Cocina Mendoza

Food was okay… service was TERRIBLE!!! It took 25 minutes for someone to take our order. After that the waitress didn’t return to bring our food (a runner did), didn’t check on us throughout the whole meal, and then didn’t bring us our check for over 15 minutes after we were finished! Because of the terrible service I would never go back.
Also the strawberry margarita was the worst margarita I have ever had! It was pure sugar syrup. Get the lime if you want one.

Okay, I know Pittsburgh isn’t exactly a hotbed of amazing Mexican food.
But holy cow was this bad.
Caveat: nice staff, friendly ambiance. I’d go back for the bar. Just not for the food.
Everything was tepid when it arrived. The beans were congealed. The chicken tasted like it came out of a can. No dressing on the salad.
I’m the worst cook in the world and my burritos are better than that. Yikes.
I don’t have especially high standards, which makes it all the more amazing that I thought this was awful.
Sorry guys. I wanted to like your food!

Having moved here from Southern California, I was skeptical that I would be able to find delicious, authentic Mexican food. This place delivers. Sells great michiladas, asada tacos with two corn tortillas (those are my markers for authentic Mexican food).
Bachata and salsa music make me feel right at home.
Highly recommended.

Second time here and the food is fine. I got a pork burrito, my husband got the carnitas, which is the pulled pork. Mine was definitely lacking in flavor, but the carnitas was better and I would probably order it again. The rice in the burritos tasted similar to rice-​a-​roni, which was a bit disappointing. Refried beans were good.
Complimentary tortilla chips are served fresh and warm with salsa, which was soupy & enjoyable. A tiny kick of spice but definitely tolerable and enjoyable for a spice avoider like me.
Service is fast, servers are friendly. Wish their hours were later for some weekend margaritas, but what can you do.

Eaten here several times. The fish tacos were not crisp, rather, soggy, with no sauce. Refried beans ok, guacamole just ok. Not many mexican options nearby.

This place has not only the worst Mexican food that I have ever had, but quite possibly the worst food that I have ever been served in a restaurant! We could tell immediately that our lunch was going to be terrible. The salsa that accompanied the chips was more like marinara sauce. We had to season it ourselves with salt, pepper and whatever hot sauce was available on the table. The entrees were not any better. I’m not sure if they don’t have salt, pepper or any other seasonings in the kitchen, but it didn’t seem like any made it’s way into our dishes. The refried beans were burned and tasteless as well. Avoid at all costs, unless you’ve never left Pittsburgh and have no idea what authentic Mexican tastes like.

I came here as a lone diner. I asked to sit at the bar, and the waiter obliged. The bartender was friendly and I got a Mango Margarita. At first, I wasn’t a huge fan of the sugar around the glass rim, but with the Mango, it really worked instead of salt. Well made, tasty. The bartender was attentive and I got a Corona and shot of Malibu coconut rum to pour in once drinking the neck (highly recommend). He had no issue with my customer bartender shenanigan.
Warm tortilla chips and three different salsas kept me company while I made up my mind on what to order (plenty of selections here!) and waited for my food to arrive.
I got the Mexican Plate #3 for dinner. I opted for Sour Cream instead of Guacamole, as it was a ton of food and I wasn’t going to need (read: probably couldn’t handle) the increased depth that guac adds to a meal. This meal was huge. A relleno, a steak burrito, a chicken fajita, a beef taco, all with a side of refried beans and Mexican rice.
The relleno was done well, with the cheese inside being a great consistency. Adding some of the beans and rice to a forkful, and this thing was fantastic. The steak burrito was sizeable, and filled with a decent amount of steak, rice, and other fixings. Sour cream worked really well with it. The chicken fajita was great, with the chicken being seasoned well and the onions and peppers adding a perfect mix of flavor. The beef taco was the only lackluster-​y part of the meal, but how do you really compare a hard-​shell taco to the rest of the above? The beef was seasoned well and the cheese on top was good. Beware if you go this route; This is a TON of food. and it’s all delicious and you’re not going to want to stop.
I’ll definitely come back here whenever I want a good Mexican experience. I am very happy and full, hours later.

