La Especial

I went with coworkers for happy hour, even though every time we have gone in the past we get terrible service. We thought lets give it one more try since they do have great margaritas. Once again they treated us awful not quick to serve us even though it was slow at the time and then ended up over charging us for drinks. Not worth the hassle to say anything just won’t be quick to go back anytime soon in this economy. If you go double check your bill and don’t be like us and actually say something.

Sad news. La Especial closed for good on May 16, 2010. We now have to find a place for Sunday desayuno. Does anyone have any suggestions? Most Mexican places are not open early.

My wife and I love this place. We both grew up in SoCal and really get into these local, mom & pop, hole in the wall Mexican food joints. When we first moved to St. Louis back in the 90’s the best Mexican food we could find was Taco Bell — seriously… it was so depressing. Since then we’re finding more and more Mexican food worth eating… La Especial has become our fav. The food is great (truly authentic), prices are good, and it’s super close to where we live!
One way you can tell if a Mexican restaurant is truly «authentic» is by who you find eating there. When we go, the place is usually pretty packed and we are always among the only English speaking people there. This is a hangout for people who want the real thing.
The salsa is awesome. Our one disappointment is that they don’t bring more to the table. We always have to ask for more several times…
Recommendations… Chile Releno at this place ROCKS and you can’t go wrong with their tacos (again… authentic. Don’t expect any hard-​shell, Taco Bell kind of thing. These are the real deal.)
So… try this place if you’re interested in something a little different. If you want to be safe, there’s always El Maguay and Taco Bell right up the street :)

Playing directly in to the hands of my parents’ Mexican food obsession, La Especial is a regular Sunday morning stop. I’ve gone along twice now when I was in St. Louis for the weekend.
I want to give this four starts, but on the whole, it’s kind of unremarkable. What I’ve had has been pretty good, including an al pastor burrito and a chorizo and egg burrito (which is odd, since I hate flour tortillas, and by extension, should hate burritos). My mother always orders chilequiles, which is good, but not great. And my father, on a quest to elevate his cholesterol to quadruple digits, has eggs and chorizo with something on the side, usually.
The service is great — we’re either the only ones in the place, or there’s one or two others. Plus they recognize my parents at this point. They server coffee in interestingly mismatched mugs/​cups/​etc, which has its own charm. And both times I’ve been by, they bring by a lightly sweet pastry/​bread roll «appetizer» (for brunch?) that’s a good accompaniment to the coffee.
Basically, there’s nothing wrong here, and it’s good Mexican, but it doesn’t really stand out. You should still support your local establishments though. Stop by and have some tacos.