Cantina Laredo — Restaurant in Virginia Beach

Cantina Laredo is located in the Town Center section of Virginia Beach. It is on the second floor of the building on Commerce St. Willams Sonoma is on the first floor below it. One of the closest parking areas would be the Cosmopolitan Parking Garage (Town Center Blue Parking Garage). There is a pedestrian walkway from the second floor of the parking garage to the second floor of the building where Cantina Laredo is located. My visit here occurred on March 22, 2022.

I go to the town center area of the city quite a bit. I have seen this place there since it opened in 2020, but I hadn't been in there until this first visit. I had been wanting to try it out, and on this particular week, it was Town Center Restaurant Week, so I figured this was a great time to try this place out.

My mom and I got here around 3:15 pm, so it wasn't a busy time in the area, so we were actually able to snag a parallel parking spot in the front of the building along the road. Around the corner (towards the fountain), there is an area to get to the second floor either by stairs or elevator. After getting up to the second floor, we went around to the entrance.

Upon entering, it was not busy at the time. We were immediately greeted and seated. The place is very open, with both indoor and outdoor seating. After getting seated, our server Jewel came to the table to greet herself and asked if we wanted anything to drink. After getting some drinks, we were ready to order since we looked at the menu ahead of time as well for the restaurant week. For the appetizer, we went with the Queso Y Guacamole Combinacion (Queso and Guacamole combination). For the entree, I went with the Beef Enchiladas and my mom went with the Espinaca (Spinach) enchiladas. For the dessert, we went with the Tres Chocolate Brownie.

Shortly after ordering, the appetizer came to the table. The Queso and Guacamole combination looked great, and it was really good too. This is definitely something I would get again on a future visit. A little bit after finishing the appetizer, the entrees came to the table. They also looked good after getting them. The next test was to see how they were. The Beef Enchiladas were really good. There was some good flavoring in them as well, including a bit of a spice kick, which I love. The beans were good too, though I didn't really try the rice as I am not big into having rice. My mom had the Espinaca enchiladas. In her case, she said it had no flavor at all and was very bland. I had her try a bit of the beef enchiladas I got, and she said that the beef ones tasted much better. In the end, she didn't completely finish them in this case. It had gotten busier at that time as well, and it was hard to track down our server as it seems like she had the whole place except the bar, as she was at the other side of the restaurant to the outside as well. That's not her fault. Management may want to look at having more concise sections, so the servers aren't running all over the place when it comes to tables.

By the time our server was able to come back to the table, she asked if we were ready for the dessert. My mom decided not to say anything about the enchiladas she had, even though I said she should have. Now, for the dessert, the Tres Chocolate Brownie was lit (on fire, literally). It was hot, soft and extremely good. I think we may have been full if we only did that dessert.

Overall, this was a really nice place. Prices are similar to other Mexican type restaurants in the area, so prices are not "upscale". Except for the flop on the Espinaca Enchiladas, the food was great. Given the circumstances, service was good too. I plan to return in the future and maybe try one of their Bloody Mary specials on Sundays. If you are in the Town Center area and looking for a Mexican type of place to eat, this place is still worth...

Dined here one late afternoon Monday, 2-17-20. Place has been open for a few weeks, so expected lots of open tables this time of day, and service that was still getting the ropes down. Yes, for the tables, yet service was fine, friendly, and swift enough for us. We try to live on "island time" as much as possible.

Pro Tip: go to their website and sign up to receive texts, you'll be rewarded with a free Queso Laredo ($10!), just show your text to the server. We were informed it would take 20 minutes to prepare. Uh, OK by us.

Pro Tip #2: stay on their website and also sign up for eClub emails, but only share an email address, and not your phone # (you already did this earlier, right?). You will receive a free Top Shelf Guacamole appetizer! #yaaaasguacamole

Had the house Casa Rita whilst waiting for the queso to arrive. We both enjoyed the flavor, for it's not run-of-the-mill, and we revel in these kinds of offerings that stray from the typical, overly sweet, overly limey, let's mask that Cuervo-vibe! Our main course arrived before the queso, no biggie, we munched on the delicious, light and crispy chips (not heavily salted!) and two decent salsas accompanying the chips.

We asked for a hotter sauce, and were brought a tomatillo salsa that didn't seem hot at all, until we stirred it up and, yup, it was bringing a little more heat. Good stuff, try some. But chiliheads will have to bring their fave bottles to get their endorphin rush here.

We recommend the Queso Laredo. For those who ignore calories, you could down this as a soup, yeah. For my main course I was leaning on the Acapulco combo, then saw it was nearly 2000 calories. Hmmm, how about that 974 calorie Rellenos de Camarones? Yes, we both sprung for that. Love rellenos.

