Las Trojas Cantina — Restaurant in Madison

The last time we rated this place, we gave them all 5 stars for the service and the atmosphere. At that time, the food was not phenomenal, but it was good enough. This time, we we're extremely disappointed and unsatisfied. To start, we ordered our drinks, consisting of an Amaretto on the rocks, a Corona, a water, and a medium sweet tea for our son. We received an Amaretto sour, a Corona, a gigantic sweet tea, and no water. Next, we received our cheese dip and proceeded to place our order. We ate a few chips after placing our order, and that's when I tried my so-called Amaretto and realized it was wrong. We couldn't find our server, so my husband called to a different server to come to our table. My husband asked him in Spanish, Do you work here? The guy rudely pulled on his shirt to show his name tag as if to say, What does it look like? In English, my husband explained our situation with the drink. The server walked away. I carried the drink to the bar myself. I had to tell three people before they could figure out how to pour a shot of liquor into the glass. Then, even though they knew I was standing there waiting, they gave the drink to my server who carried it behind me to the table. That's when they brought out our food. I received a mushroom quesadilla with Spanish rice; however, there was no cheese drizzled over the rice as requested. Our son received his miniature cheese quesadilla with fries and 13 packs of ketchup. My husband received his vegetable burrito with rice and beans. He tried one bite, and realized there was shrimp in there, so we called to our server. He brought a new plate shortly. My husband tried to eat that vegetable burrito, but it had pieces of chicken in it. We told the server again and said to take that off our order. He ended up having to eat a few fries and a fourth of a mushroom quesadilla left from our plates, which was TOTALLY unfair and rude on the part of the restaurant. Lastly, our server brought our ticket. They charged us $6.50 for a single one ounce shot of Amaretto, and I got two!! We normally pay $4 for that shot when we come to this location. So, we called the manager over to explain the entire situation. Because I'm a woman, he argued me to the ground!! Again, this was extremely unprofessional!!! My husband tried to reason with him, manager to manager, letting him know about the cross contamination and other things that happened. All he said was, I'm trying to make this right by apologizing. I mean really? An apology for this nightmare is supposed to be enough? From now on, we will be going to Rosie's Mexican! They have fast service, and they consistently have the same prices. They don't change prices when the wind blows. They also always bring out the correct food. Go to Rosie's! Don't eat at this place that allows cross contamination! Who knows what might be in...

Hands down the worst Mexican food experience I've ever had, and I'm not super picky. I give most places and people the benefit of the doubt. The Good: Nice interior decor. The Bad: Food was lukewarm, stale, overpriced, and manager was condescending and rude. Have lived 5 minutes away ever since it opened and never tried Las Trojas in Madison, so thought we'd give it a shot. I ordered their 'Special' entree with six different items. Food arrived quickly on two cold plates (when is the last time you got Mexican food not on a scalding hot plate?...no hot plates here). I took a bite of each item and determined everything was barely warm except for the taco, which I proceeded to eat. It tasted somewhat like a taco. Cheese on chimichanga and enchilada appeared to be skinned over as if it had been sitting out for quite awhile. Chile relleno batter was dried out and sloughing off the chile pepper. Tasted literally like saw dust. Pepper skin was wrinkly and dry and cheese inside was stiff. I told the waitress the food was cold. She promptly took one of the two plates back to the kitchen before I could tell her to take both. She came back 90 seconds later, just enough time to microwave it and set it back down. It was moderately hotter on the outside but greasier looking. I took another bite of the beef enchilada only to be met with an awful under taste. I decided to tap out at that point after about two bites of everything (minus the taco). I told the waitress politely that the food was disappointing and I'd like my entree removed from the bill. She rolled her eyes, cleared my plates, and walked off. Two minutes later, the manager came back with my plate, plopped it down in front of me and said "What's wrong with my food?". After my initial shock of being cross examined, I told him it was cold, tasted stale as if it had been sitting out for hours, and was simply not good. He said he's been open for 10 years and never had any complaints. He clearly doesn't read Google reviews. After additional back and forth telling him the same thing he tried to insinuate that I had eaten enough to justify paying for the entire entree, which I quickly shut down. After walking off with absolutely no apology for serving awful food and arguing with me, he came back with the bill minus my entree. My wife had the street tacos, which she said were 'meh'. Save your money and go to a plethora of much better Mexican restaurants close by, including Taco Bell. Seriously question how they're in business if this is what they serve and how they treat customers....

Was definitely hungry, and cruising down 72 to maybe find a new spot. Decided on Las Trojas, but should've let the mostly empty parking lot be a big clue. It happens at some of the decent places in town, so my family and I slid on in. Nothing on the menu sounded appetizing, and their specials were weird. I settled on the Burrito Real, the wife got the chicken chimichanga, and my son got a taco salad. We had the complimentary chips, salsa and ordered queso blanco. Hard to mess these up, right? Welp... If the chips weren't out of a bag and slapped in a warmer I'd be surprised. The salsa was also bland and had the stench of pre-bought on it (maybe with added cilantro?). The queso was queso, but no kick whatsoever. The chicken on the chimichanga looked like pulled chicken out of a bag or can, and had the consistency of it. The refried beans were not refried, or really even fried for that matter. They were runny and tasteless. The ground beef they used was below the grade used at Taco Bell, but at least it seemed within its expiration. I don't know what seasoning they used on it, but it tasted like adobo, which works way better with poultry. No cumin, chili, cayenne, but definitely salty. The lettuce and full slice of tomato on the side looked fresh, so there's that. The wait staff was good and nice, and the food turn around was super quick (almost disturbingly so).

TLDR: Just don't. If they cut the menu down to half the size and concentrate on getting those dishes good, they might have something. Too much $ for the quality of food. You can put a lot of food on the plates, but that doesn't make it good value if it's inedible. The food gets 1 star over none because even though I ate very little, I suffered no...