La Hacienda Restaurant

Mexican food has never looked so fast, or fast food that is. Once a D’Angelo’s, La Hacienda now delights customers with enchiladas, burritos, quesadillas, and, not surprisingly, hamburgers and fries as well. Lots of love were poured into decorating La Hacienda, too bad that effort didn’t translate into the food, which is just your average run of the mill Mexican.

• FINAL VERDICT
• AUTHENTICITY: 3 out of 5
• FOOD: 3.5 out of 5
• PRICE: Low

DIRECTIONS
1955 Westminster Street
Providence, RI
(401) 275-2385

Parking in front, takes credit cards.

THE LONG ROAD
This time we had an extra gringo, I mean gringa, come with us. She owns a successful restaurant in Newport, so we figured she’d offer a different point of view, an expert one. We’ll call her Verushka to protect her identity.

We came here because it was recommended to the gringo by a mutual friend, the best Salvadorian food in Providence. Well, it turns out it wasn’t from El Salvador, and it was definitely not the best. Like I mentioned before, this used to be a D’Angelos, but they’ve done a great job and put their hearts into decorating it. All types of old photos of the Mexican revolution hang in the walls, as well as a large display of Mexican money. The walls have an orange faux-marble finish. The windows have Mexican fabric valances and the lamps were apparently painfully painted by hand to resemble giant sunflowers. Still feels like a former fast food joint, but they did a great effort decorating it.

This is a family restaurant, clean, booths everywhere. Service was fast. Menus were in English (I think), mixing mexican with American food. They had steaks, enchiladas, burritos, quesadillas, and even hamburgers and fries. Looks like they wanted to put something in the menu to please the latin-born clients, and something for their raised-on-macdonalds offsprings.

On weekends, they have Barbacoa de Borrego (lamb bbq)। They brought us homemade tortilla chips, with a very different salsa, that tasted west-indian, mustardy. Habanero perhaps?



We ordered a Torta de Milanesa, a pupusa de loroco, and a pupusa revuelta. We ordered 2 sidrales, and a mandarin and a pineapple Jarrito.

TORTA DE MILANESA 3 out of 5
This is a chicken-fried pork steak sandwich. Very traditional in Mexico, every town has a handful of Torterías, and people are always arguing about who makes the best tortas. They use a “bolillo”, which is like a roll, then they put mayo, black refried beans, guacamole, tomato, the chicken-fried pork steak, and pickled jalapeños. It tasted good, the jalapeños were nice. The milanesa could’ve been tastier, it lacked punch. Nothing special.

PUPUSA DE LOROCO 4 out of 5
I’ve explained the pupusa before, like a gordita or corn patty, stuffed with loroco leaves and pickled cabbage on top. It was pretty good, moist, but short on Loroco, you couldn’t taste it.

PUPUSA REVUELTA 3 out of 5
This pupusa is mixed, and has black beans, pork and cheese. It tasted pretty good, but it was real dry. If it wasn’t for the cabbage and the salsa, you wouldn’t be able to eat it.