Having been told they were super busy at lunch, we started connecting the dots wondering where the shrimp were hiding in our dishes? For $18 you can get many more decent shrimp in any local place's shrimp fajitas here in VB. Neither of us found a single "whole" shrimp, and eventually realized pieces, and few at that, were all we were getting this day. Seems like poor planning.

Go to Yelp and see other people's pics of this dish from other Cantina Laredo locations in the U.S. and find yourself some shrimp! Now look at my pic posted here and try to ignore the big chunks of (delicious) 'shrooms in your shrimp search! Yeah, if the overall dish wasn't so tasty, this would have been quite a big let down. I'm chalking this shrimp shortage down as a management oops. Maybe it's best not to order this on a late Monday afternoon?

After reading the menu description and doing double-takes on my pic, I had to edit to add: both our dishes were completely devoid of avocado! Come on, management, I trust the next time I may order this delightful, yet incomplete, dish it will exceed all expectations.

Second round, we quaffed the Patron 'rita with the Patron Citronge, and it is most excellent! For $12.75 it should be. Two drinks each are going to satisfy most not trying to outdo themselves on Spring Break. Read another reviewer complaining about too much ice. I like near perfection, and for 'ritas this place excels (but you're not fishbowling here, mmmkay?)

Ended the meal with the Mango Tres Leches, and it was quite good, recommended. If they bring all the desserts on one tray for you to ogle before ordering, note the serving we received was at least 2-3 times larger than the one I saw on the tray this day. And it's all good. But I actually had a bit of the old eyes-bigger-than-your-stomach going since I apparently became the only one eating most of it. A first world problem I handled with aplomb. Next visit I'll try...

This was my first time dining at Cantina Laredo on 3/20/2021, along with two other guest who were in my party.

First of all this place has a lot of potential, the ambience was warm and inviting, but my experience was anything but that.

Our waiter, Erik, was ok but,he wasn't very personable or attentive to detail and his interactions with our table was very short and rushed each time he interacted with us. If you didn't get everything out while he was standing there, by the time you thought of what was needed, he was already gone and we had to wait to catch him walking by to gain his attention again.

Because Erik was being so rushed, he messed up the order and put in a steak quesadilla instead of the nachos. I didn't mind the mix up, because mistakes happen and it was a Saturday evening plus he also apologized in which I totally understood.... but from that point on, everything seemed to fall apart!

I ordered the steak fajitas, steak nachos, queso Laredo dip and a passion fruit pina coloda. The food was not that spectacular. The fajitas were nicely seasoned but I couldn't get pass how long I had to chew the meat in order to enjoy the meal. The steak was over cooked, not tender at all, and was very rubbery in texture, the queso dip tasted like artificial cheese and hamburger meat (there was nothing special about the dip at all), and the pina coloda was very mediocre and literally tasted like a frozen creme sickle without alcohol. The steak nachos were not bad, but I've had better at other establishments, but compared to the other food that I had ordered, the nachos were just ok.

Needless to say, the food was not as expected! I tried to overlook it, but couldn't and ended up speaking to the waiter, in which he apologized again and said that he would removed it from the bill... there was no other option to re-cook the entree nor was there any other accommodation or different selection mentioned.

Then as Erik walked away with the plate, he stopped and told the manager, Ashish what had happened and the manager walked back towards the register....several minutes passed and Ashish never came to the table to apologize or speak to us about the inconvenience of the meal. However he kept walking around and speaking to other patrons/waiters before stopping at the foot of our table without approaching us and looked over at all the other tables. I even stared at him at one point to see if he was going to address the issue but he tried everything in his power not to look at our table. We all thought it was very rude and inconsiderate on his behalf!

Now don't get me wrong, I have never been to an establishment where a complaint or issue was brought up and the manager is aware of the problem but still doesn't come over to the table to speak with the guest or apologize or offer their assistance in the matter!! So at this point I'm irritated because not only was I still hungry from the initial mishap, but after the horrible response, or shall I say non existent response from the manager, I ultimately lost my appetite and was ready to go!

We sat there waiting for Erik to get the check prepared in which he never did. We had already had our boxes and bags and was sitting for at least 10 minutes before we had to get Erik's attention and ask for the check. Erik didn't ask who had what appetizer and he ended up splitting the cost of each appetizer amongst the 3 of us, without asking or confirming with each of us first.

I'm not sure about the others in my party, but I know for sure that I will not be back.

Ps...I added a photo of the food and the manager that...