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June 2007 - It appears that this restaurant has gone out of business.

Name Of Establishment	Las Margaritas Mexican Restaurant
Address:	1703 East Pacheco Blvd. Los Banos Ca.
Phone Number:	209-826-3322
Website:	Unknown
Prices:	Medium to high
Date Of Review:	June 2006
Check out the Official Merced County Health Inspection of this Restaurant - If that link isn't working try this link (note: these links are slow to load)
Our Overall Numeric Rating
Summation Opinion: An O.K. place with typical Mexican fare and nicely priced kid's meals.

We went to Las Margaritas Mexican Restaurant for Father's Day (June 2006). While we did have a decent dinner, we didn't leave with a feeling of being overly enthused. Las Maragaritas is not a bad restaurant at all, but in our opinion it's also certainly not the best. It's fine to take your kids to, but we could have done better for a 'special day' like Father's Day.

The decor at Las Margarita's was relaxing but not striking. There are wooden beams overhead with brick (or cement blocks) painted white for walls, lacy curtains and other decorator touches the corner where we sat was fairly private and pleasant.

We were seated rapidly and immediately brought some excellent chips and salsa. The chips were seasoned, very crispy and light. We plowed through at least two basket-fulls and noted how they weren't your typical run-of-the-mill chips. The salsa was flavorful with a little touch of heat to it, but not so hot that the kids couldn't enjoy it.

We were brought menus and after looking over the fair number of possible selections we made our choices. Los margaritas offers typical Mexican food fare (such as enchiladas, tacos and so on) and there are plenty of choices. I liked it that they had some seafood selections available and ordered the steak and shrimp fajita combo.

I was brought out a plate of sizzling fajitas with an additional plate of of rice, beans, guacamole and more. My husband had a combination and the kids each had a child's meal that was very nicely priced. For the price of a meal the kids got to have a choice of tacos, burritos, or quesadillas along with a decent helping of rice, beans and a soda. There was also not an age limit on kid's meals that we observed and the portions so reasonable that the adults joked that WE should have ordered a kid's meal!

The service was a mix. We noted that from time to time that the wait staff would disappear for rather long periods and thus our sodas were not kept full. Our waitress was very friendly but did bungle some of our orders. Some of us ordered Mountain Dew but received Sierra Mist. I ordered steak fajitas and was brought chicken. The waitress apologized for the mix-up and brought out a plate of steak pieces to add to my meal. It was nice to be able to try both the chicken and the steak but still...

If there was a downside to the dining experience here it would be the service. Once, when I asked for a refill, she took my glass and then seemed to completely forget to bring it back. After a long wait (really quite long), we reminded her and she brought it out to us. Service can make or break a meal experience and while ours wasn't ruined, it was dampened somewhat. Our waitress also told us that she would give the children free refills but that she wasn't "supposed" to (not her exact words). While we appreciated the generosity on her part, we didn't feel totally comfortable with this. Most people wouldn't be bothered by this, but our family has high standards for honesty and it didn't quite "sit right".

The food itself was pretty good. The fajita steak had a bit of gristle in it but it was not bad. My husband really loved the chicken on MY fajita plate and the kids demolished their meals and made positive comments. My husband was not as thrilled with his selection as the kids were but in general the food was pretty good.

Overall, we had a decent but not terrific experience at Las Margaraitas. The order accuracy and service certainly could have been better but the food was generally pretty good. The adult plates were expensive, but not terribly so and it turned out to be a good place to take our children. The portions were large (we took leftovers home) and the overall value was O.K. While we may be back, this won't be our "first" choice in restaurants. It was "good" but nothing "special". We think you won't be disappointed by your experience at Las Margaritas, but you might not be hurrying back either.

Specific Opinions By Reviewer One
Overall Rating:
Food:
Service:
Decor:
Price/Value:
Bathroom Cleanliness:		Not Observed
Romance Factor
Family Fun

Specific Opinions By Reviewer Two
Overall Rating:
Food:
Service:
Decor:
Price/Value:
Bathroom Cleanliness		Not Observed
Romance Factor
Family Fun	Good value kids' meals!

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In this section, the staff of Our Los Banos .com shares our personal opinions on the restaurants that we patronize in the City of Los Banos. We would like to stress that we are not professional reviewers, that we have had little or no training in the food arts, and that we are simply expressing our own personal views and opinions on particular visits that we made to the establishments under consideration.

Subjectivity. We make no pretense of the fact that we are not objective. As with art, food is a subjective experience subject to personal opinion and even whim. Some people love a particular artist's work while others can not stand what is put on canvas. Picasso comes to mind. Similarly people's appreciation for a particular chef's abilities are uniquely their own. While our tastes are very eclectic and we enjoy a tremendous variety of different types of food, we do not expect our readers will agree with all of our opinions and views. We DO encourage our readers to try each of the places that we have reviewed and then you can discuss (politely and in a positive fashion) your experiences and opinion of our review in the Los Banos Forum section.

Merced County Health Food Facility Inspections Site

Finally, we strongly encourage our readers to make use of a truly wonderful online resource we discovered last year. Merced County has put together a very cool Food Facility Inspection website which discloses the results of the County Health Department's last few inspections of each restaurant. The results are sometimes quite fascinating and are always interesting. Beware however you may not want to eat at certain places once you read some of the more dramatic entries. We at Our Los Banos .com very much appreciate and support the county of Merced putting these Department of Health food facility inspections online for the public to see.

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