LITTLE DONKEY MEXICAN KITCHEN AND BAR — Restaurant in Seattle

Summary: Elevated Mexican food is a plague in Seattle and only one restaurant does it well. This is not it. The little donkey has terrible service and forgettable food. I was looking forward to eating here and I was very disappointed. Two best parts was the margarita and the gentleman who is their host. However, the lukewarm bland food, bad service, and brown guac were just absolutely dreadful. Please if you are in west Seattle there are much better restaurants. I recommend La Chingona if you want authentic Mexican, Matador if you want elevated Mexican, but if you want the best Mexican in the city drive out to Renton and go to 5 Hermanos. Pass on this restaurant for now.

I am a huge fan of Mexican restaurants. So when I heard there was a new Mexican restaurant in my neighborhood I had to give it a try. We arrived there around 6:30 on a Saturday. There wasn’t much parking but we parked in the surrounding neighborhood so it was a short walk to the restaurant. Not bad at all. We were then greeted by the host. The host was absolutely professional and very nice. I really think he may have been the best employee at this restaurant. 45 minutes went by for a 4 person table (once again not bad for Saturday night at a new restaurant). They had music playing very loud so it was hard to hear ourselves talk but at least the playlist was fire. Our server came to our table and let us have a bit of time to see what we wanted to order. She then came back and took all of our order at once. Dinner, drinks, and our order of guacamole with chips. Not 5 minutes go by and out comes our main courses. At this point we haven’t gotten our guac or our drinks. We shrug it off but we get a bit concerned the our order was already made before we ordered it. We have no utensils so we ask a bus boy who comes by the table since our server is nowhere to be found and our server did not bring out our food. The bus boy says begrudgingly yes and goes to grab some. He returns with only two sets for the four of us and walks away. So I just go and grab them myself since we have no server at this point. The food was luke warm and finally our drinks come. My Margarita was pretty good which is a saving grace. The food was bland and cold and had no since of this so called “elevated” the restaurant claimed. At this point one of the side a we ordered still has not come and the chips and guac are missing as well. We ask our server the next time they come if we could get our chips and guac. She goes in the back and comes back saying they ran out but they are making more and we will get it when it’s done but if it’s never done she will take it off the bill. (Which arguably with how long it’s taken already should be stricken from the bill) she comes back not 2 minutes later with a brown unappealing mush of what she says is guac and she says “I found some”. At this this point we are pretty over this restaurant. Our side never comes and when we go to pay the bill it’s not on there, she responds to me asking about the side with a oops my bad then proceeds to take my payment.

This restaurant has a lot of room to grow and at this point I cannot recommend it to anyone in my neighborhood who likes...

This was official opening for the restaurant so we know a lot is going on right now so I’m giving them a 5-star but I will give honest feedback.

The food was bland (I had a steak quesadilla), the black beans were dry, and the description for the quesadilla didn’t mention it had onions & jalapenos inside it. I put green salsa on my quesadilla just to give it flavor. Our daughter didn’t touch her quesadilla because it also had pico de gallo on it and that wasn’t listed in the menu. But the chipotle sauce was listed for the quesadillas and I asked for that to be included on the side. Unfortunately by 6p they ran out of the chipotle sauce so we think the pico they put on our quesadillas was a backup, which makes sense if there is no more chipotle sauce. The interior is very cool & I love that there is a section for 21+ and the other 1/2 is for all ages, quite a few kids there tonight. The staff was nice but looked overwhelmed, it was very busy with a line out the door by the time we left. We were there 1 hr & at one point we left a “hint”, with our empty water bottle at the end of the table, that we would like a refill. We finally had to get our server’s attention to ask for a refill. It was their first official opening Friday and it was busy & we understand the busyness. But at the same time we were getting looks from the wait staff and the bus person with the “are they leaving yet?”. Our server wasn’t as assertive enough to come by sooner and politely ask “How was everything?” Or “did you need anything else?” I would recommend that the occasional walk-by’s as a good thing as the staff start to feel more comfortable with their roles and check in on their tables to see how things are going. We patiently waited til we saw and got her attention to indicate we would like our check. There is a balance with not being too pushy but enough to where if the server had check-in’d in on us more consistently we probably would have been out of there sooner. Again, the restaurant is new so everyone needs to find their flow and they will (hopefully) be working thru it all. More flavor por favor!

We do look forward to our next visit to see how things are...

Deceit is now lurking the Happy Hour menu . 1st time there a month ago ordered the Lil Donkey Nachos during happy hour, pretty yummy & my Topo Chico was in the traditional glass bottle with a lime nestled on top. My friend had tacos & said they were tasty, along with her margarita. I didn't mind that the Nachos were half the size of notably other restaurants. Now, brought another friend from out of town to experience the place, she ordered the Nachos I raved about (look at the photo from 5 months ago below from another guest, that's what I got last month, my friend did not). Whatever it was that showed up, let's call it chips with baked on cheese - it was definetly not nachos. The proclamined "nachos" had no guacomole, no queso, no chive sour cream, no salsa & no cotija crumbled on top = nada & super dry-dry, even the cheese was cooked onto the chip (not melted gooey) to make it drier. Instead it was cheap lack luster American cheeses only on the top, squishy black beans not properly drained - that's it. My Topo Chico was literally put on the table in a screw off top plastic bottle. The super sweet server kept on apologizing for everything without prompts -she just knew. Note the ownership not only did a big switcharoo....they tried to bury the "nachos" in between to thin lines as the botton of the happy hour menu - never seen that before at a Tex-Mex or Traditional Mexican restaurant. Nachos is the teaser testament to any mexican style restaurant to trust the rest of the menu, as Phai Thai is a testament to any Thai or the French Fries to any good Diner. Trust is 0 to bring anyone here for a full dinner or any future happy hours, especially from out of town. Server kept on calling the chip dish, the promo Nachos. Best promotion ever to go...