La Cantina — Restaurant in Mandan

I have been waiting to come here and we finally made a date night. We were seated right away. We had chips right away. Menus. And then we waited. And waited. Finally got drinks. Ordered queso. Our Meal. And then waited. An entire hour went by. People around us came, sat and got their food before us. I finally said something. I was getting upset and when we tried to flag someone down - they looked at us and walked away.

We never got refills. We were never checked on. For an entire hour.

I was disappointed. I wanted to love this place. I asked about the food and it’s ETA and he said it was coming up and I asked if he could box it. Came out as we were trying to pay for just our drinks. I didn’t want to waste it so I chose to pay for it and we had to box it ourselves. I asked for chips to go for our queso and was ignored.

Here is my constructive criticism: too many tables and seats for the kitchen or low staff to keep up. I get you want business but this isn’t going to help. Stagger your seating, close a section off, and cater to the guests you actually have. The food in the box in my car was good. But it wasn’t the right order. Please take some time to limit seating to support your kitchen and staff so tables are not forgotten about. I saw another table walk out due to lack of service while we were there. This is an easy fix. Limit and give great service. I wanted to love this place and I’m so...

We had 3 great meals here. The service was excellent as well.

I only got pictures of one of the meals, mine, the molcajete.

The other people in our party had the Chili Relleno, which they said was excellent.

The Montezuma molcajete was excellent. It was a combination of chicken beef pork and shrimp. The shrimp were perfectly cooked, not dry and overcooked like is often the case when the chef is not paying attention. The other meats were also perfectly cooked, and the seasonings were awesome, with lots of flavor, Molcajete is something you don't often see in Mexican restaurants, especially in Bismarck. This is a true authentic Mexican restaurant. Not some Americanized Mexican restaurant with ground beef.

I know Facebook and other sites have given this place low reviews for poor service, long waits, and substandard, cold food. That was not the case for us. They may have turned the corner on that since this is a fairly new restaurant. We did come here on a Wednesday night. We found that they were not overly busy and had plenty of staff to meet their guests' expectations.

I would rank this place as number one or two for authentic Mexican restaurants in the Bismarck Mandan area. Charras in Bismarck might be one and la cantina might be the second best, but then again la cantina might be number one.

I will...

I’ve been here three times, I really wanted to give it a fair review. First night we got take our food to go since they had just opened. Guacamole was a little to smashed for my preference not very chunky and very little spicy. Night 2 I got a mixed dish with steak, chicken, and carnitas. It was perfectly cooked. They forgot to add the shrimp, but it was so good I didn’t even care. The third time we went I had the burrito California and it was also excellent, great cheese sauce and very tender meat! The one beef I have with this place is that they use mix to make their margaritas and they just aren’t very good. Way too sweet or they taste like sour mix. The staff is always friendly we are always seated quickly and receive food quickly. Sometimes getting the check is a bit slow and that’s my only complaint about the service! Overall delicious proteins absolutely perfectly cooked, friendly staff and great prices. Parking is easy...