Fonda La Catrina — Restaurant in Seattle

Busy, but tasty place for some Mexican food in Georgetown. Recommend calling ahead. Good selection, fair prices, open air seating, but parking can be a little hard to find.

I was in the mood for some Mexican food on a Thursday after work in August, and found this spot not too far from downtown. It’s pretty easy to get too as it’s right off I-5, but the turn coming off I-5 is pretty sharp and sudden, so be prepared to turn left as soon as you exit 162 on I-5 south. There is free street parking nearby and I think some space in the back, but it will likely be full, so plan to drive around a little to find parking. I didn’t call ahead of time and when I entered, I had to put my name on the list, with an estimated wait time of 15 minutes. It was pretty accurate and I got a table in the patio in the back. There’s a lot of spaces inside and outside the restaurant, but sitting on the patio feels much nicer. I ordered the Puerco en Salsa Verde and Chicken Enchilada Verdes. I got the Chicken Tacos Dorados as the appetizer. I really enjoyed all of my dishes and felt pretty full after my meal. The tacos dorados were nice and crispy and the meat inside is well marinated. The dipping sauce is good too. The Puerco en Salsa Verde was a good sized plate with tortillas on the side. The pork shoulder was cooked just right and not too hard to chew. The potatoes were also very tasty, and not overcooked. Overall I really enjoyed the salsa verde flavor from my dishes, but it was definitely on the more sour side. The staff are pretty nice and I didn’t have to wait long for my food. Definitely felt like I got a good value from this meal. I will definitely be back if I’m ever...

After all the rave reviews perhaps my expectations were a bit high, but I found the dishes to be hit and miss. My tamal de puerco was good. The ceviche was acceptable, served with nice totopos. The menuda verde was clean tasting and light in body with very tender honeycomb tripe, but lacking that special addicting flavor I am accustomed to with regular menudo rojo. There were no toppings served on the side as I am accustomed to. Good nonetheless, and perhaps more approachable for the average estado-unidense. The esquites seemed to simply be a can of corn emptied into a bowl with American mayo on top. It even had all the packing juice from the can in the bowl. I was hoping for a more savory grilled elote sliced off the cob served with more chile en polvo and maybe queso cotija. I was most disappointed with the mole, which was WAY too sweet. When I mentioned this to the waiter she stated that it was a regional version from Puebla that perhaps I just wasn't accustomed to. However, I have had mole poblano in Puebla and it was not this sweet (nor were any mole I have had from any region of Mexico). I stopped ordering mole in the US precisely because of this problem, but I expected more from a restaurant that so many people describe as "authentic". When I asked for salsa picante (Cholula perhaps, since they claim to be Poblano style?) I was told that they only had Tabasco sauce. What self respecting "authentic" Mexican joint provides Tabasco? This restaurant is moderately better than the typical US Mexican restaurant chain, but it falls short of being authentic and doesn't quite pull off elevated...

👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽 This place always gets great reviews, so we had very high hopes for this place but we've been 2x and each time the food was 'meh.' Service was good, and the atmosphere extremely loud and noisy hence the 2 stars. We don't mind loudish places but this was very loud. I'll give it some grace as it was a bustling Saturday night. But let's get to the food. I had the cochinita pibil tacos and honestly, they were lazily constructed with only a single tortilla each and spread out on a plate with the pibil dumped on top as if you were supposed to eat them with a fork. They were too wet and soppy for me to pick up and eat like a real taco so, I used a fork. Flavor was OK but poor construction prevented me from enjoying it like a true taco. They also had a tiny amount of onion pickles on them but the pickles tasted a little rancid so, that was a bit disappointing. I also ordered a Paloma cocktail which tasted like it came from a pre-mixed sugar drink. It was basically undrinkable. But the worse part were the beef enchiladas which lacked flavor (a little salt would have gone a long way here) and the meat was grisly and chewy (see photos). It just did not meet the expectations set by the other reviews we'd read. My partner only finished part of it as he could not get through the rest. I'd save the time and effort to get to this south Seattle 'hot spot' and spend your money at one of the other delicious Mexican restaurants in the city....