Los Arcos Mexican Restaurant is located in a nicely designed but older restaurant building with colorful furniture off Peters Creek Road in Roanoke, Virginia. Many times my friend and I had driven by this restaurant wondering how it would look inside and how the food would be. From past experience Mexican restaurants were either amazingly good or unfortunately poor. So today we decided to go and try it out. No longer would it be a mystery to us. We had no idea of how the ambiance would be inside, nor the customer service, nor the quality of the food.
We arrived around 4:45pm for an early dinner on a Tuesday late afternoon. The outside architectural design of the building was full of arches, hence the restaurant's name of "Los Arcos." It had a nice outdoor patio dining area surrounded by a low wall full of upside-down arches. Since it was a record high temperature day, there was no one dining outside, but the area looked nice with each round iron table having a large red umbrella to protect customers from the sun.
When we entered the restaurant, we were greeted and immediately taken to our table and given copies of the menu. The menu was very well organized with subject tabs and color photographs of their most popular items. When our server came by to take our order, we both ordered iced water to drink and as our main meal my friend ordered the Enchiladas Mixtas and I ordered the Burrito Jalisco with grilled steak rirfrom the Specialties of the House page of the menu. As we waited for our server to arrive with our meals, we munched on the complimentary Chips and Salsa. The chips tasted good although they didn't look that fresh and the salsa looked nice but tended to be on the hot side, with no mild available. When our food arrived, my friend enjoyed his. Mine had missing the pico de gallo side. The chorizo was very tasty as it should be, but I question the steak quality. Not that it was hard or brittle, on the contrary, I felt that it was too soft and spongy. It was seasoned right with lots of lemon juice, but it's texture left a lot to be desired, especially to me who am a steak connoisseur and afictionado. The side of rice was a bit dry and lacked freshness.
The dessert menu selection was a very good one, and their photographs made them look so good, yet they were the greatest disappointment of our meal and dining experience. We both ordered Churro Cups. By now the restaurant was almost half full, but this was no reason for the time to prepare and serve our dessert to have taken longer than to serve our food. Then the crust of the Churro Cup was overcooked and hard. By hard I mean I was not able to cut it nor eat it. Yet it looked so good that you would have never imagined that it was inedible. I even asked for a knife to cut it and was unsuccessful. I asked one of the servers for the manager and he told me there was no manager, that he was out until 6:00pm. So I was not able to complain about the dessert or have it comped.
The menu of this Mexican restaurant is amazing but I find that the quality of the food and execution of cooking them is lacking from the part of the cooks there. And the absence of a manager on the premises is questionable. For this reason and for the problems I encountered with my meal there, I don't think I will return, especially with so many good Mexican restaurants around. It's a pity because otherwise this restaurant has the potential of being a great one. read more