Hacienda Vallarta Mexican Buffet & Bakery — Restaurant in Leon Valley

Decided to try this place after seeing it online a couple of times. It's a pretty large buffet inside and was moderately full on a weekend at dinner.

I was surprised when the of buffet had many authentic South American and Mexican items on it, like menudo, pupusas, chicken mole, barbacoa, lengua, fideo, and caldo. I tried almost everything including the regular items like rice, beans, & cheese enchiladas.

The cheese enchiladas were rather bland, the borracho beans where a little plain and had tripe in them instead of bacon, which was different. The chicken mole was decent, didn't really have a sweet flavor but more of just a plain mole seasoning. The menudo was good, a lot better than I would have expected for a buffet. Overall the traditional items were pretty decent, while the more mainstream items seem to be less flavorful.

The buffet also included roasted chicken, grilled onions and peppers, sausage, carnitas, shrimp, carne guisada, steak and several other items.

On the opposite end of the spectrum the buffet also offers a selection of Chinese food, pizza, fried fish , mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. I didn't try any of these except for the fried fish this visit. I used a crispy taco shell, shredded cabbage, Tapatio sauce, and tartar sauce to make a fish taco.

The desert bar had a decent selection as well. It included four kinds of cookies that were Hispanic traditional bakery items. Tres leches cake was available but was not very moist, and had coconut on top which I had not seen before. I tried the flan which was interesting and had a very strong sweetened condensed milk flavor. There was cheesecake, pudding, tapioca, fruit, fruit ambrosia, ice cream and other items as well.

The selection was pretty impressive, our waitress service was decent, and the food overall was at least average or a little better. Another plus was fresh made tortillas brought to the table.

I would return here to try some more items, it's a good deal if you like traditional Mexican food and have a...

I’ve decided to give this place 5 stars for the price and variety of food. There was about 15 people in front of us in line waiting to pay/be seated when we walked in. It was about 2:45 pm on a Sunday so they were very busy at this time but we decided to stay in line and wait, as this place had been on our list for quite some time. Much to our surprise we were seated rather quickly, (less than 10 mins) which we were super happy about.

We were immediately overwhelmed (in a good way) when we walked up to the buffet line…there was SO much food that we didn’t know where to start. They had a small line of Chinese food options, (crab rangoons, eggrolls, broccoli beef, kung pao chicken and more) a healthy amount of soups and salads, a pretty large dessert line and a lot of veggie options. There were probably 15-20 options of all sorts of Mexican dishes.

I want to note that the best buffets we’ve ever been to have been $60-$100 USD dollars (mostly outside of Texas) and had pretty high quality food. So we were expecting to not have very high quality food as with most buffets in this price range but really wanted a variety of different things to try.

For under $40 for 2 people, I really think this place deserves all 5 stars. Most items were good, not amazing, but we expected that. Our favorites were the carnitas, both the red and green enchiladas, the Mexican rice, the pork in red sauce and the shrimp dishes (there was about 6 to choose from). The tortillas were also really fresh and tasted homemade. We had Jamaica and orchata and both agreed we would drink water or a beer the next time we go as both drinks tasted pre-packaged which is expected at a buffet of this price point.

I think some of the lower reviews had very high and unrealistic expectations of the quality and preparation of a buffet that’s less than $20 a person. You get what you pay for, and this place was definitely worth the under...

My wife and I were curious about a Mexican buffet, so we went there to see it for ourselves. Parking was plentiful. Our waiter " Joseph " was on point with getting the used plates off the table and keeping our beverages filled without having to hunt for him. They had plenty of dishes to choose from; however we noticed that they were warm as opposed to being hot. They do have a Military Discount. The men's bathroom was clean except for several hand towels that appeared to be tossed on the floor. I assume that the previous men who used it simply tossed the hand towels towards the trash bin and didn't make sure they made it in the trash bin. The music playing over speakers was a great idea go add to the atmosphere. It appeared this restaurant attracted people of various ages. Honestly, if the food would have been warmer I would have given a fourth star. I'm thinking that maybe we went there on an off day. On the chart by the cashier I noticed two sets of prices, one wad for cash and the other was for credit or debit cards. I assume the credit card companies charge them a processing fee which would explain the almost a $1.00 difference in price. All in all qw had a good experience and would consider going back again. Joseph informed me that another location would be opening up soon near Loop 410 and Marbach Rd is. That used to be the location of Acadiana which we frequented several times.Today 5 August my wife and I had dinner there. It appeared that nobody spoke a word of English at all. I understand it's a Mexican restaurant; however it is in the United States of America. My wife tried to get the writer's attention a few times so we could get refills on our beverages. After waiting for a few minutes I decided to get my own refill of my beverage since he was too busy paying attention to his phone. The service seems to have gone down since the last time...