San Miguel de Allende Tourist Traps

We ate at the La Terraza restaurant in August of 2007. The place clearly ows its abundant clientele to its location, right next to the astonishing church of Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel (on Sollana street), the main religious temple in town. The menu looked overpriced but since the place was full, we were hungry and the list of dishes seemed interesting we sat down and ordered. We were clearly disappointed from the moment the waiter, who was nice, brought us the plates. My girlfriend ordered a hamburger and I ordered, following the waiter’s recommendation, one of the main items in the menu, a steak. First came the Sopa Azteca, which was a poor tomato soup. With it came the order of Guacamole, which had five nachos separating a pretty scarce amount of the green, healthy sauce. That showed us that the place was either a chic one or a cheap one. Then came the main courses. First, about the hamburger. After one bite, we returned the hamburger which was worst than McDonald’s: the patty was clearly a frozen patty and it tasted horribly. Honestly, the worst meat they served us in Mexico. Furthermore, and what really offended us is that the peace of meat was a blatant lack of decency of the owner for a burger that is over 50 pesos! (about 5 USD). As far as my steak, you could truly see through it! It had the shape of a skirt steak, yes, but it seemed to have been smashed several times with a cooking hammer to enlarge it and extend its scarce area on the plate, which had literally one slice of tomato and the volume of rice that fits in a shot glass. The restaurant owner, a blonde lady in her late fifties or early sixties, was giving us such a bad vibe that we just couldn’t wait to leave. She told us that nobody had returned a hamburger before and that this one was fine. She did offer my girlfriend another dish but seeing that disrespect for us and that overpricing was THE POLICY of that place we did not take the offer, hoping that they wouldn’t charge us for the hamburger at the end.

Unique Suggestions: (CONTINUES FROM ABOVE)
Well, guess what? She did charge us for it. Not wanting to engage in a stupid, non-sense conversation which I knew before hand would have not changed anything (if anything it may have given pleasure to the ´Devil Wears Prada´ of the restaurants), we paid and we left, feeling sorry for the personnel who works there (can you imagine what she pays her employees?) and feeling disgusted by how the owner was kissing the ass of the couple in the table next to us, two elderly Americans, probably loaded. Good thing is that we took the hamburger to go (with its no more than 10 French fries!) and gave it to an old lady who has asking for money at the door of the church and who thanked us sincerely! Also, as we were leaving, we had the pleasure of saying a powerful line to a group of five French guys who were about to get into the restaurant: ´we wouldn’t suggest for you to eat here.´ They thanked us and in less than a second, before stepping in, turned around and went somewhere else. Our bill: 330 pesos. What these guys would have probably spent at the restaurant: over 1.000. The good karma/bad karma theory, right here. We feel the owner’s only interest is ripping off clients she will never see again. That’s why we recommend you to invest your precious pesos somewhere else.

Mocajetes is a traditional dish of meat and/or cheese and sauce served in a stone dish called a mojacete. Well this place uses the name and serves grilled meat instead. When confronted the 'manager' and wait staff about the false advertisement we were met with hostility and rude behaviour. As for changing the order... it was not possible without paying for the supposed 'mocajete' we already ordered. Overall a bad experience and would never recommend this restaurant.

Unique Suggestions: Don't expect authentic Mexican food here.