La Bamba Restaurant

We had the garnachas and cheviche de camaron for appetizers and the mojarra frita for our main course. The food was excellent and the was service was great. Enjoy up-​to-​date music of your choice. A very nice family friendly kids welcomed restaurant.

What a great comfort dinner I had this past weekend! Great service and delicious appetizers and the two main courses my wife and I had. Very humble and peaceful place, Guatemala at its best. No wonder this place have been here a while.

This restaurant was — meh. The food we got was pretty bland — probably the best option was the Lomo Montado, which is typically hard to mess up. The chorizo was very underspiced, which was surprising. The music from the jukebox was far too loud to easily talk, and the waitress said it had only two volumes: on or off.
That being said, if you really like Guatemalan food, this is probably a decent choice. Just don’t expect anything special in the seasoning or flavors.

I would give NO stars if it were possible. Five of us went here for dinner and NOBODY liked what they ordered or ate more than half the dinner they got! The waitress seemed almost hostile, as if she was mad at having to wait on us. We should have gotten the hint when there was almost nobody in the restaurant when we arrived. There were NO substitutions. There were tacos and enchiladas on the menu, but she said you couldn’t get one of each on a plate! One person got the two chicken enchilada dinner and had two bites and said he couldn’t eat the rest. When another person smothered burrito arrived, the melted cheese on it smelled ‘sour’. We did not complain to the waitress, but she still had to be practically begged to refill our soft drinks, and then only if asked individually. This place was weird and awful, Don’t go here, it’s Twilight Zone.

I had the churrasco platter but substitute with carne adobada. Excellent! The meat is seasoned perfectly and the ensalada rusa is amazing.
The only thing that I want to mention is that you can only have one basket of chips. When we got there we wanted more chips because we were hungry and waiting and the waitress said she wasn’t allowed to :/​
Everything else was great. There was a family ambiance today. Depending on the day and time you go you might run into a couple of folks drinking.
Overall 5 star, Yummy.

The food is cheap. You can get a taco platter for $ 6.95. In Silver Spring that is unheard of. It is also pretty decent. It isn’t greasy and you don’t feel like crap after eating it.
The one big problem is the service. Some of the servers are nice despite lacking good English, however, some of them are downright rude. If it wasn’t for this I would give them 4 stars.

Very randomly stumbled upon this place in Silver Spring.
Absolutely fantastic, authentic food. Had some kind of mini-​tostada appetizer that was perfect to share, crunchy, with beef, tomato, and just a hint of crumbly cheese.
My main course, Guatemalan beef stew was fantastic. With each bite I asked myself «how is this so tender?» It was seasoned with restraint and deliciousness.
Prices were very, very reasonable, service was great. Food takes on the longish side to come out, but that’s to be expected for authentic

Love their «Carne Adovada» and Orchata. Waitresses are very friendly. Drive here from Baltimore just for their food.

This is really close to where I live, so I pass by about twice a week. Food is solid, I recommend the Carne or Pechuga Empanizada.

Good food, strange ambiance. The music playing from the jukebox (80s rock?) was generally loud and obnoxious. We didn’t encounter language problems except when one member of our group tried to explain that she was a vegetarian, which required some Spanish to solidify the point. The portions, though, were great and the food excellent, particularly the black beans!

The reviews below are accurate. The food is tasty and slightly different than Mexican. It is very affordable and our waitress spoke good English although I got the impression the others did not. The service was pretty good too. The music was a little loud but I am a fan. And the restaurant had four waitresses — all Hispanic who were all drop dead gorgeous.

To reemphasize what’s been stated already, this is a Guatemalan restaurant and not necessarily a Mexican restaurant.
At this place you’ll get Guatemalan enchiladas which are in fact different than Mexican enchiladas. Their tortillas are much thicker than traditional Mexican tortillas (they’re not quite as thick as our sopes but definitely an in-​between). As you can probably imagine, this place does hold a lot of similarities in what you would expect from a Mexican restaurant focusing on Southwestern or Costa Chica cuisine (not that many people would know what to expect).
I ordered the roasted chicken and it came with a small side of rice and beans as well as two (just two) tortillas. The chicken was good, the rice and beans were nothing special, and the tortillas were in too short of supply.

