old to the Air Force to come back at 39 yrs old retired and be stereotyped in my old stomping grounds of KALIHI was very hurtful & disappointing. Other than that the food & drinks was good but to be treated with such disrespect. I have never felt that in any of the other countries I lived & served (Germany, Qatar, Afghanistan, Cuba, Korea, Australia & many more) Mexico restaurant in KALIHI has put a sour taste in my mouth, in humanity & I hope no one feels like Ignacio made my friends & I feel in a time where we were celebrating 20+ yrs of friendship instead we were made yo feel like a bunch of locals who could not afford what we were ordering. Thank you Mexico Restaurant for this horrendous memorable experience. 💣Bomb our trip 😤 A happy celebration tainted by this interesting experience. Luckily we took our business elsewhere & continued our...

So I chose this place after looking at reviews because I was looking for a Mexican restaurant that had good reviews, large tables to accommodate 12 of us, not loud since this was my birthday and my goal was to catch up with my friends. I also wanted a place that had vegan options for my friend. I also wanted a place that took reservations, even tho I read this place did when we called they said they couldn't. So we called the moment they opened on a Saturday to let them know a party of 12 was coming in. Whoever answered that time did say that we could make reservations since we were doing lunch there, it was just dinner we couldn't reserve for. My suggestion is just calling and trying to make reservations if you are going to have a large party to make it easier, less wait since they did push 2 big tables together. Our waitress wasn't too bad. She seemed overwhelmed, didn't remove piled up plates unless asked, brought the shared appetizers with nothing to scoop them out with. I felt bad because the more she forgot the more everyone would be asking things of her, the more fluttered she got. She seemed like a nice person when you could get her attention for a moment. I feel like she was just having an off day perhaps. She did bring over fried ice cream for my birthday. It was delicious. We did taquitoes, cerveche, nachos and the mushroom platter for appetizers. All were delicious. I had their flautas dinner style (they are on the menu under appetizers) and lived them. Everyone ordered something different and everyone enjoyed the food. Huge portions. I was raised in a traditional Hispanic culture, southern Arizona, this food reminded me of the restaurants that we ate at there. They do have traditional style tacos, think... street vender soft side corn tortilla style. They were good as well. The table was great for the large parties however the weird two person bench was awkward, we would have preferred just chairs. That's not worth docking a star alone tho. Overall this is a place we would return to.

I docked one star for the weird reservations, no reservations thing, the waitress who needed a buser to back her up and a little sunshine in her day and the wonky parking (I think there may be a carwash going on in the parking area, its quite odd lol). However, proportions and quality were solid.

Fried ice cream was nom I shared it with everyone on my table and that left me with one bite since they seemed to enjoy...

So this was our first time trying Mexican food on the island (we moved here from California) and although it was difficult to park, the outside and inside looked promising. Some may say that the decor is over crowded but I didn’t mind it, I enjoyed looking around. The dining room was very loud with kids yelling constantly, but that’s not on the restaurant, just our experience. It’s $4 for chips and salsa which surprised me, I’m used to them being complimentary in an actual sit down traditional Mexican restaurant. Salsa tasted like pasta sauce. We had margaritas and they were decent but not strong. I ordered a combination plate and was offered to try different proteins. They gave me a kalua pig quesadilla (enjoyed) a ground beef burrito (good but reminded me of Taco Bell) and lastly they gave me a verde shredded chicken enchilada. That’s where the issue came in.. it was the last thing I tried on my plate. I took one bite and immediately spit it out. I thought it could possibly have been the sauce, but I let my friend try it and she said it also tasted off. The chicken tasted spoiled. I advised the waitress when she returned to our table and she kinda just looked at me like I was crazy and said “the chicken was made today”.. but if it was made that morning and I’m here for dinner that could still be an issue if it wasn’t stored properly. She said that she and the kitchen staff would try it later. The only reason I’m not giving less stars is she quickly asked if I wanted to replace it with a different protein and I picked shredded beef and it was good. My best friend didn’t have any issues with her food, although she was a little taken aback that neither the flour or corn tortillas are made in house and are all store bought. My daughter enjoyed her nachos but I tried them and they tasted like nachos you throw together at home (chips, ground beef/taco seasoning and shredded cheese microwaved). My Husband said his tostada(flying saucer) salad bowl was bland and wasn’t a fan. For dessert we decided to get the fried ice cream. It wasn’t the best fried ice cream we’ve had, but it was alright. Instead of cornflakes it’s like they wrapped it in a sugar/cinnamon tortilla or something...