El Mercadito Mariachi Restaurant — Restaurant in Los Angeles

I 've heard about El Mercadito for quiet a long time...radio, friends even family members who go there often. Finally went there may be 3 months ago. Not what I expected at all. The people who go there are very alive their attitude it' joyful but the vendors are very rude and yes I am saying it in plural because we shopped at more than one and they all gave the same kind of bad service. First ...We stopped at the hat place where the guy can custom make one for you SO rude we bought one he never let go of the cell phone talking to his "compa" the whole time. We paid for it and left. Ok we thought that maybe inside was going to be different but no, not at all. We went to eat to this little restaurant where they sell seafood and "Authentic Mexican Food" Worst ceviche ever. The waitress attitude didn't help either. Since we did not like what we ate here my husband decided to get a carnitas burrito, thinking that it might be better. Nope it was so bad that after the first bite he threw it away and let me tell you my husband is not a throw away food person. Anyways we are heading towards the exit in the lower floor i decided to buy an elote or esquite if know by this name. That ladies there were rude as well. So in my opinion I do not recommend this place unless you want to be mistreated and buy overpriced ugly tasting food. You want mexican snacks go to San Bernardino ...

The initial impression I had when I walked in was 'Wow, this restaurant looks great, the art on the walls is amazing and the lighting on the stage looks great'. I was decieved, the place does not live up to its name. My party of 4 waited over 10 minutes to order drinks and 40 minutes to recieve our food. The place was about 1/4 full of people and the service was terribly slow. The staff was kind which made the wait time a bit better. When our food arrived I was disappointed. I order a fillet of fish and it was very bland, dry and rubbery. The main reason my family and I came to the restaurant in the first place was to enjoy live mariachi music. In the 90 minutes that we were in the restaurant, the mariachi only played 3 songs!!! I later found out that they only play when a customer from the restaurant pays for a song to be played. If a restaurant name has mariachi in it, one would expect the group to be payed at the end of the night for a days work. This would obviously increase pricing on food, but if a restaurant claims to have a great live mariachi then they should live up...

This here's to have four different restaurants on that one floor. There are two stages on each end which service to restaurants each. Depending on which side you sit on will determine you're eating experience. Unfortunately the side we sat on where are the restaurants called La Perla and El gallo. The music was loud , the service wasn't that great , and the music was so loud it was a deafening experience. Now the food , some of my family members complained about the food and said it tasted like it had been cooked the night before and served up the day after. One of my family members said they believe they got food poisoning because they vomited through the night. Unfortunately , it's not what I remembered as a kid. And unfortunately I didn't get to pick the side we ate on, perhaps if we had sent on the other side it would have been a much pleasurable experience the food may have been much better along with the service and we would have been able to have conversation seeing that it wasn't very loud on the other side. My apologies for such a bad review , but it's a...