{"id":1009,"date":"2011-02-08T09:38:12","date_gmt":"2011-02-08T15:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/?p=1009"},"modified":"2011-02-08T09:38:48","modified_gmt":"2011-02-08T15:38:48","slug":"la-hacienda-in-little-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/reviews\/la-hacienda-in-little-rock\/","title":{"rendered":"La Hacienda in Little Rock"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com<\/h4>\n
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Hacienda<\/p><\/div>\n

As I\u2019ve written about before there aren\u2019t many authentic Mexican restaurants around the Little Rock area.\u00a0 There are several non-authentic ones that are good places to eat at though and La Hacienda at the bottom of Cantrell hill is one of them.\u00a0 They have been around for many years now and serve American Mexican food that is a step above what you will find at other \u201cMexican\u201d restaurants around town.<\/p>\n

La Hacienda is based out of an old Pizza Hut (or Pizza Inn, not sure which) and has a small but comfortable feel to it.\u00a0 They offer typical fare like burritos, tacos, and enchiladas but they also have specialty plates with asada steak, mole chicken, and other offerings.\u00a0 It\u2019s the specialty plates that help La Hacienda stand apart from the competition as many of them are very good.<\/p>\n

They marinate their chicken and steak before cooking it and this adds a much needed dimension of flavor.\u00a0 All of their vegetables taste freshly cut and the food is prepared at order time.\u00a0 Like most places around town they have everything pre-cooked and put it together when it\u2019s needed.\u00a0 This results in food that is ready a few minutes after you order it so be prepared for the quickness.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great place to go for lunch as your stay requires very little time.<\/p>\n

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Nachos with Fajita Chicken<\/p><\/div>\n

When you sit down you are greeted with a few different salsas to snack on while you browse the extensive menu.\u00a0 I highly recommend their punch as they have my favorite blend in the state (or anywhere really.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

For this trip I wanted cheese enchiladas<\/strong> and ordered a plate of them with a tamale ($7)<\/strong>.\u00a0 I opted for the cheese sauce instead of the red sauce for an extra 50 cents.\u00a0 My wife ordered the nachos with chicken fajita meat ($9)<\/strong> and my son had beef burritos with cheese sauce ($7)<\/strong>.\u00a0 We also ordered the cheese dip as an appetizer.\u00a0 All of this cheese should be a huge red flag for you if you want authentic Mexican food.\u00a0 Whenever I traveled to Mexico I rarely had cheese on anything and didn\u2019t see it as an option in most places.<\/p>\n

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Cheese Dip<\/p><\/div>\n

The cheese dip was too runny for my liking but did have a decent flavor to it but we had barely made a dent in it when our food arrived.\u00a0 In the future I\u2019ll pass on any cheese dip given how fast the food arrived but this is not a problem, especially if you are going there for lunch.<\/p>\n

My cheese enchiladas didn\u2019t look too appetizing but I should have known better.\u00a0 My order looked exactly like I envisioned it given the location and tasted the same as expected.\u00a0 The enchiladas were simple and on the bland side and my tamale had more masa (corn filling) than meat.\u00a0 The tamale was very dry and I ate only a couple of bites before giving up.<\/p>\n

My wife\u2019s nachos were much better than my food and I wish I had ordered them.\u00a0 The chicken was tender and had a nice semi-spicy flavor to it.\u00a0 The chicken was piled high on the nachos that were covered by a generous portion of toppings.\u00a0 In the future I\u2019ll definitely get the nachos.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t try my son\u2019s burritos but they looked very similar to my enchiladas.<\/p>\n

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Three Salsas<\/p><\/div>\n

You may be reading this and think that I didn\u2019t enjoy my experience at La Hacienda and you would be half right.\u00a0 The problem is that I\u2019ve been there many times and enjoy the specialty plates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost as if half of the menu is for typical American Mexican junk food and the other half is for tasty Mexican specials.\u00a0 And guess what?\u00a0 They do!\u00a0 I felt like having a cheese enchilada and received exactly what I ordered.\u00a0 Sometimes you have to go slumming and I did on this trip.\u00a0 I know the food on the Mexican specialty plate side is good and recommend it.\u00a0 I typically enjoy the asada based plates and also like their mole chicken.\u00a0 Give them a try and order from the specialty side if you aren\u2019t looking for low-rent American Mexican food.<\/p>\n

(501) 661-0600
\nLittle Rock
\n3024 Cantrell Rd
\nLittle Rock, AR 72202<\/p>\n

\"LA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com As I\u2019ve written about before there aren\u2019t many authentic Mexican restaurants around the Little Rock area.\u00a0 There are several non-authentic ones that are good places to eat at though and La Hacienda at the bottom of Cantrell hill is one of them.\u00a0 They have been around for many years now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[339,205],"tags":[291,366,50,51,367,368,364,365,112,63,369,72,73,131],"class_list":["post-1009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mexican-cuisine","category-reviews","tag-burrito","tag-cantrell","tag-cheese","tag-dip","tag-enchilada","tag-fajita","tag-hacienda","tag-la","tag-little","tag-mexican","tag-nachos","tag-restaurant","tag-review","tag-rock"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1009"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1018,"href":"https:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009\/revisions\/1018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}