La Costita

The staff were very very friendly. However the food was not good at ALL. I ordered the chiliquiles, they were hard!!! And the sauce was sour and gross! Worst chiliquiles EVER!!! And the kicker 3 dollars for a diet coke!!! Stay away from this place!

Great food, great service. Nice bar area if you want to have a quieter evening without kids. Love this place!

Staff has always been nice and the food is pretty decent standard Americanized Mexican food. There is a small patio which si nice and easy with the kids. No surprises here. I have never had a wait which is nice when you are in a hurry.

Bland food and high prices… you can do much better a few blocks down at chez Jose.

The staff was very friendly but service was a bit slow but not his fault at all. It looks like they only have one person on until 5. One person for bartending and serving. The restaurant is a bit big for one person. They might trying seating people instead of a pick your seat option so the server isn’t running around like crazy. Their happy hour is great. We got well drinks for $ 3. The food is not that great but we didn’t expect much. Chips and salsa were both blah. This is a great place to go just for drinks on a happy hour.

The good: it was open! On a dark and rainy night, we were able to get food, while on a visit to Portland.
The bad: the food was nothing special. We ordered enchiladas. The taste was quite bland. The accompanied rice and beans were spread on the bottom of the plate so as to cover it, but so thin! We left hungry and as light as my wallet which lost 26 dollars in the process… We should have gone to a food truck… I am told Portland has many good ones, and they sell inexpensive food because they don’t have to pay for the rent or the décor.

Overpriced… bland food and cold salsa from the fridge is the highlight of this place.

Wanted to come here because of the outdoor seating listing. Been beautiful warm and sunny, and perfect for outdoor eating. However, the patio is only open «May-​Sept». for shame… the dichotomy of what Portland says and what it actually is.

Love this place! It’s been here longer than the building has been around. Great lunch spot, meet a date, business lunches, kids, and it has easy access and a nice parking lot.

Good food, and a passably good tequila selection, but very poor service. Have been there twice in the past three weeks, and on both occasions was made to feel like my wife I were intrusions. The waiter on both occasions was abrupt, rude, and really didn’t have the slightest interest in being helpful or friendly. When the food came it was unceremoniously dropped on the table without the slightest attempt to see if we needed or wanted anything else. No welcomes, no thank yous, just rudeness. Plenty of fine Mexican restaurants in the city, so we’ll avoid this one from now on. I recommend you do, too.

I always go to the bar here and lately they’ve been slipping. Slow service and the price for their really amazing food items is much higher then it should be. But good news! They have Margaritas bigger than my head, and they are amazing. Make sure you get one.

Shame on me for expecting a positive experience from a kitschy name tucked between Starbucks and Pizza Hut in a Westside strip mall.
The place is very big and nicely decorated, the cashier guy and gal who brought water and chips were very nice.
Then there’s the food. Out of bag-​like chips (don’t tell me they’re homemade just because they’re warm) served with grocery store Pace-​like salsa. There’s a uniformity among bad salsas, go here for the definition. But they do serve the sauce in a cute little carafe, you know, for that French-​like experience.
The acclaimed Tortilla Soup was watered down with some rice at the bottom. $ 6.29 isn’t a bad price, but oh so lacking in taste.
West-sider’s often comment on East Side food snobs, but places like this keep supporting the bland food acclaim.

We had a great experience here! The margaritas are exceptional! Delicious and refreshing! The food was AMAZING! I had the Pollo al Costita and my husband had the ‘wired steak’. Everything was served hot and fresh– even the chips! Their salsa is fresh and tasty and the habañero salsa was hot and yummy! Our waiter was very attentive and friendly, even though he was quite busy bar tending for the restaurant as well. The waiter even ran out after me after I (stupidly) forgot my credit card on the table! Thank you again! We will be back! DELICIOUS!

Stopped here spontaneously with my boyfriend and the food was great and the drinks were on point.

It’s a beautiful warm day in Portland. I decide to take the dog, sit outside and get a margarita at happy hour. Happy hour is not honored on the patio? Really? I did not know that until I heard the waiter tell other customers that it was only good inside. I asked a server why that was and he just ignored me and walked away.
I gave it 2 stars because my drink was good, but both waiters were rude.

