Mojito

Great Latin food in Seattle. In this part of the country, anything but Mexican food is very slim pickings. Mojito delivers on authentic, no frills, lots of flavor food. They have some menu items that reflect fusion in the PNW, I chose to avoid these, as I was looking for good Latin food. The steak and the chicken here are top notch, good job on the rice and beans as well. If you are looking for good food, good flavor hole in the wall type of place this is for you.

If you haven’t been to Latin America, tasted the the real and lived to tell it, then come here. Good ppl. Great food, great service. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been here and have had consistently great experiences. Best Latin restaurant in the Puget Sound… music is crackin too.

Mojito is located on Lake City Way NE nestled among Maple Leaf suburbia. The atmosphere is casual & the staff are very friendly. Unfortunately what knocked a few stars down for me was the quality of the food. I went here for lunch and had a cuban sandwich that was a bit burnt and my fried green plantains arrived cold. But the pork was super tender & juicy! I’d definitely give this place another chance as the dinner menu is jam-​packed with classics.

Absolutely great! Authentic flavors and great atmosphere. Loved the small intimate setting and can’t wait to come back and enjoy it in the summer. I’m bringing friends without a doubt. So happy to have found Mojitos!
Pesco sour and camarones appetizer for a late night dinner. Hubby had vaca and I certainly didn’t pass on his offer to finish his plate — the beef was tender but crisped lightly on edges, the cumin and other spices in the black beans and rice kept me returning for more, and the plantain with bits of cotija — yum.
If you enjoy heat ask for the hot sauce and be warned — it’s wonderfully hot!
Shared the tres leches made perfectly!

Tasty mojitos. Great food. Prompt, friendly service. Love!
We enjoyed the mojito platter, pescado mojito, and parilla mojito. All excellent!

I have to admit it pains me to post this review but it really needs to be posted.
My party included one Cuban one Russian that lived in Cuba, one Venezuelan/​American so this post is actually about the impressions we all had.
The service was really good. The person taking care of us was super attentive and cordial and that about ends the good part.
How did they manage to make me not eat anything is beyond me because I LOVE Venezuelan and Cuban food. I drove 41 minutes to get here.
We ordered sopa de rabo, arepa with shredded beef, yuca frita, parrilla, maduros, quesillo and white rice.
Sopa de rabo: The top part of meat on the bone had obviously been left out in the air for most of the day because it was dry as soft wood. Apparently from what I’ve learned later they cook mostly somewhere else and just re-​heat a lot for the stuff at the place. The quality of the meat is below par. Keep in mind this is a $ 13 bowl of soup. It was really bad although my cuban friend though it was really bad but it didn’t get to the awful level and that I should have seen what he ate when he was in communist cuba. I still wonder if he was just being funny. Thanks buddy but no thanks.
Arepa: I mean how can you make a bad arepa? That’s like making bad spaghetti. The pass lacked moisture and it was fried into a hard almost burnt crust around a barely cooked corn dough. On top of that the person cutting the arepa broke the hard crust as in it being so hard it cracked like glass and instead of making another arepa he decided to leave the other half uncut, fill the arepa only to the middle and flip it over so that it wouldn’t look half filled of cracked in the middle of it. Oh also it came on a bed of lettuce and full of cilantro on top. I had to actually brush it off to find the arepa under all that cilantro. BTW there is no such thing as cilantro sprinkled arepas of on any bed of anything. Also some info for Americans. 90% of latin countries DON’T USE OR LIKE spicy hot food. It’s like thinking everyone uses sombreros from looking at a speedy Gonzales cartoon.
Spicy hot food is only at countries that had strong local indian population such as Mexico’s Aztecs or Guatemalan/​Honduran Mayas. Once you go bellow mexico and Guatemala in central america you start getting into the mostly European-​influenced food where there is no spicy hot anything. FYI there is no such thing as habanero chilli pepper in La Habana. It’s an american invention and there is no typical spicy hot Cuban food or Venezuelan or Colombian or Brazilian or Argentinian or Chilean for that matter.
White rice: Again what’s the fixation with the amount of cilantro on top of the food? I might just as well order a plate full of cilantro since it will taste the same as the rest of the food.
The yuca frita IS NOT YUCA FRITA. It’s some sort of breaded yuca fries made somewhere else, reheated at the restaurant, cold from letting them get cold again and awful. Again the spicy sauce on them makes it impossible to eat.
Parrilla: She tried hard but couldn’t chew this thing. The excessive amount of cilantro, crushed garlic assaulted your senses to the point that it took time to get used to it making other people eating in the same table «taste» that plate too.
Maduros: They were OK. A little burnt but after trying the other stuff I was just too hungry so I was happy to finally eat something that could placate my hunger.
Quesillo (sort of like a flan): Not even close. Also burned in the middle and with rum to cover the bad taste.
I mean the diet coke: You feel a glass full to the top with crushed ice and then fill the intersticial space with diet coke and you get a diet coke ice cone not a soda.
I’m so disappointed at this place. After been to the other Venezuelan one which was the absolute opposite experience to this one on how good the food is it made this one an even more painful experience.
I was going to have a conversation with the waiter and tell him our impressions but the other people in the party didn’t feel like going through that and spoil the rest of the evening so we let it be.
Then for all that awful food we ended up paying $ 80 with one diet coke and three waters. We did leave a $ 10 tip to the waiter which was unfortunately the only redeeming thing about this place.

