Totopo Cocina & Cantina — Restaurant in Mt. Lebanon

We moved to the South Hills area a while back and The Wife and I just now had the opportunity to try Totopo after reading all hoopla and rave reviews. We arrived early since no reservations are taken and waiting patrons typically fill the sidewalk out front on a Saturday evening by 6pm. It's a clean, well-appointed dining and bar area, if somewhat dimly lit. Service was attentive throughout our visit.

Unsalted chips (being my personal preference) with a mildly seasoned salsa were delivered immediately and we were asked if we wanted to place a drink order. I asked for a self-specified margarita of Patron, Grand Marnier with the house mix and agave syrup from the 'build your own' menu while The Wife requested the house margarita. Mine was ok (way too much ice) which I found out later came with extra charge that was not specified on the menu; and hers was anything but memorable.

We then tried the three sauces with chips from the appetizer menu. The cheese sauce was thin with a bland milky flavor. The pico de gallo was ice cold, with not a hint of lime and a green leaf herb tasting more of parsley as opposed to cilantro. Lastly was a most uninspired version of guacamole.

On to the entrees. It was 'Pick Three' for The Wife; one chicken tamale, one beef enchilada and one chile relleno. The tamale was dry with an inkling of flavor, the ground beef enchilada's best note was its mild red sauce, and the poblano pepper was dull and still crunchy, as in mostly raw as opposed to a blackened skin and creamy flesh with a pleasingly flavorful mild heat as one would normal expect. My barbacoa tacos arrived on a soggy, pale blue corn tortilla with caramelized onion topping what to my experience was a small mound of mundane, unseasoned pot roasted beef. My sides of rice and refried beans were served cold.

Gluttons for punishment at this point, we then ordered the fried ice cream. In return we received a peach sized globe of ice-milk surrounded by a chewy coating of what may have been the deep fried corn flakes prepared at a factory then placed in a freezer carton and shipped a year ago halfway around the world, unwrapped from its hermetic vacuum-sealed bag, placed in a half-stale basket-shaped fried tortilla shell which was then presented with care at our table along with two spoons. Like i said, the service was very good.

This place gets voted repeatedly as a good Tex-Mex restaurant. We can't fathom after 50 years of searching out restaurants with exceptional value and cuisine, along with having worked in the food industry, as to why. Everything we ordered was notably bland and unimaginative. About what i would expect if being fed Tex-Mex from a bad hospital cafeteria. Two drinks, one appetizer, two entrees, one dessert and the tip came to a total of $89.50. So all in all, our little culinary adventure to Totopo left us unexpectedly and sadly...

A little bit of Mexico sprinkled into the Burgh, with authentic eats, good margaritas and a fabulously friendly atmosphere!

1st time here and I was NOT expecting the restaurant to be this big but WOW there's a lot of space and it is a great Mount Lebanon find!

Arrival at 8ish on a Saturday night & we were seated immediately ♥ !

Drink Order: Spicy Pineapple Margarita on the rocks which is truly my only criticism of the overall experience as a person who does know her way around a margarita glass... I will say this, 1 drink did not sweep me off my feet, not even slightly, it was definitely light on the alcohol for the $$ -they are $16 and $5 off on Saturdays so it is currently priced. (just saying it was good, large, and spicy but it's not the strongest marg I've experienced, unlike the Mason jar ones that will sweep you off your feet consuming just one that I've had elsewhere locally where they definitely tuck in the alcohol and you end up getting an Uber) So expect flavorful but light alcohol (imo)

The fresh chips and salsa are really delicious and just enough to munch on till dinner arrives, which was efficiently served within about 10 minutes of ordering (being fair there were very few patrons where we were sitting so it could have been fast for that reason but they don't close until 11 so??)

My order: Shrimp Enchiladas with Black beans and rice (which was portioned SEPARATELY and appropriately). The recommendation was from our server and she was spot on! A popular dish with a thicker sauce, that cradles those enchililadas and three is more than enough, 2 would have been fine! Loved the fact that the food was separated (the sides) made me very happy.

Husband's order: the Choose 2 combination of enchilidas and burritos. "really good" and a generous combo platter with plenty of options to choose from for entrees (gotta say the portion of refried was way big)

Dessert: Fried Ice Cream - total ♥ and the simple flour tortilla bowl, shielded the interior coated ball of ice cream that had a crunchy cinnamon-flavored exterior which when portioned by spoon proved to be a very solid, hard-packed golden vanilla ice cream that was both rich in color and taste. A perfect shareable for 2. "tomaré otro por favor" who needs dinner because dessert is better!

Yes I will go back. Dessert date and a drink, or tableside guac and chips & drinks (a different margarita tho) all seem like a reason to return! It's a little bit of Mexico right...

We first visited this place right after they opened and did not have a good experience. Since we thought it was startup problems, and they have survived for this long, we thought we’d give them another chance. While this visit was better, it is still not going to be our default restaurant for Mexican food as there were several issues with the food. On the other hand, the waitress was absolutely excellent and handled those problems that she could address promptly and cheerfully.

We ordered the Prickly Pear Margarita. When we did, we asked how sweet it is. The waitress went to the bar to check and came back to report that it is not too sweet. When it arrived, it was tooth-achingly sweet. We explained this to the waitress who immediately took it away and had it redone to make it less sweet. Nicely done!

The chips and salsa that were complimentary were a mix. The chips were warm, which was nice. The standard salsa was kind of flavorless. We asked for a spicier one which came quickly, and then were charge $2 for it. That seems to be a trend nowadays. While being charged for the salsa is not necessarily a problem, it would have been nice to have been told that we were going to be charged for it.

For the food, we tried the TopoChanga, which is their version of a Chimichanga. We got the chicken version and it was Ok. Nothing special. The other thing we tried was the trio special for which we tried the Chile Relleno, a Southern Tamale and an Enchilada Verde. All the food arrived with a few minutes of our ordering it – even the waitress was surprised about how fast it came out from the kitchen. After looking it over, I could see how this could be done: The Chile Relleno was basically a cut open Poblano pepper that was then stuffed and heated – it did not have the expected egg coating. My guess is that most of the food was similarly prepared in advance (some of it has to be done that way: i.e. tamales) and just warmed to order. While this may make sense to run the restaurant efficiently it screams “shortcuts” to us. The flavors were also just ordinary. My overall take is that this place is basically ordinary. There are tons of Mexican restaurants around and I found nothing to distinguish this one from others in the area. Certainly it will not top my list nor become my favorite based on...