I’ve been to several wanna be authentic Mexican restaurants here in Pittsburgh. So my husband and I were kinda hesitant to stop at Cocina Mendoza, but it was a really nice surprise! !
Cocina Mendoza has really good Mexican beer
(micheladas), and real Mexican food !!
My husband had the carnitas plate & he was very happy.
We really enjoyed the food & the service.
Very nice, humble, attentive and CLEAN!
we will be back soon!

Working close by, I get takeout from here a lot. So, while I can’t claim to know what their table service is like, their takeout always takes just about 15 minutes. Their tacos are amazing — I love the sauce that comes with the carnitas tacos. Anything else I’ve ordered has always been tasty, mostly enchiladas and their giant chimichangas. And as an extra plus, it usually lasts me for two days of lunches.
I walked down to the store and forgot my wallet once. The owner told me to come back later and pay for my check instead of rushing back and forth. He wanted me to eat my food while it was hot. You definitely don’t see that level of trust and friendliness from most restaurants.

Really didn’t live up to my expectations — salsa is bland and gross. The food was also bland and gave me terrible heartburn. I am an avid Mexican food lover and rarely get heartburn in general. I had the cheese enchiladas, my husband and friends liked their food but they also said it was somewhat bland. My friend who ordered plate #2 had to ask for jalapeños on the side to add some spice. I don’t think I’ll be going here again, which is a shame since I live less than a mile away.

Great authentic Mexican food. Everything tastes fresh and healthy. No like other places where they over salt the food.

Now, I’m from Arizona so this review may seem a bit unfair. I compare all Mexican food, especially when claiming to be authentic, to the food I grew up with. Cocina Mendoza is not even close to authentic. Extremely bland, corn and carrots in the rice, chicken tasted like it came out of a can, soggy taquitos, the list goes on. I didn’t expect to find great Mexican in Pittsburgh, but this place is just awful.
I’ll be nice and rate it one star higher than it deserves.

Over ten years in PGH, the only real Mexican food outside of Texas, or the southwest I’ve had are the Las Palmas street tacos. My daughter was in the mood for a meat dish so we agreed on Cocina Mendoza. (This was my first trip to a Mexican restaurant in sw PA).
We picked a booth with two very cool, and familiar pictures of Pancho Villa staring at us. The chips, and salsa were good, not pico de gallo salsa, but a nice tomato saucy blend of cilantro, maybe a splash of lime, and very little seasoning. The chips were warm, unsalted, and nicely crunchy. I honestly would’ve been happy eating chips, and salsa while my daughter ate her beef fajitas.
I ordered Combination plate 11, cheese chile relleno, one chicken enchilada, and one beef enchilada with rice, and refried beans. It’s been a few years since I’ve had a good chile relleno, and Mendozas was okay. The charred poblano pepper was about the size of my hand, (5 inches long), and filled with queso fresco, dipped in egg white, and fried. My first time having a chile like this. The shredded chicken enchilada, and the ground beef enchiladas were good enough to stifle my cravings until our summer trip south. The Mexican rice, and refried beans were comfort food on their own level. My daughter picked Mendozas fajitas over Emilianos since she’s had both to compare.
Some might describe the food being bland, but I would guess a lot of ethnic food establishments are trying to not scare off those with sensitive taste buds. Fortunately, Cocina Mendoza provides salt, pepper, and Tapatio hot sauce at the table, don’t hesitate to use them!
The décor was inviting, very traditional Mexican restaurant style, and our server was friendly, maybe shy. I’d go back to Cocina Mendoza, it hit the right spot, and was worth braving a gray, cold January day.

Authentic mexican food. Between my husband and I we have tried several items on the menu and everything was good. My favorite is the carnitas dinner. Service is slow and a little unfriendly but worth the food. Id rank it higher than most other mexican restaurants in the south hills area.