Mojito is by far our favorite go-​to spot for super delicious food anytime we’re entertaining family or friends in town. We also love going to Mojito on a frequent basis, so we can get away from the standard variety of restaurants, and instead enjoy a more local and mouth-​watering Latin American cuisine!
Once you visit Mojito, you’ll feel like family and will long to return anytime you have a special occasion. Mojito is at a great location just off Lake City Way & I-​5, and very accessible from Green Lake, Roosevelt, Maple Leaf areas.

The colors of anything you order here really brightens up your day and just looks fabulous on a plate. However, the flavors left much to be desired. We tried the pescado en guiso for 12 $ (white fish fillet w/​tomato-​based sauce, capers, olives, white wine) and pabellon for 12 $ (shredded beef in red pepper onion tomato sauce w/​rice and black beans).
The fish was buried under the dark tomato sauce but nestled above a thin bed of rice. With each bite, I really had no idea how much fish I actually got. Those bites that did include fish, it was very soft, but kind of bland. The cute little salad on the side was refreshing, but nothing quite stand-​out. There are two small plantain pieces as dessert, which was a sweet end to the meal. The pabellon went very nicely with the onions and peppers and had a spiciness that wasn’t overwhelming. Beans took up most of the plate though, along with the rice that left you wishing for more actual meat.
The small portions were ok for the price… but you definitely had a bit of room left for something else after cleaning the plate. The location is in a colorful building on an unusual corner of Lake City Way that was a bit hard to find. Parking is street parking in the nearby neighborhoods.

When you’re in this part of town, do you want Subway or some of the best Cuban food? We had the vaca frita (well, she ordered it, I proceeded to eat half, it was that good). And I had Pabellon — very legit. I also ordered the Pisco Sour — like a made from scratch whiskey Sour with egg white. Soooo good. The owner saw my gf drinking mine and brought her one on the house to «save our marriage.» Hahah. Well played.
FYI, servings are very large. We could have split one. Kind of glad we didn’t but will next time for sure.
Will *definitely* be back.

The vaca frita here is really good. The fried beef with the lime and garlic is delicious. I also liked they had different varieties of fried plantains.
It’s a really small place in the middle of a neighborhood so it’s not a big swanky place. It looks and feels like a family run place. Service was fine and they had good drinks. Prices are really good for the lunch menu

I love Cuban food so when my friend suggested we meet here, I was thrilled to try it.
This is a small space built to fit the triangular location, bright and airy with quick friendly service. Brightly painted and music playing you can’t help but feel happy to be there.
I had the Vaca Frita which was outstanding. I’m typically not a beef eater, this meat was full of flavors, particularly garlic and lime –yum! It was served with rice & beans and plantains. A perfect lunch. I also tried a mojito — they do not skimp on the booze and the drink was heavy on the line which I prefer.
Drinks are a bit pricey $ 8 but normal for «the city». Plates were reasonable (under $ 15) and were adequately portioned.
I would absolutely recommend this place and hope to go back when I’m in the Seattle area again!

The location is a little strange but surprisingly nice and relaxing. It’s a small place that needs the outside space to make a profit I think. I also think the small space has pushed up the prices. The food and the drinks are few dollars more than the quality and style justify which robbed it of another star.
The food is good but has lost it’s freshness so i am guessing it was prepared in advanced and just reheated up. I would happily have this from a food truck or for a few dollars cheaper. The food is simple and authentic enough for a place not in pan-​Latin America. The drinks are okay but they have glasses stacked with crushed limes waiting for more people that the restaurant can hold. I wouldn’t go out of my way to drink here.
Next summer I would like to go back but there isn’t anything drawing me to come back.

We recently moved to Seattle and are still searching for good Latin American restaurants. On Unilocal this place looked awesome, with a lot of reviews and decent ratings, so we decided to give it a try.
The place is okay, but not as good as can be inferred from the reviews. Also it seems a bit overpriced for the quality of food. We liked the appetizer with fish, but yucca was a disappointment. Tostones seemed to be not fresh enough. So overall, not too bad, but could be much better.