This place is solid. I’m from a border town in the southwest, and as far as I can tell there is no good Mexican food in Montgomery County (usually soupy, tasteless and overpriced). Salvadorian food, yes. Mexican, no.
This place is by far better than the rest, and the right price, too. It is the only place I go to get something close to what I used to get at home. True, service can be slow and not a whole lot of English going on inside, but I’m there for solid food at a great price, not fancy atmosphere.

Bad service. Was given an excuse for no chips and saw three other tables seated after us served chips. Drinks never refilled. Salty food. Offered no knives. Waited 15 min for all food to be delivered. Then tried to be charged gratuity for a party of four. I will never go back, avoid like the plague.

This place has pretty solid food, but a mild selection, at a very decent price. I don’t often take people out to eat, but after three of us had lunch and it came out to just over $ 20, I was inspired to go ahead and treat my compadres.
The service is so-​so (might be better if you speak Spanish, our server seemed apprehensive dealing with us in English, but friendly). Nothing is really so amazing that I would write home about it, but I will be going again. Its good for a quick stop in and a bite to eat with friends. Although, it would have been nice if they had something on the TV besides Dora the Explorer. I know it was a Saturday afternoon, but still. There were no kids there, why am I watching a little girl talk to her map. Seriously, that show is creepy. All the characters constantly stare out of the screen into your soul and wait for you to respond. Which on mute just means periodically all the ‘cute’ characters just stop and stare at you smiling. Are they going to kill me? Do they know something I don’t know? Why am I talking about Dora the Explorer instead of the food?
tl;dr — Decent food, its cheap. I will be going again, but not taking people there to show off.

La Bamba serves pretty solid Latin American food, seemingly with a Guatamlan slant. I’m honestly not sure exactly what Guatamalan food is supposed to be like in deference to any of it’s neighboring cuisines (mexican, el salvadoran), but what I had seemed like standard Latin chow. Beans, rice, tacos, salsa, etc. No big surprises. The food was very inexpensive, under five dollars for a generous portion. They didn’t have any vegetarian listed on the menu, but our friendly waitress was able to sort out veggie enchiladas and veggie hard tacos. Both were a little on the oily side, but flavorful and complimented with a searing green spicy sauce. All in all very satisfying, but nothing flashy.
Two quirky things:
–Latin music was blaring the entire time and we were there on a Sunday afternoon.
–The service was pretty slow, friendly, but slow.

I’ve been here twice, and after an underwhelming experience both times, I’m afraid I have to give it two stars. The prices are reasonable. In fact, they’re good. There aren’t very many places where you can get an actual plate of food, not just a sandwich for 5 dollars. Actually, I don’t even think there are very many places in Silver Spring where you can get a sandwich for 5 dollars. But La Bamba does have a 5 dollar taco plate. But it’s just what you’d expect for 5 dollars: not very good.
My wife had the steak carbon, a good amount of food for the price, but still bland and unappetizing.
I know two stars is harsh, but there just wasn’t anything here that would make me go back.

This is one of my favorite «bargain» restaurants in the DC area. While not everything on the menu may please the American palate, there are some delicious options – with generous portions – for cheap.
My personal favorite is churrasco – a thin and tasty steak, topped with salsa. It comes with a side of rice, potato salad, and smashed black beans and cheese that you spread onto spongy tortillas. All for around $ 10!

Today we had planned to go to Lizbeth’s Café for some chicken (again!), but they ended up being closed on Sundays. Luckily, Georgia Avenue is a hotbed for good food. Up the block we found La Bamba Restaurant. It’s in a strange spot because the building looks like it would be inhabited by offices, but we could see that we’d be the only gringos in there so we figured it must be pretty authentic and good.
We both ordered Pollo a la Brasa, which is ½ a chicken roasted over coals on a spit. It came with rice, black beans, lettuce, fresh corn tortillas, and a green spicy sauce. It was so much food, and only around $ 6.50 each! Two things to try next time: the various juices that everyone was drinking, and the desserts!
The menu has English translations for most things and the servers speak Spanish to you, but some knew English. The service was great. This is a no-​frills kind of place, but seemingly authentic, and very delicious.