Paquitos Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in North Miami Beach

This is a popular Mexican counter order restaurant that we went to because it was walking distance to 1 Hotel West Hollywood. The for was good but the service and atmosphere is much to be desired. It's hard to review a restaurant when the reason going there was just to get something to eat close by. So not knowing where to go we just pulled up Google maps and found 5 or so restaurants in a row about a quarter mile down the road and settled on this. As a hospitality consultant in the luxury market one thing we train extensively on is to ensure the guest's first encounter with the hotel staff MUST be a perfect one. If iit isn't then the rest of the stay has a 40% less chance of the entire stay to be great. This was no different. We ordered margaritas and the staff tried to get one over on us by. Making ultra top shelf when we asked for a mid level tequila with Grand Marnier $10 each which is a steal but we got $22 margaritas for 5. I knew something was up when I asked to pay and they said pay when finished with our dinner. Odd??? So our bill came to $300+ on a BOGO taco night! They got that wrong as well. So we had to explain that we obviously wasn't there to buy 2 tacos for $8 get charged $16 and order $22 margaritas. 10 minutes or arguing later the manager finally figured out that reviews are everything in the restaurant business and I had to explain what would happen if he didn't just charge us for what we asked for. Still was $150 but not bad after tax for 5 and 2 margaritas each. He made the right decision otherwise this review would be much different. Food was not bad, quick and had great flavor. Just watch out...

This place was disappointing. I was on the search for authentic tacos and didn't want to delve into the Yelp reviews too much so decided to take a chance based on google reviews but I'm unhappy I did. I initially picked this new place because my daughter asked for chorizo tacos, but she left half her dish untouched (very unlike her with tacos) and when I asked her if she was full, she said "no, I just don't like these tacos, they don't taste very good" ...... she's 5. They bring you out chips and salsa, but the chips are cold and stale. I asked my server for the guacamole dip appetizer, but she never brought it, she never remembered the rest of our dining experience there so I just left it alone. I ordered the 3 tacos order, opted for the soft tacos and they were just terrible. I asked her if I could make a combo of 2 chorizo and 1 fish and she ended up charging me the entire taco order as fish. A jump from $16.95 to $22.95, even though it was more chorizo than fish. I left it alone. Maybe I'm accustomed to authentic Mexican food but this was far, far from it. It was very americanized. Soft tacos loaded was so much lettuce tomato shredded cheese and sour cream it left me a bit grossed out. The rice and beans taste like food that isn't real. Our bill came out to $30 and it's not worth it whatsoever. They have cute girls working as servers and live music which was the highlight of the entire experience. I won't be returning back to this place. Bartaco is...

The service was very good. But in terms of the disgraceful food: 1 star, and I strongly recommend you avoid this place.

My entree (chile relleno) arrived limp, cold (even on a hot plate!), and watery. I took one bite and couldn't eat more of it. The server (who was very good!) asked me about it and took it back to replace it (I didn't ask her to do that so good for her!).

The replacement was the same, except not cold. I don't know if the chef ever had a real chile relleno before, or just was incompetent. I had one bite, and would not eat the rest: it was that bad (and I'm not that picky!). If it were merely mediocre I would have eaten it, but it was seriously awful. It wasn't just marginal: the watery, limp, tiny thing just was not fit to eat. The server would not look me in the eye after that and didn't ask me how it was: I think she knew how bad it was just from looking at the horrid thing.

The refried beans and rice were adequate though. Not great. But adequate.

My three other dinner companions said their food was not very good either, and none of them finished their meal. One of them said hers was "on the bad side of edible." We're all locals and had all eaten here before the pandemic, but we all agreed that this place was now a big shame and that we would never go back.

My server brought me a serving of flan to apologize. I don't like flan, but I do appreciate...