2.5 stars. Sadly this place was one of those odd places that we felt were over hyped based on Unilocal reviews. The restaurant is located up north of Seattle and east of Greenlake neighborhood. The place is actually quite small. with both indoor and outdoor seating areas… it’s probably able to hold about 15 tables max.
We arrived at Mojito and the waitress informed us that its probably be 20 minutes wait line. She didn’t really take our names or anything down so the wait line was actually quite disorganized. Given a few entrances that this restaurant has, we wouldn’t be surprised if someone who came later got a table before us… since the whole queue and wait line management was not there.
The place seems to be popular with alcohol/​cocktail drinks but we couldn’t judge the restaurant on those as we don’t drink. However, we were definitely let down by the quality and taste of the food there. We ordered Lechon Asado and Pabellon ($ 16 ea) and when the food came we knew right away that the food wasn’t freshly cooked. First, the food was not hot. the meat, the sides that came with them were all at room temperature. This was also confirmed by the fact that as we were sitting out on the patio, we saw their kitchen staff carrying in frozen plantains and yucca fries. It seems like the place may cook the meat in mass order each day. along with reheating the sides to go with their dishes. Although the food tasted ok, given the prices (and the reviews we read), we were expecting better quality.
Overall, it’s a decent place. However, for a quality meal of the same price range, I think I can find something better elsewhere.

Very authentic menu very friendly service nice little hole in the wall y’all should try this it’s ligit to the max also it lives up to its name great mojitos

Amazing food, great people — can’t ask for more! Everything from the lunch and dinner menu is fresh and balanced with all of the flavoring. Not to mention a small characteristic; their are small music instruments that you can play to the adjacent music, living up the environment! I love it

I am always in search of new places with different flavors and spices, boy did I stumble upon the right place. I ordered the Pabellon which is shredded beef marinated in this amazing sauce! It seriously had explosive flavors. It’s tangy, slightly sweet, and definitely had a combination of savory spices all in one dish. The maduros were absolutely delicious. I love it when the edges get slightly burnt and crisp. Even the beans had great flavor. I’m not usually a big fan of beans but I ate everything on my plate. Cleaned it!
Mojito has a nice extensive drink list and of course their specialty are mojitos. I didn’t get one, but they were very enticing. Perhaps, next time on a nice sunny day while sitting on their patio.
The location is on this funky little triangular corner near I-​5. It’s not a very big restaurant however, we didn’t have to wait to get a seat. There is plenty of street parking around but beware the restaurant is on a one way street.
In my opinion mojito is WAY better than Bongos. This place epitomizes what I think of when I hear cuban food. Tons of flavor and tender succulent meat. Paseo may win when it comes to cuban sandwiches but Mojito takes the cake when it comes to plated food.
I have literally been craving Mojito since my last visit. I anticipate that I will be back very soon and perhaps more often as the weather gets nicer.

How does this place have 4 stars? Just experienced horrible service, food was not authentic (been to many excellent Venezuelan and Cuban places in LA) and this place was neither. They didn’t even know what a Cachapa was. (Typical Venezuelan pancake) They seem to have about half the servers required to attend their customers, which the servers were very impolite and almost rude the whole time. The food was very overpriced ($ 16 for greasy Pabellon. really?) for such poor qualify food.
All in all. much better places out there that have great service and food.
One more observation: as we were about to leave the kitchen brought more FROZEN pre-​made bags of tostones (fried banana chips). So sad.
This should tell you the rest of the story…

Who eats dinner at 330pm? Anyways, came here to have dinner and you may pass it while driving by, it sits on a slightly odd corner off Lake City Way and the I-​5 split off. No real parking lot so just park whereever you can find a spot.
Feeling a little homesick… this place has been on my radar for some time now and being a big fan of Cuban food, I thought I would try it out. Walked in and the place was pretty busy with all the tables all taken up already. Inside has less than 10 tables, so we had to wait a bit before we got seated. I asked if we could sit outside but they didnt have enough staff to service the outside area so we continued to wait for a table to open up. Unfortunately, nothing opened up, and we thought about getting our food to-​go but the server gentleman said that he didnt want us to wait any longer and he will serve us on the patio/​outside area and set up a table for us. That was very nice of him.
We already looked over the menu while waiting so we decided to get the Pepito sandwich and the Lechon Asado. The Pepito was pretty good, nice amount of grilled steak on the sandwich, flavorful, plenty of garlic mojo flavor as well. Came with a few tostones as well. You have an option to add a fried egg on top but we forgot to mention that to the server.
The Lechon Asado was pretty good as well, nothing blew me away but it wasnt bad. Flavorful marinated shredded pork with some pretty good congri, a couple of tostones and a few yuca fries. The herb garlic mojo sauce they put on it is pretty tasty, very garlic-​y that will give you a hit of spice and enough to keep the vampires away.
Food took a while to come out but the service was ok, I can tell they were short staffed, but they were working hard trying to keep up. Overall, I would come back again to try more of their menu.

