Diablos Tacos & Mezcal — Restaurant in Hot Springs

This rating is generous.

The good-ish: the outside looked pretty cool. It has a large skeleton at the base of the stairs leading to the entrance and some colorful enticing signage. The inside ambiance had a slight charm with the additional lighting. The margarita flight (priced at $16 for four 5.5oz cups) was good. The alcohol taste wasn't very strong and the presentation of the flight was attractive. The normal flight has a normal margarita, mango, jalapeño and strawberry. Nothing out of the ordinary with these though. Flavors not very distinctive from each other. Only the mango was slightly discernable from the others and not in a good way. I would not recommend the mango margarita. Jalapeño margarita wasn't spicy at all (even though it had a slice of jalapeño in it) and I couldn't detect the jalapeño taste at all.

The bad: (1) chips and salsa cost $2.50. This is the ONLY place I have ever been to in the US that charges for chips and salsa. Chips tasted like they were store bought and were slightly stale. Salsa was slight spicy, but not fresh. Nothing special about the overall salsa flavor. (2) Terrible Service. The hostess that seated us seemed impatient and put out by our arrival and that she had to seat us. The waitress was not friendly. It was obviously that this was, in part, to do with the fact that we did not speak Spanish. This is extremely unfortunate. I have NEVER BEFORE been discriminated against for speaking English in America. I know that this factored into her treatment because she visited other tables where they did speak Spanish and was very bubbly/friendly/nice. She was very clipped when speaking to us and did not explain any choices in regards to the menu or drinks we ordered. This was extremely irritating. (3) Food was Lacking. I ordered La Catrina Fajita. While hot on arrival, chicken was very dry. This dish only came with 3 small flour tortillas (these flour tortillas were the size of normal corn tortillas). When I asked for a few additional, the waitress informed me that it would cost extra. To me, this is unacceptable for a fajita dish because the restaurant should want to only serve hot tortillas (which is usually why they only send out a few initially) and it is common knowledge that a fajita dish comes with more food than can fit into 3 small flour tortillas. The cilantro rice was dry and didn't have any distinctive flavor - since fresh Cilantro has a distinctive flavor and smell, to me it means fresh Cilantro was not used. Highly disappointing as the addition of fresh cilantro could transform this dish. My boyfriend ordered the morisqueta. This dish was covered in cheese (there was a separate option to get this was a green sauce, but this was not presented as an option when we ordered). The cheese was low quality and actually made him feel sick afterward. The bell peppers in both dishes were fresh, but the other veggies were not. The veggies in the dish seemed disjointed. It seemed like the veggies were cut up and then put into the dish. There was no connectivity. (4) Waitress Brought the Bill Early. While we were in the middle of our meal (shortly after the food arrived), the waitress didn't ask if we wanted anything additional and brought us the bill. Waitress left the bill on the table. It gave the impression that she wanted us out quickly and felt like we were being rushed out. Resteraunt was not busy. When waitress checked on us throughout dinner, she didn't stop to ask if we were okay. She asked as she was in route to another place. She didn't have 'time' for us.

Overall - not recommended. The only reason a 2-star was given was because of the decor of the restaurant otherwise based on cost, service and food quality, I would have given a 1-star. Very disappointed. We will not be...

My friend was having her bachelorette party in Hot Springs last weekend and we decided to come here for dinner on our first night. Obviously we had a large group, probably about 12 people, but we were able to get seated right away, which was amazing! First thing as soon as we sat down we were seated right underneath the air vent or air tube and it dripped on one of my friends. I'm not sure if our server generally did not speak or understand English or simply did not care. My friend said very respectfully, "excuse me this is dripping on me", the server looked at her and smiled and said "ok", and then tried to take our order. We all looked at her, my friend said again, "there is water dripping right on me". The server looked up and then started scooting her chair over, back to trying to take our drink order. So we decided to move the table back because no one wants water dripping on them during their meal. So we just said ok and moved on. We all ordered one drink and one meal and got chips and salsa and queso. Honestly the chips, salsa, and queso were the best thing of the night. So we order everything and then when the food comes out this server tries to give another one of my friends a meal and she RESTATES that she does not eat beef or pork and specifically asked if this sauce had either of those meats in it and she said no. But then had to get the male manager or another male server involved and he was very very helpful and made sure she only got chicken because the first server was going to give her the meal that had beef and/or pork in it. But then when we all got our food, me and one of the girls didn't have knifes. I flag down the server, I say "Can I get a knife?" She nods. I point at my friend, "she also needs a knife", the server goes to her and says "margarita?" My friend says no I said knife and she nodded and walked away. Generally just so confused. Like we VERY understand this is a Mexican restaurant but if you don't understand English that's where we got confused. And last but not least, when we all got our checks, automatic 20% gratuity. That's fine, we're a group of 12. We all give our checks and cards to get ran, we get everything back, and I hear mumbling that another gratuity was auto applied. Two autogratituty applied?? Kinda crazy. Anyways, overall 2/5 stars. Not impressed and service was...

We were here for a late lunch on 7-8-21. Never been here before. The wife ordered the Margarita flight. There were a couple of them she liked better than the others, but overall they were good.

The food is a little pricey. $3.50 for one street taco, or $9 for three tacos. I say it is pricey but this is compared my local Mexican restaurant. They are also right in the downtown tourist area, so one would assume the price is the way it is to milk the tourists. There are a lot of options to choose from for the tacos which I don't have at my local place, so there is that.

We chose the Al Pastor, Alambre, and Pork belly tacos. I preferred the Alambre taco to the others. I really liked the corn tortilla on all of them.

We also got an order of Fajitas - Ribeye. The chunks of meat were very big. I was pleasantly surprised by that. I am not used to that compared to fajitas I eat elsewhere. On the flip side, the veg was also very big pieces and not so pleasant. I feel the peppers, onions, and tomatoes needed to be sliced a little thinner. And then the whole skillet of fajita mix needed seasoning. I don't even feel that it got salted. If there was salt on it then it needed twice that amount.

The flour tortillas served with the fajitas were very good. I also enjoyed the rice. The rice had some corn in it which I don't see at my local place, and it added just the right little pop to the rice. Good choice there with that corn. The wife chose black beans for the fajitas and she really like them.

We didn't have any problem with the service. Our server was pleasant and on point when we needed him. The host seemed not so happy. He wasn't rude or anything, but just kind of there. He was also stationed outside in the heat which is probably a contributing factor.

We don't come to Hot Springs very often, but when we do come back we will most likely come back to this place if it is...