La Playa Earns 2.5 Stars

727 S. School Ave., Fayetteville

We had heard good things about La Playa Mexican Restaurant, the little place in south Fayetteville with the words “Super Burrito” scrawled on the side in red paint. People were touting it as the new, out-of-the-way “authentic” Mexican place. It seems that every Mexican restaurant that opens in the area is just a little more authentic than the last one.

So four of us loaded up for a lunch excursion south of the border.

The first thing we noticed about La Playa was that it took a long time to get chips and salsa and even longer to get drinks. And the place wasn’t exactly crowded at this point. But we later heard that the manager and another employee were out that day because of illness, and that affected the service. So we tried to keep that in mind while writing this review.

The salsa was on the chilly side temperature-wise and was paler than any salsa we’d seen before. But it tasted pretty good, so we gobbled it up. By the time the water got to our table, the peppers had kicked in and we were panting like hounds on a hot August day in Arkansas.

One guest ordered the No. 6 lunch special, a fajita quesadilla with beef ($4.25). The waitress delivered a chicken quesadilla instead but the diner at our table decided to go ahead and eat that one rather than waiting for a new beef quesadilla to be prepared.

Despite the incorrect order, she said the food tasted fresh and authentic. (No canned tomatoes here.) The meal came with sides of refried beans, rice, guacamole and sour cream. The homemade guac and beans were very good, she said.

Another diner at our table had the No. 1 lunch combo ($4.50), which consisted of one taco and one enchilada. He requested both of them to be chicken, one with fajita meat and one with shredded chicken. When they arrived, the taco was beef instead. But he said both were good in spite of the order being slightly off.

A third diner ordered the chimichanga ($6.50 with beans and rice). The beef chimi was very average, he said, and the shell was too tough to cut easily. The cheese and enchilada sauce did nothing to enhance the bland taste, he said. Also, he requested guacamole, which he never received, although he was charged for it.

The restaurant was crowded by the time we were halfway through lunch, so they must be doing something right.

Overall, we thought the food was pretty good, and we suspect we just hit the place on a bad day as far as the service goes. We’ll give La Playa another try, although nobody in our group seems to be in a big hurry to go back.