El Barrio Cantina — Restaurant in Long Beach

So I just recently went to El Barrio Cantina for a wonderful and special Yelp event. I enjoyed the food and the ambiance so much that I went the next day with my husband. I knew he would enjoy this place, and I was 100% correct! He’s already planning for our next visit, lol.

I enjoyed all of the food that I had during the Yelp event, so I decided to get pretty much everything that I had that night. I wanted to share my experience with my husband. We were able to make a same-day reservation for that night. The last time I came, parking was a bit of a headache. However, this time around, we were able to find parking right away in their tiny lot across the street. Whoo-hoo! My hubby was already happy. When we entered, we were greeted by the GM, Jennifer. She sat us right away in a nice cozy booth. Our waitress (so sorry, I forgot her name) was the only waitress working the floor because they were short-staffed. She gave us the heads up, and she still was quick, and we never had to wait around for her.

We started off ordering drinks and an appetizer, the Uno Mas , the La Chica Fresa, and the Taquitos de Papa . My hubby loved it all so far, his eyes just lit up. Haha.. Next, we ordered: Camarón Marinero (shrimp ceviche), El Peruano (Peruvian style ceviche with red snapper), and the Mexican Fried Hot Chicken. The Mexican hot fried chicken was a bit spicier than I remembered, but nonetheless, it was still excellent. Again, hubby was blown away! After we stuffed our faces, I had to get dessert! If you read some of my other restaurant reviews, I always have to get dessert after dinner. I order the Panna Cotta Flan. My husband actually wanted one for himself, we usually share, but he wanted his own, which was odd because he’s not really a dessert person. I asked him why, and he said since everything else was terrific, be believed, so will the flan. Trust me when I tell you that he was obsessed with that flan! He literally indulged in every single bite. I, too, really like the flan; it’s not like the traditional flan. This one was more refreshing and light. Lastly, we ordered two more drinks, Flowers for Benny and J +J Paloma. Both were good!

We had a really lovely evening. My husband wants to come back, and he’s already told his friend that he wants to hang out here and said it’s going to be our new little spot. I look forward to exploring more of their menu. I stuck to what I had at the Yelp event, so I’m curious to see how the other dishes are. We might go back today! Haha…Thank you, El Barrio Cantina! I will see...

I kept passing by this place and kept thinking I really need to try it! Not sure if me and my partner went on an off hour/day, but it was the most disappointing experience I've had at an establishment.

Host sat us down and said she'd bring us menus in a second, no problem. The menus she did hand us look like they were written in sharpie and laminated. It just said the prices of cocktails, prices of draft beer (which stated they were $5, remember this for later) and a few plates, their chicken, quesadilla and a few choices of tacos. Okay, well what are the cocktails? What beers did you have? We looked at the table to the side of us and saw they were given a different, more extensive menu that wasn't handed to us. I saw there was that menu on a seat next to us that I reached over and grabbed myself.

We decided on ordering their spicy alitas, and a carnitas taco and birria taco along with two beers.

Not sure if they were understaffed at the time we went (also to mention there were only two other parties while we were there), but we somehow received our tacos before we even got our beers. I actually forgot we ordered beers because of how long it took.

The tacos were dry and had no salsa. I don't know who eats tacos with no condiments on them. I think there was cilantro?

The spicy alitas were cold and drenched in this super sour/lime forward sauce/marinade. Me and my partner didn't even eat them.

We asked for the check and asked if the spicy alitas could be comped and they were able to thankfully. It sucked having to pull that card. No one wants to be that person unless it was really bad.

Then we saw that our two beers came up to $22. $11 a beer?! That's crazy! We had initially asked our server what beers they had on draft and they mentioned their "Mexican IPA" and we chose that. Reminding you the menu says their beers were $5 draft, so we were confused on why we were being charged $11 a beer?

Again we asked for our bill to be fixed or explained if we were missing something as even the larger menu doesn't have the price of their beer only the "sharpie menu". They fixed the check for the beers to be $5.50 each now.

Overall, sad to say I'm not sure if...

This place got a lot of good reviews so we decided to try this place. The food is mediocre and the staff needs to improve their customer service skills. We order 4 appetizer but only received 3. The octopus came after with an entrée. The octopus was burned but according to them it was charred. I guess for them char means burn all the way leaving your tongue and fingers black. The picture on their website looked nothing like octopus we received. We got one entrée after another. Towards the end we had finished two entrees and the other two people in our table had not received their food yet. We asked why everyone else received their entrees at different times and their response was "different food takes different time to make" Duh of course they do that's why you start with the order that takes longer first and then what follows. The restaurant should know this and and still make it work where everyone gets their food around the same time. This restaurant could be good but they need to pay attention to details. Once we received the third entrée the fish was raw. We don't mind waiting for a good meal but when it comes out raw that's just unacceptable. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture since I let our waiter know right away. Our fourth person never got their food and we decided to leave. They seemed very bothered when we requested to have to some of the items removed. The supervisor was very rude and gave us attitude and as we were leaving she told us "good luck" If she can't handle a complaint she is in the wrong business and maybe she should stay away from...