Que Pasa Cantina

We have been going there since it was called Aqui. The margaritas are wonderful, I love carne asade fajitas and my wife really enjoys the Chicken Enchilada Casserole, and we always binge on the chips and salsa. The staff is always very sweet and you cannot beat the value.

Great customer service, great food. I think they could have had a little bit better enchiladas, I thought they could have used more sauce and more cheese. The sauce was not really sauce, it tasted more like spice paste. Also shredded chicken would have been superior I think for texture. The beans were lacking in flavor and fat content, almost undercooked, wish the rice was less dry and steamed a few minutes longer, perhaps more water less oil, a fresh tomato base, then finished with your signature spices.
Their nachos are great maybe a tad expensive once you add the meat, yet I will continue to eat here and try more plates.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that my wife and I have eaten here at least 50 times. It’s one of our favorite places in Portland, especially for unique Mexican food. The menu surprises with fun, family recipe style dishes instead of the standard fare you might expect. My wife loves getting anything with the popular ‘Potatoes Olé’ side (kind of a Mexican mashed potato with veggies, sour cream, spice, etc). I lean towards their amazing carne asada burrito or chicken enchilada casserole. Either way, don’t miss their crazy good margaritas. They are very smooth, well priced, and can even be purchased by the pitcher. Finally, I must comment on how great the service is. We often bring our 1 year old and they are extremely nice and welcoming each and every time. We’ve never once had an «off» night.

The best Mexican food I have found in Portland — great cozy space (a little noisy but worth it!) and friendly staff. Good options for veg/​vegans — flexible.

So I’m excited about this little place. Went here for happy hour, not knowing it was still happy hour– so when we ordered our waitress said «off of the happy hour menu” — OH! We had the loaded nachos and the carne asada taquitos and we went through two margaritas each. Pretty darn good margs. My friend had been before and knew they had a pineapple jalapeño margarita, I’m definitely going to be back for that one. It comes with little chunks of pineapple and slices of jalapeños in it! Our food came out pretty quickly and the nachos were great, cheese, beans, onion, jalapeños and carne asada, but you can pick what mean you want on it. Next time I want to try their carnitas.
The table next to us ordered their tacos and I was kinda staring. They had grilled onions and fresh onions on them, then they were generously sprinkled with cilantro, which I love!
There were a handful of things that I would come back to try– their soups, they even had a salad that sparked my interest. Our server was very kind, checked in on us and brought me an extra side of salsa right away when I asked.
The place was busy! They have about 8 or so tables inside, one little room in the back, enough for one group to sit at and the outdoor seating area that was covered and I guess they had heaters? Someone was out there with a newborn baby so it must have been warm.
Street parking was easy to find around the corner. I’m definitely going to come back to this spot.

The waitstaff was wonderful. Thank you, Marylyn. Very friendly and attentive.

My wife and I live this place. Food is delicious, the service is great, prices affordable. It’s a popular place, so expect to wait a bit on Friday and Saturday nights, but it’s worth it. Easy for vegans too. Their chips and salsa is fantastic. Outdoor heated seating area is also really nice.

In search of good tacos, I found this place on here so decided to stop in for something new. The space was inviting, and a table was cleared upon entry, but that was the highlight in my opinion. Only sold tacos in pairs so couldn’t try more flavors, so I went with the Pastor per recommendations of the server. I’ve had many of tacos in Portland, and these were fine, but nothing spectacular. Definitely will try other spots before coming back here.

Shitty service, staff treated us like we didn’t exist and sat us ina corner for 10 minutes. After complaining about it, we still sat around for another five minutes before anyone noticed ended up leaving after all this waiting.

Yum! Azteca soup and taquitos for a light but very satisfying dinner. I enjoyed my delightful and tasty meal in their covered, heated patio.

So amazing!!! I love the staff, the atmosphere, and the owners are awesome!!! The food is absolutely amazing and the margaritas are so delicious!!! I love Jorge, Angie, and Sarah!!! If you can, check out their happy hour!!! Their nachos are the best! Love Que Pasa Cantina!!!

I came here because of the four square list 15 best fajitas! They weren’t wrong the food was amazing! We had great service very attentive and everything was to die for! Definitely save room for tres leches dessert!
I was most impressed by the tenderness and niceness of the meat! And everything tasted like it was made in house!
We will be back often! It’s so hard to find good Mexican food so it’s nice to have a spot picked out!

I apologize for the slew of 5-​star reviews, so let me acknowledge my positive bias upfront. But as I’ve said before, I am a big sucker for value, especially in a city whose restaurant tend to over-​sells on ambience and creativity while under-​delivering on price and quality. Que Pasa keeps it real with a quaint outdoor patio and middle-​of-​the-​line Mexican food offerings (think Macayos if you are from the Southwest). The menu and taste is 4-​star but the reasonable prices ($ 15 for a big plate and beer) combined with the great happy hour atmosphere makes Que Pasa a solid go-​to on a sunny Portland afternoon. Strongly recommend the margaritas and tostadas.

