La Cocina & Cantina — Restaurant in Seattle

It’s taken me too long to stop by here. But I fixed that last night.

Simply put this is exemplary tex-mex/frontera/southwestern/family-style mexican food. For reference I grew up in Tucson and Mexico and have tasted the gamut of southwestern Mexican food.

Don’t come here expecting authentic high end central/southern mexican food. Nor is it a competitor for something like Tacos Chukis. All this can be true and is no more a mark against La Cocina than is for or against any of the taquerias or high end authentic restaurant like Fonda La Catrina.

I will say I’d rather come to a place like La Cocina that excels at what it aims to, than many of the purported “high end” Mexican restaurants across Seattle that fail miserably to reach said lofty goals.

Ok back to La Cocina. The margaritas! They are nothing special but they taste just fine and the price is right.

Free chips and salsa! With mild and spicy salsas, both were quite good with adequate cilantro. (Chips needed salt but that is easily remedied at the table).

I got a combo plate with a chimichanga and a chile relleno with rice and refried beans. The beans hit all the right notes, on par with my favorite place growing up, El Molinito in Tucson. The chile relleno was just oozing with cheese, nothing more to say. Could have been crispier but that’s not really the point is it. The chimichanga was a half size for the combo (for the best really) and filled with shredded beef. I will say my favorite versions of this don’t have any rice inside but I still enjoyed this iteration. I would recommend ordering it with the sour cream and guac as it was a tad dry, but I also remedied that with some salsa from the table. The typical “spanish rice” has never been my favorite item but nothing was amiss with it here.

My dining companion ordered cheese enchiladas, and while I didn’t hear explicitly how much he liked them, his plate was entirely clean at the end.

Unfortunately we were too stuffed to try the flan, sopapillas or fried ice cream. I will say that I would be especially tickled if the sopapillas came with honey, but this is my...

This restaurant is an unfortunate example of the new Seattle food scene. I read the reviews and specifically ordered the fish tacos based on another review I read. The review said that the fish tacos were delicious, but fell apart immediately and recommended the restaurant maybe add an extra tortilla. I also read that this place is busy but the service is friendly. I started with their top rated item which is a a big red flag- when the salsa has the best reviews. Well, the salsa is self serve and not even worth taking to go. The fish tacos were still served on one tortilla and did fall apart as soon as I touched it. The fish was dry, unflavored and was bland even with the sauce they add. The ingredients did not taste fresh. This restaurant is more of a Mexican diner than an actual restaurant. It’s not that they are too busy- they are clearly understaffed and do not provide any reliable service. This restaurant is lacking some serious common sense; as you can walk two more blocks up the hill on the same street and find two other far superior Mexican...

The only reason I'm giving it 3 stars is because my drink had no alcohol in it. I rarely go out, but when I do, the plan is to get one drink at the beginning of my outing, enjoy it, enjoy the relaxing nature of it for the next several hours and then be done. But the margarita..... I never felt anything. Even my friends noticed that it had no effect on me, which they commented on! I'm a lightweight, and they know it. And this time, I showed up with an empty stomach too!

However, I will say that the chicken nachos were great, and that's not alcohol talking (it can't be). They were legitimately tasty and well loaded. Plenty of toppings, but not so much that the nachos were breaking or wilting. A truly well designed and easily shareable finger food.

Other than the drink situation, the service was fast and flawless. I was there during the Pride event on Saturday, when things were hopping, so I was pleasantly surprised that our orders came out correctly...