El Cantinflas Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in Philadelphia

Few things: first, it's on Hope and Dauphin Sts, not Howard.

Second: This is a local bar--Baseball game on TV, area locals entering, loud Spanish music blazing and the bartender bustling over to us with a grin and asking, in Spanish, how we were doing and if we'd like anything.

When we mentioned food, we were handed menus and the bartender went, still smiling, to see what others would like to drink or eat.

I got the shrimp & steak nachos, a pork taco and a steak taco. My dinner compatriot ordered the shrimp mofongo and shrimp tacos. We got the food to-go. We waited a bit, as our food cooked. The bar was loud, as bars can be, but everyone was pleasant.

The food smelled delicious and when we got home, the taste was amazing. Firstly, the tacos we ordered were simply meat and tortilla. No other fillers. Perhaps the taco supremes (which we did not order) had them, but the plain tacos did not. The cooking is great, nice, juicy, perfectly seasoned. The nachos had loads of cheese and meat--tortilla chips weren't homemade but it didn't matter. It tasted excellent. As for the mofongo, my dinner compatriot devoured it. It was excellent, as were the shrimp tacos (which also had only shrimp and tortilla).

So if you don't feel like eating in, call ahead and just be ready to repeat yourself a bit if, like me, your Spanish...

I usually go in to order a Pina colada and only once have I gotten it with alcohol. Sometimes I'll have a simple beer but it's rare. When I mix alcohol with my medication it doesn't end well. So I don't order it. On my statement there's proof showing a majority of 5.50(Pina colada without alcohol from the past. Today I notice a 14 charge from them. So I went alot n politely to ask about it. Jessica is always so nice. She had the manager call me back and I explained to her that I never order alcohol. I was vomiting most of the night and didn't know why. The manager got nasty and kept repeating "you must have asked for the ..not one shot but TWO.....in my one little drink.i swear I did not, 130% sure I wouldn't have. Even though it was a mix up, which happens....I didn't appreciate not being offered a sorry or an invite to come back. No she insist I ordered over and over. But why would I choose to vomit...

Very clean, small local spanish bar, been here a few times both at night and during lunch time ! Great food, my fav is the chicken taco's ! They just started making "supreme" tacos an option but all the extra stuff is not really needed....the chicken tacos are great without all the extra stuff " pico de gallo, lettuce, sour cream " FYI dont forget to sprinkle some of that hot sauce on top of anything u eat ... Their hot sauce hits the spot !...