I can see that the this place got mixed reviews and I understand why. My meal was good (I had the vegetarian platter #2). You do get free tortilla chips as you do at most Mexican restaurants but the salsa was runny and just okay in my opinion. Also, our margarita was disappointingly small and was 75% ice.
The service was very friendly but it seemed unorganized because we were waited on several people who kept coming up to us asking if we had been helped yet. It was busier when we were there though so that was probably contributory. I would describe the décor as cheesy. Meals possibly overpriced.
Overall, I rate this place as average. Fine if you are craving Mexican but wouldn’t go out of my way to go here.

Great place of you want to have a lot of Mexican food. Portions were generous for the dinners. Some of the components were in the bland side but overall everything tasted like any other Mexican place. Margaritas were disappointing as they were mostly ice. Service was kind of slow too. I would go back if I am craving Mexican food and don’t want to drive very far to get it.

We recently tried Cocina Mendoza, mostly because it was close and I had a hankering for fake Mexican. (Hello, Pittsburgh — these places are NOT authentic… Mexicans don’t use flour tortillas for starters nor do they cheese the hell out of everything. I’m guessing the people who would call these sorts of places authentic also think Olive Garden and Benihana are authentic… But I digress.)
Anyhow, I was expecting an el camps level experience. But it wasn’t even that good. (Side note: why is the el camp’s on McKnight so vastly superior to the other locations?) It was just bland as heck and the service, while pleasant, was really slow. Despite the place being empty. Prices were what you’d expect. On the upside, portions were huge if you’re into that type of thing. Of the three of us who went together, the best thing had was a chicken quesadilla… not a good sign.
For this type of a joint, I definitely prefer El Paso over in Bridgeville. If you want something resembling real Tex Mex/​Mexican, it’s worth the drive to Los Chiludos (which wins hands down). Honestly, I’d pick a Moe’s over this one… We won’t be back.

Solid authentic Mexican food. Close knit Mexican family. Servers are a little unfriendly, but who cares when you’re digging into endless chips and 4 kinds of salsa. We were seated at the bar, which was uncomfortable because of a large edge. Great food, Coronas a plenty, and Spanish tv.

Second time here. We sat at the bar and got the same bar tender, who we liked a lot the first time. everyone is friendly. The margaritas were just as good as we remembered, the perfect combo of sweet and sour. We got a «meal for 2». Everything was great, including the price!

What the *bleep* is wrong (and by wrong I mean AWESOMELY RIGHT) with you, Pittsburgh?!
It is a well-​known fact that Mexican restaurants all across the nation have a tendency to stuff you with food, enticing you to eat a veritable smörgåsbord of cheesy, meaty, spicy goodness piled high on plates the size of hubcaps until you surrender to the inevitable food coma and wake up two days later STILL REALLY FULL. I figured that Cocina Mendoza would be similar in this respect. Except that I’d forgotten that THIS! IS! PITTSBURGH!
… which means that their «Meal for Two» specials are completely misleading, unless by «two» you mean «two veteran champions of the International Federation of Competitive Eating». For the rest of us mere mortals, it’s more like a meal for 4 … or 6. And how tasty the food is! Crunchy, meaty, dreamy taquitos. Lovely fajitas with tender chicken and succulent marinated steak. Quesadillas that must have been half an inch thick at the very least, oozing with lovely queso. And refried beans and Spanish rice so tightly packed into their to-​go containers that you swear that the wonders of modern compression technology (here’s looking at you, Lempel-​Ziv-​Markov) must have been involved somehow. Glorious!
My wife — who is herself an accomplished Mexican cook — comments that the food is very «homemade» in nature, prepared with love by people who obviously care a lot about food. She likes one of the salsas in particular so much that she wants to go with me to see if she can get the recipe from the cooks there. That’s high praise coming from someone who was taught by a Mexican housewife whose food was the envy of the entire neighborhood.
And now, as I sink further and further into my food coma, I repeat: what the *bleep* is wrong (and by wrong I mean AWESOMELY RIGHT) with you, Pittsburgh?!