Cantina Laredo

Cantina Laredo at the St. Johns Town Center is situated near some stiff competition in terms of restaurants: Capital Grill, Mitchell's Fish Market and J. Alexander's are all within a stone's throw of the Mexican restaurant. Unfortunately any and all of Cantina Laredo's competitors would have been a better choice this evening.


Previous visits to Cantina Laredo have been satisfactory, however this outing has prompted Cantina Laredo and I to split up. He, obviously, cannot give me what I want and I am sick of waiting for the relationship to improve. 


A friend of mine chose Cantina Laredo because she is obsessed with Mexican food. Cantina Laredo also has great pomegranate margaritas. Perhaps we should have ordered a few and the 45 minute wait for an incorrect food order would not have seemed so bad. Unfortunately the most exciting beverage on the table was water.


I ordered the Honey Shrimp salad. I've had it before, enjoyed it, and was not in the mood for the ubiquitous refried beans and queso of a Mexican joint. My friend ordered the Cilantro Chicken Salad. Both of us requested our dressing be on the side. 45 minutes later our salads show up. We've eaten our full of tortilla chips at this point. Nonetheless we dig in. I bite into a tough, lukewarm, overly grilled shrimp. My friend doesn't even bother to take a bite. The server has brought her the cranberry pecan salad. We send our orders back. He tells me the order took so long in the first place because shrimp take awhile to cook. (Note: shrimp take moments to prepare and are usually overcooked for this reason.) Our food returns. I immediately am annoyed when I see my plate. My first salad had five shrimp. My second one, though the shrimp are appropriately prepared, only has four shrimp. My friend's salad has dressing all over it. A manager walks over. We explain her order still isn't right. We ask that both of our meals be put in to go boxes, we're no longer hungry. The manager says the meal is complimentary and he apologizes. 


While the manager handled the situation correctly, I was still pretty annoyed. Sending food back once is bad enough. Sending two salads back, one of them three times, is embarrassing. I walked out with a free meal, but frustrated. Needless to say I will not be returning soon. Next time I am picking the restaurant.