Mexican? Mexican’t more like!

Sep 18

Ian FieldhouseRants No Comments

I ate at Coconut Grove last night and experienced my worst dining experience ever.
Initial impressions were not good when all that was on offer to eat was a set menu (£17 per head for three courses) and of the three starters on this "extensive" menu only two were available.
Despite our party being one of only two in the restaurant the waitress took over half an hour before she came to take our order. When you only have two starters and four main courses on your menu I think it's safe to say that this is to be considered slow service. This was made more laughable when my wife told the waitress her order and was told that she didn't need to specify a starter as they would just bring a selection of "5 or 6" starters to the table for us all to share. My party consisted of eight people so only bringing "5 or 6" starters was not what we wanted to hear. Add to this that the only starters available were nachos or spicy Mexican chicken drumsticks (which none of my party actually wanted) you can see that this wasn't a situation that we were too happy with.
Anyway the starters finally arrived (4 plates of each so at least they got the quantity right) and this was when I realised that they didn't have the first clue as to what they were doing. The nachos were meant to be covered in salsa, guacamole, refried beans, soured cream, cheese and jalapeños. Apparently they had no refried beans and as for the cheese I can only assume that they had a very small block that they were trying to ration over the whole night as they were very sparing with it. As for the "spicy" Mexican chicken drumsticks I almost burst out laughing as these were merely reheated chicken drumsticks not dissimilar to what you would buy in Tesco. There was not a hint of any spice or flavouring of any type.
Next we were subjected to a wait of over 30 minutes for our main courses to arrive. We actually had to complain that things were taking far too long as we were heading out to the theatre and our show was due to start in just over half an hour. Having left 2 hours for dinner it was really very disappointing to have not been served our main courses a after being there for over an hour. Anyway, I digress the main courses finally arrive. I, as well as a fair proportion of my party, had ordered the chicken fajitas. The warning bells started going again for me when I was presented with a plate containing only 2 flour tortillas which were both stone cold. I needn't have worried about the lack of tortillas as the quantity of chicken and veg for my fajitas was pitiful. To make matters worse I can only assume that they were using some form of homeopathic cooking technique where the food they cooked was introduced to only heavily diluted quantities of spices as any sign of flavour was conspicuous in it's absence.
I know that Mexican food can be variations on the same base ingredients but what was laughable was that everybody round the table had exactly the same just rearranged differently. For example, one of my party was having the chicken burrito. This contained the exact same chicken that was in the fajitas rolled up in a flour tortilla, so in effect a pre-made fajita. If anything this might be considered an enchilada but in no way was it a burrito as it the flour tortilla wasn't folded correctly. Again the refried beans were missing and she never even got any rice. Finally once the main meals were served the waitress thought it might be nice to ask if we would like some water with our meal. While she was actually paying us some attention we asked for the bill and informed her that we had run out of time and wouldn't be staying for desert (they had the massive list of deserts that consisted of ice cream and nothing else).
The bill arrived and at least they had had the good grace to remove the cost of our ice cream from the bill. All in all it worked out as only £15 per head but even at that I felt like we had been completely ripped off. I could have created a better Mexican meal myself at home by buying some Old el Paso or Discovery Foods products and at least they would have had a hint of a kick of spice. To add insult to injury this farce of a restaurant couldn't even take payments by card as their machine was broken. It might have been a good idea to let us know this before we started.
Overall I'm giving this place 1 star and I think I'm being generous! Mexican? Mexican't more like, avoid at all costs!

I ate at Coconut Grove in Edinburgh last night and experienced my worst dining experience ever.

Initial impressions were not good when all that was on offer to eat was a set menu (£17 per head for three courses) and of the three starters on this "extensive" menu only two were available.

Despite our party being one of only two in the restaurant the waitress took over half an hour before she came to take our order. When you only have two starters and four main courses on your menu I think it's safe to say that this is to be considered slow service. This was made more laughable when my wife told the waitress her order and was told that she didn't need to specify a starter as they would just bring a selection of "5 or 6" starters to the table for us all to share. My party consisted of eight people so only bringing "5 or 6" starters was not what we wanted to hear. Add to this that the only starters available were nachos or spicy Mexican chicken drumsticks (which none of my party actually wanted) you can see that this wasn't a situation that we were too happy with.

Anyway the starters finally arrived (4 plates of each so at least they got the quantity right) and this was when I realised that they didn't have the first clue as to what they were doing. The nachos were meant to be covered in salsa, guacamole, refried beans, soured cream, cheese and jalapeños. Apparently they had no refried beans and as for the cheese I can only assume that they had a very small block that they were trying to ration over the whole night as they were very sparing with it. As for the "spicy" Mexican chicken drumsticks I almost burst out laughing as these were merely reheated chicken drumsticks not dissimilar to what you would buy in Tesco. There was not a hint of any spice or flavouring of any type.

Next we were subjected to a wait of over 30 minutes for our main courses to arrive. We actually had to complain that things were taking far too long as we were heading out to the theatre and our show was due to start in just over half an hour. Having left 2 hours for dinner it was really very disappointing to have not been served our main courses a after being there for over an hour. Anyway, I digress the main courses finally arrive. I, as well as a fair proportion of my party, had ordered the chicken fajitas. The warning bells started going again for me when I was presented with a plate containing only 2 flour tortillas which were both stone cold. I needn't have worried about the lack of tortillas as the quantity of chicken and veg for my fajitas was pitiful. To make matters worse I can only assume that they were using some form of homeopathic cooking technique where the food they cooked was introduced to only heavily diluted quantities of spices as any sign of flavour was conspicuous in it's absence.

I know that Mexican food can be variations on the same base ingredients but what was laughable was that everybody round the table had exactly the same just rearranged differently. For example, one of my party was having the chicken burrito. This contained the exact same chicken that was in the fajitas rolled up in a flour tortilla, so in effect a pre-made fajita. If anything this might be considered an enchilada but in no way was it a burrito as it the flour tortilla wasn't folded correctly. Again the refried beans were missing and she never even got any rice. Finally once the main meals were served the waitress thought it might be nice to ask if we would like some water with our meal. While she was actually paying us some attention we asked for the bill and informed her that we had run out of time and wouldn't be staying for desert (they had the massive list of deserts that consisted of ice cream and nothing else).

The bill arrived and at least they had had the good grace to remove the cost of our ice cream from the bill. All in all it worked out as only £15 per head but even at that I felt like we had been completely ripped off. I could have created a better Mexican meal myself at home by buying some Old el Paso or Discovery Foods products and at least they would have had a hint of a kick of spice. To add insult to injury this farce of a restaurant couldn't even take payments by card as their machine was broken. It might have been a good idea to let us know this before we started.

Overall I'd give this place 1 star and I think I'm being generous! Mexican? Mexican't more like, avoid at all costs!

Comments are closed.