I have wanted to stop in here for a long time.
Pulling in to the parking lot I was sad to see the chain competition in the way but alas, I was not faded by the lights. I saw La Costita and was happy.
The outside is blah at best.
In a strip mall. Gross, but no. Inside is the pearl.
Inside is Mexico, Drink Specials and Awesome Food.
I had the Tijuana Tacos.
(From the menu) Another T.J. classic that’s here to please your taste buds! Five soft corn tortillas, with carne asada, chopped onions, cilantro, sliced avocado and queso fresco, served with frijoles de la hoya (whole pinto beans).
I wished I could have eaten 3 more orders but I barely got the one down. I almost laughed when the waiter asked if I would like something sweet. I left happy, full and thinking about when I can come back for tacos.

Just went for Happy Hour today. I was in a group of 4, and I think we all agreed this was a 3-​star experience.
Food was meh. Not bad, but nobody was wowed. We devoured the warm chips, though. Also, we all thought that their drink prices were not in line with Happy Hour at all! $ 9 margaritas? I’m sorry, where am I? Maybe if they were fantastic margaritas, but no. I got the one that was made with guava purée infused with habaneros. I don’t like overly sweet drinks, but I like sweet and spicy. My drink didn’t have any kick to it at all. There was nothing habanero about it. One of my friends ordered Sangria and it was some pre-​bottled stuff served with a garnish. Later during the meal, I ordered a Michelada, which I normally love and guzzle down. This one was so acidic, it gave me instant heartburn. I couldn’t finish half of it.
What have we learned? This place is a no-​go for happy hour. Food is cheap but unspectacular. Drinks are expensive and disappointing. Nothing was downright bad, and the place is clean and has cute ambiance. My group had a ton of fun, but next week we will be going elsewhere.

Good food, drinks, and service. What more could you ask for? Nothing fancy but a typical good Mexican restaurant. I particularly enjoyed the vegetarian options. A lot of restaurants let me down in that area so bravo!

This place is overall just very average — good enough that I wouldn’t stop coming here if in the area but not so great that I would recommend it to someone asking for great Mexican food.
The food here is pretty consistent, and just like most average places, some dishes are better than others. They have a really good chicken soup. Their chips are decent but the salsa doesn’t taste fresh or made in-​house. It seems a little syrupy.
I haven’t experienced the best customer service here either. For example, once when I was seated I waited nearly ten minutes before I finally had to grab a waiter’s attention to ask for menus. I also ordered my dish with chicken once (and I’m certain I said chicken because it’s the only meat I eat and my husband heard me do so) and I had to send the dish back twice because they kept putting the wrong type of meat in it. They didn’t apologize when this happened, nor did they offer to comp anything.

Since I’m new to this part of town, and this restaurant is so close by, I’ll probably give it another chance.
But on my first trip, I wished I had saved my money and eaten at the Baja Fresh two doors down instead. Service and ambiance were nice. But my enchiladas, rice, and beans were so, so bland. I’m not necessarily into spicy food, but give me some flavor, please!

Pleasant ambience in a restaurant with a newish feel. I liked the backlit iron artwork by the windows. Loved the cumbia and boleros they were playing. We ended up here only because the food cart Ochoas Lupitas (raved about on Unilocal) on the Beaverton-​Hillsdale Highway decided to hide from us despite driving three times up and down the block where it was supposed to be. All we could see there was a food cart named «Pork Chop City».
La Costita is a safe bet for routine nonflashy Mexican fare. Per usual, JP ordered pozole and I ordered enchiladas. I wanted to try the Mexico City-​style caldo (soup), but first asked our server if it contained cilantro. She said she would check with the chef. The server then came back and when I asked her if it contained cilantro, she tried to give a lawyerly answer, mentioning something about the soup only containing «flakes». I remarked that this was a simple yes or no question, did the caldo contain cilantro? She finally ‘fessed up that the soup did contain cilantro.
I ended up just ordering just the Mexican enchilada plate. Note: they have several sauces you can specify to top your enchiladas with. My order came with three enchiladas: chicken, cheese and shredded beef. They were all good, even the chicken enchilada made with canned chicken. Because whole beans are offered as an option to refries, I asked for them. Still, my order came out with refried beans. Sigh.
I thought the shrimp pozole with chili sauce was very good (served in a very wide shallow bowl), though JP thought it was a tad salty.
We were appreciative that complimentary chips and salsa were provided, but sweet baby Jesus, that salsa was most watery ever. Our young Caucasian waitress never came back to drop off our check so we had to get the manager to ring up our tab.