Carlita's - Portland — Restaurant in Portland

Sad to say I won't go back here.

First - the food. I ordered a mushroom taco that was just a big, soggy, overcooked pile of kale and arugula with no spices and the tiniest bit of mushroom. It was advertised as having "kale slaw". In what world is slaw sauteed, and why would anyone sautee arugula? It just makes it bitter.

The ceviche was 90% big chunks of flavorless tomato. Ceviche should be 90% fish, 10% onion, cilantro, lime, and leche de tigre and mayyyybe some tomato. You are doing something so wrong if you expect people to pay $10 for a tiny bowl of cold, flavorless roma tomato chunks, and $5 for a bland, wet, pile of kale on a cold tortilla. That said, the drinks were good.

Second - service is real bad. When we arrived, the restaurant was virtually empty with most people seated outside. We waited 15 minutes to speak to a hostess, but it seemed like there was none, and all the servers averted their eyes and ignored us while standing and chatting idly to one another. Finally, they told us it would be 30 minutes - despite the many open tables - without explanation. When we asked if we could wait for our table at the bar (also pretty empty), we were told by a very confused-looking and impatient server that that would not be possible and its against policy. Again, no explanation. When we were finally seated 30 minutes later at a table that had been open since the beginning, we were subjected to overhearing loud complaints by the staff about other patrons.

I get that its rough for servers and restaurants right now, and perhaps they were missing a hostess and were resentful about having to seat people, but come on. Be civil. And as for the food, the kitchen is in desperate need of a trip to the spice shop and a...

Stopped here for a quick bite before driving back up to Seattle after a recommendation from my tattoo artist. My boyfriend and I each got 3 tacos (vegetarian for me and meat-eating for him) and shared the elote.

🌽Elote: 5/5 - Shared the elote to start and it was soo delicious. I could eat this everyday. I also appreciate that they don’t bring it out scalding hot so you can eat it right away without burning yourself like I usually do on corn 😂

🥬 Black kale and mountain spinach: 3/5 - Delicious, but I wouldn’t order again. I felt this needed something more “meaty” and substantial and also more sauce. This is a tasty way to get your greens in though, especially with the salsa verde! I did love the corn in this one.

🍄 Wild hongos (mushroom): 4/5 - Flavorful and substantial. I'm not the biggest fan of arugula but most mushroom lovers would love this one.

🥑 Aguacates (avocado): 5/5 - By far my favorite of the 3 vegetarian tacos. I loved the addition of black beans and slaw on this one. Would absolutely order this again!

My boyfriend tried 3 different tacos and stack-ranked them: 3 - 🐟 Blackened salmon 2 - 🥓 Smoked Carlton Farm's pork belly 1 - 🥩 Piedmontese short rib

Pretty fast and reasonably priced. For the two of us with one coke came out to around $50. Would recommend if you're in the area!

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TL;DR: I've been here twice and DREAM of returning the second I leave.

Came here for a quick date night the other night. Got sat right away. The staff are SO friendly! We managed to squeak in about 20 minutes before HH ended.

We ordered some of the lime tortilla chips with their regular house salsa. Good lord it was delicious. I don't know how they got so much flavor out of those chips and salsa but they were fantastic.

I ordered two pork belly tacos, the SO also ordered the same plus one fish taco. I wish there was a language on this earth that could explain how amazing those pork belly tacos are. The meat is so succulent, soft, crispy, and flavorful. It pairs perfectly with all the toppings in such a way that each bite is the ideal, "perfect" bite.

My SO said the fish tacos were equally amazing, but in a totally different way. Fresh and flavorful, the fish tacos were a perfect balance.

We ended the night with a brownie which was the perfect touch. It wasn't too expensive either! (But honestly, how do you put a price on a wonderful atmosphere, lovely staff, and...