Paisano Cafe — Restaurant in Mesilla

The atmosphere was what I can only describe as being cheap chic with the white table cloth settings and walls adorned with cheap paintings you buy from hobby lobby hung along side of what I can best described as bad art done by some elementary school age child. Waitress was the only thing that was good regarding this place, so I gave her a 30% tip because I felt sorry for her working at a place that serves overpriced horrible food and trying to pass off as genuine Mexican cuisine. By the way, I was born and raise in southern and northern New Mexico and grow up working on a chile farm owned by my grandfather, also graduated from NMSU a few decades ago, so I know a thing or two, when it comes to the local culture and the cuisine of both Northern and Southern New Mexico. This place is the worst example of someone making money (cultural appropriation) from a local culture and its cuisine without really knowing both, so much so I felt compelled to write this review, hopefully to serve as a warning for others about this soulless place. My main complaint was the dish I ordered "Chiles en Nogada" which the Paisano Cafe, called famous (I’ve never heard of it) with some dubious story to go along this total disgusting disaster of a dish. It was heavily advertised and coincidentally the most expensive item on the menu. Like P.T. Barnum once said “a sucker is born every minute.” that day I was the sucker. When Paisano’s Chiles en Nogada made its dreaded appearance at my table, which, in my opinion, should of be called Chiles en nalgas, for it look very unappealing and uninspired as a dish and tasted just as bad. It’s white bad flavored sickeningly runny thin cream sprinkled haphazardly with tiny amounts of pomegranate in which, the taste was as nauseating as it sounds. I was raised not to waste food so I continued with each stomach-churning bite I tasted the under cooked poblano pepper and beans with the stringy low grade cuts of old meat and other unidentifiable disgusting ingredients as my taste buds and stomach were at same time screaming for me to stop. After the third bite I couldn’t continue, I had left the other poblano pepper totally untouched. But, when I asked for a half order of something as a substitute the owner had told the waitress that he would not do that (big surprise(not!!) given what I later read regarding how horrible the owner is and how horrible he treats his staff). Feeling ill from what I just ate, I immediately went to the bathroom at the Paisano cafe to throw-up the awful mess, after which being very grateful of purging my stomach as well as my soul of all traces of this really sad loathsome place, I swear, I could hear the anguished cries of patrons past emanating from the walls as I made my beeline exit. So I left $50 (including tip) dollars poorer for a dinner I did not enjoyed or finished. Still hungry I had to go somewhere else to eat so I went to a real Las Cruces eatery (Dick’s) for a burger that plus fries costed ¼ the price of Paisano and as a bonus was eatable. So please heed the warnings from the bad reviews written of the horrid Paisano cafe and its disgusting food, and its owner who apparently has no idea of what good customer service is or even given what I had read on reviews, how to treat his poor female staff with any semblance of respect. Stay away from the Paisano cafe in Las Cruces, NM don’t be a sucker like I was when I got taken to the cleaners by...

Worst dining experience of my life. Where to start. The food: 1. we were not served complimentary taco chips and salsa, because the kitchen "ran out" of taco chips (our reservation was 5pm, not even later in the evening) 2. As we were discussing what to order the waitress came over and said she overheard us discussing the tacos that were on the menu, and stated they were lunch menu only (nothing I could see on the menu indicated that), and that the only things we could order were the appetizers, the Mexican plates, the main entrées, and the salads. Since the tacos on the menu were one of the primary determining factors to choose this restaurant, one of our guests was left with nothing on the menu that was appealing. He ended up ordering an appetizer, that was brought out BEFORE anyone else's meal, and hence sat with nothing, while everyone else ate their dinner. (We didn't think to tell the waitress to bring out his appetizer with the rest of our meals. However it was very evident that he was struggling to find something to order. She should have clued in when nobody else ordered an appetizer. ) I ordered the chicken with mole sauce. The side of rice and beans was a miniscule portion. The rest of the plate was swimming in mole sauce. Fairly tasty though. 4. Two of our guests ordered the pork tenderloin. It came out very, very undercooked. They asked that it be taken back to the kitchen and cooked more, placed on a clean plate, and brought back out to them. It came back out to them about 10 minutes later (all the while as my husband and I were the only ones eating our meals), having been dumped back on the same original dirty plate. When our guests said they asked for clean plates, the waitress told them that the chef stated if it were put on a clean plate we would be charged an ADDITIONAL full price for the pork tenderloin. The rest: 1. Service was slow. 2. The waitress never came back to inquire if our meals were satisfactory. 3. The waitress had to be flagged down and reminded about a drink refill. 4. The restaurant was exceedingly noisy, so much so that we had trouble hearing simple conversations between our party of 5. The restaurant had two extremely large groups, with the group of about 20 people so loud, we could barely hear ourselves speak. All in all, a horrible experience. I would not recommend this restaurant, nor will I ever go back...

Can’t understand how Paisano’s has managed to get this many good reviews.

We were one of three tables in the whole place. When the waitress came to take our order, she didn’t tell us her name, wrote our order down on a crumpled scrap of paper, and only had one of the things we tried to order.

Service was very slow, took a long time to be brought water/chips and salsa, and while we were waiting we noticed that the place wasn’t clean, the salt shakers on the table were almost empty, and the painting on the wall next to us was covered in dust.

The customers across from us got their food before us, and I could hear that there was a problem with their order—our waitress had brought them one of our entrees instead. She took it back to the kitchen, then came over to us with just my entree, which was lukewarm at that point. She didn’t mention what had happened, and I had my plate for about 10 minutes before the second entree arrived (at which point I had already started eating, because there was no indication that the food would arrive in time for us to eat together).

On top of all these problems with the service and the kitchen, the food was just ok. We had each ordered enmoladas and were excited to try the different kinds of mole, but felt disappointed. The rice served on the side was especially bad, and seemed like it might have been some kind of instant rice instead of made in house.

The bill was cheap (about $10/person), but I guess you get what you pay for. I’m a waitress myself, and have worked in restaurants for years, and so tipped well, mostly out of pity. Do yourself a favor and avoid this place—we regret not...