La Paz — Restaurant in Mountain Brook

I am a native New Mexican. It is hard for me to find decent Mexican food in Alabama. La Paz has become a complete non-starter. During Covid, we very much appreciated their outdoor tables and visited often. But the quality of the food has slid downhill. Far, far, downhill. The staff has been hit (mostly) or miss with our most recent server a complete miss. I ordered a Combination plate with a relleno and a tamale. I said "relleno" several times. The server was completely confused. I opened the menu and then pointed to the relleno. "Ah! Rell-lenno," the server corrected me. It was then that i got that sinking feeling about the quality of our dinner for the night. Practice with me, relleno. (Ree-ay-no) The tamales and rellenos have progressively gotten smaller over the years. Last night's tamales were stuffed with sour, canned, green chiles and were entirely tasteless. The relleno was as small as the tamale. You have to really work to find anaheim peppers that small. Gone are the Hatch green chiles. The relleno came with as many seeds as green chile flesh. (Hint to the chef.... you have to remove the seeds..... or is there a real chef at this restaurant? ) The green chile had zero heat, zero flavor, and was slathered in a nasty, cheap "cheddar" cheese instead of green chile sauce. If you request green chile sauce, you are ignored. I know. I have tried for a decade. The rice was completely tasteless. My entire meal was a waste of money. I hate that. I used to be able to buy somewhat good tasting food there. (Though I never got that green...

Undoubtedly one of the worst meals I've ever had in my entire life. We came here to celebrate my wife's birthday and it was anything but pleasant. We had to wait "forever" for a table because there were 10 of us and they have limited choices (6 adults and 4 children under 5). Huge mistake because they have absolutely nothing to help keep young kids entertained. So if you take your kids be sure to bring something to keep them occupied. So instead of being able to visit with her out of town children, she got to take the four grandkids to the car so they could play while we waited to order and for the food to arrive.

Once seated it took over 20 minutes to get drinks. We ordered two bowls of hot cheese, which was good, except that it was cold by the time they brought chips. Refills were extremely hard to get as were chips refills.

OK, so the ordering was SLOW! I had two of the absolutely worst enchiladas that I have ever had in my life. The shredded pork was dry as a bone and the sauce was dried out tomato paste with rubberized cheese on top. Nobody ate more than half of what was on their plate.

Our waitress was overworked and under efficient. Nuf said!

This used to be a favorite. This has been twice like this now but...

I have been coming to La Paz for 20 years and have even been in business with you for the past 4 years, and tonight was the end of my relationship with your restaurant. I placed an order to-go for my family and while we were eating, we found an entire dead bug inside a soft taco. When we called to make you aware of the situation, the manager who answered not only didn’t take responsibility or apologize, but blamed it on the fact that the order was delivered. The bug was dead inside the food. Thankfully we saw it before it was eaten but I guess I really can’t know how many bugs I’ve ingested at La Paz over the years. I will not be taking any chances in the future. I couldn’t be more disappointed in a restaurant I’ve loyally patronized for two decades, have turned countless people onto and where I have spent a lot of money. You don’t have to refund me, I wouldn’t use it anyway. I guess we will see if customers make the distinction between restaurant food and delivery food. Restaurants make mistakes, I understand that, but you chose to blame someone else and that’s inexcusable. I wish I could go back and spend my time and money somewhere else. I hope you’re half as ashamed as you should be,...