Estela’s website claims that they are “The Mexican Restaurant our competition doesn’t want you to discover.” I don’t think the competition will mind.
A small franchise in the area, they have locations in Tampa, Brandon, St. Petersburg and New Port Richey. While the atmosphere is fun and relaxing, the food and service are entirely sub-par.
I began the evening on the patio at the Davis Islands location. It was a quiet night, with a handful of tables scattered around the outside area. A server walked briskly by, inviting me to sit anywhere.
A busboy delivered warm tortilla chips and salsa, which was a promising start. It took five minutes, however, for a server to come by and ask for a drink order, and he did not come bearing a menu. He returned promptly with my drink, but again, with no menu. Finally, he came back and hurriedly set one down on the table.
He came back about a minute later and wanted to know if I was ready. I had just finished reading the tiny text on one side and hadn’t even flipped it over to read the back yet.
“Um, not quite,” I said, worried he would take a long time to return. He did.
I eventually placed my order, a good twenty minutes after I had first taken a seat.
I decided to try a bowl of sopa de pollo, or chicken soup, as it had been highly recommended by a friend. Also, because I wanted to try a little bit of everything, I opted for a combination plate of one chalupa, one chicken burrito and rice with refried beans for my entrée.
The meal took almost as long to appear as the server had before I ordered. And most disappointingly, when it did, it was wrong. The soup was indeed excellent, with hints of cilantro and a light broth, but only warm, not hot, and the combination plate was not even lukewarm.
The burrito had been replaced by an enchilada, which is almost the same thing as a burrito, but with a spicy sauce poured over that I had specifically not wanted. Also, the inside contents were beef, not chicken. I was so hungry, I decided not to try explaining the mistake, as I suspected a language barrier was the culprit for the wrong order.
But I did ask my server to re-heat the food, as I am not crazy about cold beef.
He returned way too soon with the meal, and it was barely warmer than the first time it had arrived. I was so frustrated, I just picked a little at each item and moved the plate to the side to work on the soup and the chalupa.
The chalupa, more like a salad than anything else, was quite alright to be eaten cold.
With lettuce, tomato, guacamole and refried beans over a crispy tortilla, it was the only decent item on the combination plate.
It was, however, rather bland.
I paused with most of the meal still in front of me to ask about dessert.
I was really excited about the fried ice-cream I had heard about, and was hoping it would be really hard to mess up.
Perhaps, I thought, it could be their saving grace.
The server went to check on it and came back with a sad report.
The kitchen had already closed and gone home for the night at 10:00, so there was no one to make it. This was most irritating, as I had arrived at a little before 9:00, and might have ordered it if my server had not been so slow.
Still a little hungry and mad, I asked for my check.
He brought it right away, and I immediately handed over my payment, anxious to get out of there.
He came back promptly, said a quick good night, and scurried back into the restaurant.
I had to go find him to ask for an extra receipt, as he had kept the original. He was sitting at a computer, checking Facebook statuses.
I had to re-phrase my request a few times before he understood what I wanted, and when I finally left, necessary receipt in hand, I never wanted to go back.
Moriah Parrish can be reached at mparrish@spartans.ut.edu.