We (my daughter and I) came here to celebrate my birthday.
WHAT WE LIKED:
— Cute little neighborhood restaurant.
— Flavorful food.
— Friendly staff.
— Reasonable prices.
— Great cocktail menu, with some unique twists on standard drinks (we had a strawberry lemon drop and a lime Rickey) Note: Check the chalk board for food and drink specials.
— Delicious perfectly cooked steak («medium») for the carne asada fanitas.
— Love the chips and salsa. The chips are extra thick like pita chips and come with 3 types of salsa (mild/​red, medium/​verde, spicy/​orange).
— Dessert. I had Tres Leche cake and it was a huge slice. The portion was more than enough for two people, although I had ordered it just for myself. I couldn’t even finish out and, sadly, had to leave the last couple bites on the plate because I was full. But it was DELICIOUS!!!
WHAT WE DIDN’T LIKE:
— Parking, ugh!
— Tables are too close together, back-​to-​back. I get that this is a REALLY SMALL space, so they need to maximum the space to minimize wait times for customers, but it was very awkward to be back-​to-​back contantly bumping chairs with the woman behind me.
— The rice was dry and not very flavorful. It looked delicious, but when I tasted it I was very disappointed. Neither my daughter nor I ate our rice.
— Red and green peppers in the fajitas were undercooked (I like my veggies firm, but our peppers were barely sauteed and almost crunchy) but the onions were perfect.
— Before placing our food order, we ordered appetizers and drinks. The waitress brought our drinks and my daughter’s appetizer, but didn’t bring my appetizer. Then she took our food order. About 15 minutes later, I still didn’t have my appetizer, so I (very nicely) asked the waitress if it would be much longer and she said «no, they’re making it now, it will just be a few minutes» but then literally 2 – 3 minutes later she brought our entrees. I told her that I didn’t want my appetizer anymore, because I wanted the appetizer to eat while I was waiting for my entrée, not after my entrée and she acted shocked that I didn’t want it at the same time as my entrée (um, ceviche WITH my fajitas, no thank you!) I had been looking forward to ceviche all day, so that was really, really disappointing!

In this order, follow me people:
Cadillac margaritas
chips/​salsa/​guac
Chicken enchilada casserole with a green goddess dressed salad
Trezz lechezzz mucho delecichez cakez (cause that’s how you’ll be saying it after you’re unable to stop swigging the margaritas)

This place wasn’t my favorite Mexican food, but they have a good environment and outdoor area. I’ll have to come back for happy hour.
They don’t give you chips and salsa like most Mexican restaurants. I got the chorizo enchiladas. The chorizo was good but I didn’t care for the sauce. Everyone else seemed to like theirs so maybe I got the wrong thing. There is a variety of choices so I’ll have to go back.

My husband and I met in Los Angeles, dated there, and fell in love there… and a large part of our courtship involved Mexican Food! Since we’ve lived in Portland we’ve had really awful Mexican food, really fancy Mexican food and Taco Bell… up until now our favorite has been Taco Bell… who doesn’t love Taco Bell?
Recently we discovered Que Pasa… while it’s not the perfect Mexican we had in LA… it’s definitely the only place that has filled that void. They have spicy when you want spicy, cheesy when you want cheesy — and they have pretty great margaritas… which are all available in a pitcher. They also have a lovely patio that they heat in the winter, and I’m sure it will be perfect come summer.
I’m a sucker for fish tacos — and theirs were delish… beware, the yogurt sauce was spicy… I loved that, but my litter sister would have found it too spicy! We had a pitcher of the «skinny margarita». It was tangy and not too sweet… if you love your margaritas sweet you should order something else. I like my margaritas TANGY and LIMEY and this was PERFECT! The pitcher had A LOT of ice, but we easily filled 5 margaritas so that turned out fine.
I am excited to go back, excited we found a place that feels like the places we loved in LA, and happy that we’ve finally found a place in Portland that has authentic, yummy Mexican food that isn’t so ‘gourmet’ it ruins the fun of Mexican food!

Unilocal, you led me astray! I was not pleased with my experience here whatsover. Our initial plan was to hit up a food cart, but finding that they were out of what we wanted and on a time crunch, we came here.
We were seated promptly, given drinks and then our waiter ignored us for 10 minutes even though we were clearly ready to order some food. We both got the mole chicken enchilada, which came out fairly quickly.
In a word… blegh. The color of the mole sauce was right, and that’s about it. I don’t know what kind of sauce it was really besides BLAND. The chicken had zero flavor or spice to it as well. Also it came to us about room temperature — what happened to the «don’t touch the plate, it’s hot!» that seems to standard at Mexican joints.
For $ 13, I was NOT happy at all. I’ve had better, cheaper food at Azteca for heavens sakes. The menu was huge and looked interesting, but for the price and quality… nope.

Well worth the 15 minute wait on a busy Saturday night. They will call you from the High Dive next door if you want to have a well mixed cocktail while you wait.
Somehow, we got the ‘VIP’ room I called it, a small room off to the back, ensconced in candle light and a warm glow from the fake fireplace. The stars must have been aligned to put us in the romantic corner with cool lighting-​or they just saw we had a baby and wanted to stick us in the back. Either way, I couldn’t have imagined better seating.
The seafood enchiladas were out of this world, I couldn’t believe how good they were. The potatoes were amazing and something I’d like to try at home. They even let me mix one mole enchilada and one seafood enchilada-​and charged me for the cheaper of the two-​that never happens.
The margarita was sweet and sour perfection on a hot day, the corn on the cob was unique and delicious, the guacamole was green goodness. I wasn’t too big on their salsa, but everything else led to an amazing ‘first baby date night’ with ambiance, comfort and taste adventures.

Review is for Happy Hour only
$ 5 Nachos! Crazy loaded nachos! You guys, I ran out of CHIPS before I ran out of toppings. Let that sink in for a minute.
The $ 5 House Margarita was probably the least offensive typical sour-​mix version of the drink I’ve ever had. Not delicious, but totally passable for $ 5. The nachos were the real standout here, the rita was just there to wash them down.
All in all, happy hour success!