Las veces que comimos en mojito nos Gustaron mucho! Pero este sabado me lleva una gran desilusión con su sándwich de milanesa para llevar. Me pusieron toda la carne cortadita en pedazos, como si fuera comida de bebe! En lugar de poner un pedazo de milanesa entero me tocaron como mucho 8 pedacitos que no llenaban la mitad del pan. Doy una estrella porq lo que paso me pareció horrible. Imagínate que haces un take out y te encontras con eso :(Yo me pregunto si te dan la misma carne cuando lo comes ahí??

Friday night and looking for something in the area to eat. We generally end up in the same restaurant all the time because of what we are used to and for convenience. This time around decided to really explore the neighborhood and find a good place to eat that we would never think about going to. We eating Cuban food the first thing that comes to mind is Paseo. We often forget that sammiches aren’t the only thing Cuba has to offer. There are dishes out there that are just as good.
Upon arrival, parking is really easy and plenty of it since it isn’t in a busy neighborhood. The only thing that was irritating was a one way street but that didn’t deter us from going.
Ordered some fish and a beef dish. The portions were really big and was full of flavor. The plantains were so good. I ate half of my meal when I was there. Got pretty full from my dish and too the rest home. Once I got home, I felt the urge to finish the rest of the dish. Despite a full belly I conquered all! Looking forward to going back here to eat!

Favorite spot, different locations!
Mojito introduced me to my very first mojitos way back when they were on Denny’s! Wayyy back when!!! It was my very first drink of alcohol! Becoming an adult is fun!! That place was big, bustling and oh so much fun on weekends. Live music, good food, dancing! You name it, they got it.
And then they moved. I’ve been craving their well balanced Cuban dishes and of course mojitos for days till one day. One day, I walked in here, squealed, gleed and dove right back into that happiness!
Décor– this place is much more homier and smaller. If you’re not careful, you can miss the exit and have to back track. But once you’re here, you’ll be happy! Colorful décor, music, mojitos and a small kitchen busting out amazing dishes!
What to get? Everything! Everything taste good. Some of my favorites:
Vaca Frita — very Cuban and very good. Shredded beef with lime juice, congri and maduros. Yummm! It’s a perfectly well seasoned dish.
Parilla mojito — their most popular item and right fully so. Juicy steak with rice, black beans, yuca frita, tastibes and guasacaca. This is my second favorite dish.
Lechon Asado– tasty shredded pork with yuca, tostones and my fav — congri. Yuca fries are nice and crunchy. Tostones are pretty good too.
To balance it all out, try their special homemade habanero hot sauce. That liquid gold concoction is made fresh daily and set in a decanter by the kitchen. It is soooo spicy, kind of like getting a slap in the face that wakes you up. But it’s a good slap! And once you start eating, you can’t stop. Happy endorphins party :)
Pescado frito is also good. Not too crazy about the pescado mojito though. Pair them all with their flan or many mojitos flavors. I like sun blaster, mojito, caipirinha and their tucan! They have sangria and wine as well. And on the weekend– they have their special oxtail dish. It’s a traditional Cuban dish that people share on Sunday’s. Or so I was told. It’s a nice big bowl of hearty stew guaranteed to knock your hangover out. :) Add their special habaneros sauce, it’s pure magic! Party for my tastebuds every single time. Gracias, Mojito!

The place is pretty straight forward and simple. The only bad thing is the super flat coke. The beer is just fine. :p
Wish this place was bigger because the food is pretty darn good overall. I had my friend order something different so I could eat half of his stuff too! We tried the Cuban style sandwiches and I love the crispy outside (not too hard) and the plentiful amount of meat in the inside. They were both well seasoned and flavorful.
The waiter gave us a habanero salsa that is just awesome. The sauce was not too hot to handle and had a good heat to taste balance (for me). The Guacamole that came with our side order of shredded beef stuffed pockets married well with everything including the side order of course.
Really laid back place on a small corner street. Prices were very reasonable and the theme of the place was a humbling Latin ambiance that assisted in the full experience of relaxation. Thanks!

Amazing, just go! From the drinks to the food to the cake.
My girlfriend is from Panama and went to cooking school in NYC at international culinary institute and her and I both loved it.
The food was amazing, tried the plantains, the fish, the steak and the ox tail soup.
Come sunday for an amazing taste.
We will be back soon.