Hugo's Cocina — Restaurant in Houston

I decided to give Hugo’s a try after passing by it a lot while working. Regrettably, there were so many issues with the food, I don’t know where to begin. I guess let’s start with the portions for the price. I’ve included pictures to account for portion, and I have smaller hands. The entrée itself was $18 such small portions! I get it, I’m in an Airport, but even that’s a little, well… little.

Now for the food ; I did my usual when going to a New Mexican restaurant for the first time and did my usual ‘let’s start with something simple- enchiladas plate!

The Mexican Rice no flavor. It was like they put tomato paste and too much water. The rice was too soft as well. The ‘refried reans’ were very dry and such a small amount, it was less than a tablespoon. I decided to take apart and try the individual ingredients (tortilla, sauce, shredded chicken) and was very disappointed in each. When I took a full bite, it tasted like I was eating a Chicken Lasagna- and not a very good one.

My girlfriend ordered ‘quesadillas’ These “Quesadillas” were just corn tortilla tacos, they were very oily and did not stay folded/together by the cheese. The tortillas were decently made corn tortillas. Pulled apart pretty easily but not too soft and not too hard. The chicken in it was also dry and flavorless. They were fajita style though (cube-cut pieces). I did not try the ingredients separately on it but she did not like it either.

We got a side of their ‘queso’ which was not a cheese SAUCE, but shredded -I wanna say mozzarella cheese- topped over bell peppers, tomatoes and onions, and skirt-steak (which the streak was tough, like they rushed to cook it).

Lastly the service/servers. We arrived and stood there a good 3-5 minutes, waiting on someone to either welcome us in, or tell us to sit freely; finally another passenger who finished eating told us that it was ‘open seating’, and we went over to the bar area for a server going through to ask them for a menu. Looking at the menu showed us the items were $18-24. We’re over here thinking it BETTER be some good food but NAH. We sat down, and looking around the restaurant at the -what looked like- 2-3 servers, very little attention was paid not only to the tables, but the entrance as well, as there were many passengers confused on what to do for seating. While we and 13 others were still eating, they started turning lights off while they were getting ready to close.

Finally after reviewing the food and deciding neither of us liked it (and we had a few bites to be sure of the quality) we called the manager over to complain about the food and service, she was of course apologetic, and offered us to come back and would make our next meal herself for free, and have our next meal free, but we politely declined, stating that her making the food would not be a proper example of the restaurants cooking, since the chef is not cooking our food. But in any case, if I order a simple enchilada dinner, what’s to say if I order something else, It’ll be better quality?

I’m going to give this place a 1-star....

Horrible service if you can even call it that. Stood at the front waiting to be seated with otyer people wondering same thing. Someone finally said o you can sit anywhere. Then we waited about 10 minutes before someone said would y'all like menus? We ordered and when i got my plate I asked for bacon wrapped shrimp with cheese and jalapenos but what i got was bacon wrapped shrimp and it was appetizer size for $24. This is ridiculous seeing as i could go to pappadeauxs and get same thing but way bigger for same price. When i asked about it the waitress said they stopped doint the jalapenos and cheese but havent changed the menu.....huh don't you think she should have said something when I ordered it? On top of all this my wife ordered shrimp cocktail w/ chips that were stale and the shrimp cocktail itself was mediocre. Had a weird sweet taste which most are spicy or have a little zing to them. My wife also ordered an alcoholic beverage which was not good in her opinion. The only reason we stayed and ate was because neither of us had eatin all day. While we ate, our waitress never checked on us and we noticed 3 employees behind the bar chatting it up not paying attention to any customers, one of these employees being the manager we would find out later. They had about 3 wait staff outside the bar and we only saw our waitress when she took our order and when she brought the food. I finally had to go to bar and ask for manager. When she got there i told her my complaints and she did take a few things off the Bill but Bill was still $53 when if again I payed same price at pappadeauxs I would ahve gotten better service and way better food. This is my 2 cents take it or leave it but we will never eat...

Terminal D, near Gate 11: Hugos Tortas y Tacos had the rudest staff I encountered in Houston. Not a good way to finish a visit to the Bayou City.

My friend and I sat down in Hugo's, the only sit down eatery near our D section gates. After checking over the menu (via the QR code) we found the food to be expensive for what it was, e.g. guac and chips for $14 and a $15 tortilla soup. So we reconsidered and went to grab sandwiches from Hugo's snack shop, Tortas y Tacos, tucked into the alcove on the side of the dining room.

The little shop had refrigerators flanking the self check area. The one on the right side was a sealed unit, with plenty of pre-made sandwiches showing through the glass door. As we entered there were 2 employees loading sandwiches into that sealed machine. My friend removed a tuna sandwich from the self service unit to the left. I didn't see a 2nd tuna sandwich and asked if they had one inside the machine they were loading.

Received a mumbled reply-- without any eye contact-- that we had to use the left hand fridge. Again I asked if they had tuna, and received a rude and exasperated response that the machine they were loading was not in service, and telling us to go down to a different sandwich store further down the concourse, maybe Chows? I could not understand her. The name of the place was unintelligible. Regardless, our gate was right there, we weren't about to go on a walkabout! They were also unhelpful in getting the self service checkout machine to work.

These employees work in the service industry, constantly encountering people who are not familiar with that particular concourse's layout. Training them on courteous greetings would...