La Fiesta

We visit several times per month and we are never disappointed. Great, fast service and freshly prepared food. Good beer selection only adds to a great experience.

Pretty bad.  Salsa, OK.  Chips, OK.  Enchilada was bland.  Refried beans tasteless.  Chicken fajita salad.... overgreased.  Service, fair.  Prices good.

Has the curse of the octagon building been broken?! For anyone who lives in Bluefield VA, El Patio is the primary restaurant for Mexican food. Campestre is excellent, but often the drive to Princeton ruled it out in my book. When La Fiesta boldly opened across the street from El Patio, tongues started flapping...but I had already moved. Today was my chance to experience La Fiesta after a year and a half away from Bluefield.

The decor is less colorful than Patio (obviously) but for the most part your atmosphere and service will be the same, so let's get down to the food. My dad introduced me to his "usual", Pollo Loco: a massive plate filled to the brim with grilled chicken, onion, zucchini, and squash all served over rice. The menu says it's smothered with their famous cheese sauce, but I didn't see it until I got down to the rice. What covered the chicken was more of a complex marinade that married the flavors of the vegetables nicely. And I had never previously considered zucchini and squash to be part of your typical Mexican cuisine. It was surprisingly good, although a huge portion. Good one, Dad!

I personally decided to compare La Fiesta to its rival by the dish that almost everyone overlooks: Tortilla Soup. My theory is, if you infuse flavor in your Tortilla Soup, you undoubtedly put flavor in everything you make. If your $3.50-$4.99 soup at the bottom of your menu (placed there almost as an afterthought) tastes like it could cure any ailment you've ever had, you know you're in capable hands.

El Patio's soup is great, mind you, but this was different. It had all the same ingredients (rice, chicken, avocado, tortillas and cheese on top) just in different ratios. Whereas half of the Patio's soup is pure rice, Fiesta gave you more chunks of real chicken instead. Maybe the bowl was even a little bigger?? I adored the hint of cilantro, I was happy to see corn in it, and I could just drink that broth from a thermos.

"Slightly different" is the best way to describe Fiesta. I'm not saying everything on Fiesta's menu will be better than its Patio component, but you may get a close second or discover a new favorite dish, if anything. My mom had the enchiladas and my brother had the chicken nachos. While I didn't sample theirs, I'd take those particular dishes from the Patio over Fiesta, just going from memory. Patio's chicken nachos are supreme, after all. I know for the soup at least, I could go either way depending on how I'm feeling...or which side of the street I'm on.