La Cabaña

Seriously the best traditional shrimp cocktail I’ve ever had anywhere. The service here is above and beyond. Good vegetarian options if you have someone in your party that doesn’t eat meat.

In town for a family reunion. Three years since we’ve been back. Tried La Cabana for lunch. Wife and I had chiles rellenos. I guess ‘uninspired’ would be the word… strange sauce and little flavor. My wife’s was cold in the center. We’ve had really good Mexican food at little local restaurants in Ottumwa, but this one didn’t make the grade.

On a recent trip through Ottumwa, Ms T and I tried La Cabana. Ottumwa has some decent, authentic Mexican in the Taqueria Juquilita and Mercado Cerro Grande (and before it closed, Los Cactus). We found Cabana to be a little more of a standard Mexican restaurant than the other two places. Based on this one visit, I will stick with Juquilita and Cerro Grande for my dining, but Cabana may have a little more mass appeal. It actually reminded me a lot of the food at El Nopal in Palmyra, MO.
Cabana likes to use onion, lots of it in everything. Neither of us is a raw onion eater and Ms T eschews onion in all forms. The salsa had hunks and chunks that we picked out. I dosed mine with El Yucateco to liven it up.
Ms T ordered Ground Beef Enchiladas after rejecting the Chicken since it was explained that it had onion cooked in it. It turned out the beef also had onion cooked in it. The sauce was a tomato base sauce with some chile. She rated the enchiladas as OK, not remarkable. We understand that ground beef is pretty gringo, but it can still be well seasoned and this was pretty bland.
I ordered carnitas with salsa verde. You can see the photo; the green sauce was mostly raw onion as was the pico, in the fried tortilla cup. The carnitas were decent, juicy and reasonably flavored. It would have been very good with better salsa verde. This salsa needed more tart, more salt and much less onion. The frijoles were creamy and good and I liked the rice. For a return visit, I would certainly get this but without the salsa verde.
I rate La Cabana as three stars. I don’t rate them down because of the use of excessive onion, I know that is common in Mexican cuisine, but there are places that don’t overdo it. Our service was very good, they have a very full menu. The large complete menu sets them apart from Juquilito and Cerro Grande, but I still prefer those smaller, more taqueria kind of places. La Cabana is head and shoulders better than my one experience in El Potro. All in all it is a safe bet here, just not quite remarkable. I just did not find profound, rich flavors in any of the food.

So so good! Reasonably-​priced, clean location, very friendly staff.
The salsa is really fresh and made on site. Mexican rice was a standout. I had the pineapple fajita, and I’ve never had better. Go to this place and put delicious food in your mouth.