Mexico Lindo — Restaurant in Howard

First visit to this place in Howard. Went on a Wednesday night, not too busy. Chips and Salsa delivered quickly and waiter asked for drink order right away. I ordered Modelo Lager which you can’t screw up. Wife ordered Pinot Grigio, not available, Chardonnay , not available, asked what was and they brought out single glass, plastic bottles of Barefoot, all very sweet, $6.5 a glass, wife had nasty hangover from 2 glasses(plastic bottles) and had a bad headache, absolutely no decent wine choices which I found very odd in the Howard area. Chips, if done in house were just not good, greasy, cold, very little flavor. But hey, they’re free!😒 Salsa, wow, I know many GB folks think mild is WAY to spicy, so this stuff was as expected. Except, the salsa had a very strong flavor of Italian Oregano, not the preferred Mexican version, just tasted off in a bad way. Entrees: Wife ordered gringo ground beef tacos, bland is being generous and at $4.25/each should have been twice their size. Sour cream added in a small amount overpowered any Mexican seasonings. I ordered steak street taco dinner, 3 tacos, with 3” shells that were steamed not grilled, fair amount of poorly seasoned steak with onions and cilantro. Also included the obligatory small portion of cold rice and barely decent beans. For $16 I expected a lot more. I really wanted to like this place as it’s so close to where we live, but I guess I’ll travel another mile and go to Old Mexico or any one of the local Hispanic places that have much better food whatever the price.

Received response from owner. The cheap shot at my wife wasn’t appropriate! I’d love to discuss this personally. Good Wine= Happy Wife, cheap wine= 2 day headache. There are some incredible Mexican wines at very competitive prices, that...

Meh.

Positive: extra chips were given for the nachos plate because, of course, they are soggy from takeout unless you live close by - good planning (also nice if you can't eat it all) -the beans are good they earn an extra star for the horchata...it is on point 😋🔥

Negative: male (short, dark +grey) hairs in the nachos

my drink was missing, and the hostess was quite apathetic about it, saying, “They probably didn't even add it to the order.”

The chips on the nacho plate were burnt. I get that when you make homemade chips, some get burnt, but wouldn't you throw the burnt ones away instead of placing them right on top? I suppose appealing plating and food presentation are optional. (Luckily, I had extra chips to throw out the burnt ones myself.)

I have sensitive teeth and asked for no ice in my drink, and the hostess said, "We can't make it without ice." (It's a premade liquid dispensed into a cup—you can't leave the ice out of the cup?) Spoiler alert: It was too cold to drink, so I had to wait until home, drain the drink from the ice, let it wait, and drink. It would have been nicer if I could have just had a cup with no ice.

I suspect the real reason for having to have ice is I might accidentally get 25% more horchata based on how much ice was in there (and this was with a request for light ice !) 🤔

It's probably because the HORCHATA was so good that everyone wanted more. But with the pickup order, I paid $7 for mine, so it's doubtful they are going broke on dispensing extra Horchata.

It wasn't special enough to return; even if I were working/living there, I would order elsewhere. Especially since there's little drive to accommodate any...

Taco Tour #41

Currently on a taco tour and rating the three categories on a scale of 1-5

Chips and salsa: Chips were thick and nicely salted. The salsa was really flavorful and had a nice heat to it right away, but mellowed out quickly - 4

Lime Margartia on the Rocks: The Margarita tastes like bleach water. It was probably one of the worst margaritas we have ever had - 1

Steak Taco: Flavor: 1 Fullness: 4 Appearance: 3

I ordered a street steak taco with no cilantro, so all that was to come on it was the meat and onion. It was brought out with steak and a ton of cilantro. I explain to the sever that it was made wrong, which she took it back. She came back within a few minutes with my taco which appeared that they tried to pick off most of the cilantro and then threw onions on it. I tried some of the meat that wasn’t still covered in cilantro and it was bland, tough and the few pieces I tried were gristly.

Service: The server seemed overwhelmed with their job. We were with some friends and had two children with us. When she would bring out food, which one plate was sizzling fajitas (they were not good either) she passed it over the children when she could have walked it over to who ordered it. That the server returned my same taco back to me, still with cilantro on it, was extremely disappointing. I would be worried for someone who has an allergy to certain foods and it just being scraped off a wrongly made order. The only plus to the service was another server brought us more chips and salsa after ours were emptied - 1

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