Review: Taqueria Los Hermanos Restaurant, Lilburn, GA

For the first time in my life I stiffed a waiter. Not just a waiter, a pretty darn good waiter (up to a point).

For the first time in my life I will not be going back to a restaurant that had some great food that made me want to return.

Why? Read on...

My sisters and I took my daughter-in-law out for her birthday. One of the stops on the weekend treat was dinner on Saturday at Taqueria Los Hermanos on Lawrenceville Hwy in Lilburn.

We all ordered something different. My dish, a shrimp dish, was excellent. My other sister's dish and my daughter-in-laws food were also good  to excellent. The Cesina Steak Salad was a colossal fail. The way the staff reacted to problems was worse.

We noticed that my steak-ordering sister was mostly moving her food around. I'd noted when the dish arrived that it was a rather sparse plate, especially when compared to the large, heaped plates the rest of us received. However, I "assumed" that she ordered light.

I heard her say that the dish was swimming in grease. She pushed the lettuce aside and wow, the entire bottom of the curved dish was grease. She tried a bite of the steak and said it was so tough she couldn't chew it.

Not wanting to ruin the fun time we were having she didn't say anything -- not that the waiter came over to ask if everything was OK (something we didn't think about until later when discussing the experience in the vehicle). When we asked why she wasn't eating & she told us we told her to tell the waiter. She said no, she didn't want to put a damper on our day.

Didn't work! My daughter-in-law said something when the waiter came over to bring our bill. He told us "that's just the way the dish was fixed". He said it was the dressing on the bottom. Shrugged it off, ignored the fact that she'd told him the meat was leather.

My daughter-in-law had the same sauce on her chicken salad dish, but she'd asked for it in a bowl on the side. She wouldn't eat it, said it was disgusting. I stuck my finger in it and tried it. Yep, disgusting. The oil was rancid in my opinion. My other sister tried it. She said maybe not rancid that to her it just tasted like oil that had gotten hot and sat around for a long time, was old. Horrible either way.

When we asked to speak to the manager, the waiter said he wasn't there and walked off.

He also told my sister it looked like she'd eaten enough of the dish. She had not.

Now we're all about as honest as the best of the best. We're not ones to complain. I've never stiffed a waiter. His attitude really ticked us off. We'd have been happy with an apology and maybe giving us the cheese dip free ($3.75) or an offer of a free dish the next time we came in.

We didn't tip the waiter. The tip amount worked out to be about the cost of the bad dish. I HATE the idea of not giving a hard-working waiter a tip. I NEVER take out my problems with a dish on the wait staff. It's not their fault when the cook screws up or there's a problem with the food.

In this case, the waiter got a big fail. His attitude means that four separate families and their friends will not be coming back. The three of us that enjoyed our food had all talking about bringing our respective spouses and family back, making Taquiria Los Hermanos a regular haunt.

I seriously doubt our opinions will hurt the restaurant hugely. They've been there for a long time, the place was hopping while we were there. I would guess that little $10.50 dish will probably cost them hundreds and hundreds of dollars from us though.

If you do go there stay away from the steak dishes (Cesina Steak Salad in particular) and definitely do NOT get anything with their "extra virgin olive oil" and lemon juice dressing. If you insist on trying the dressing be sure to get it on the side.

Not so crazy about The Crazy Crab

Normally I try to stay positive when writing about restaurants. If I don't like the food, don't like the service I don't write about the experience... However, I spent the last few days in Hilton Head, South Carolina and had such a difficult experience with a restaurant that I'm going to break my own rules.

There were four of us who trekked to The Crazy Crab to eat. All frequent restaurants and know good service and good food. One is a caterer extraordinaire. She knows food! I'm simply a food critic. The others are well traveled. All of us have different culinary tastes, but all agreed we wouldn't be going back to The Crazy Crab.

We chose the restaurant as the wrap-up restaurant for a wonderful trip after doing a search on the Internet for seafood places in the area. The menu looked good, the location was great and it seemed like it would be perfect. Yes, we were on Hilton Head off-season, but the restaurant was open. The crowd was light. Since you have to pay $5 to get into the area (Harbourtown), it was off-season and after hours with all the cute shops and the lighthouse were closed, it wasn't surprising to see only a few diners in the restaurant.

We waited and talked for a while before finally flagging down someone to find us a server. Not an auspicious start! The woman who came over seemed a bit resentful, with somewhat good reason I guess as it turned out she wasn't our 'official' server.

When the drinks came, our 'official' server brought them. Nice guy, nice smile, very pleasant.

We asked what the specialties were and were told the Crazy Crab Boil, Steamed Shrimp, and Steamed Seafood Pot if I remember correctly. None were on our list of things to eat when you wanted to go out afterward and not smell fishy, so we opted for their Stuffed Flounder (two of us), Blackened Mahi Mahi (me) and Fried Shrimp.

Salads were separate, two of us ordered them.

First, the hush puppies and bread. None of us tried the bread, the hush puppies were the draw. They were dry, and seemed like possibly they'd been sitting out too long. I don't believe anyone finished one. They were the topic of conversation at the table and we even had a discussion about them in the car on the way home. Not good. I guess we'd been spoiled by the hush puppies we'd had at other restaurants. These didn't even merit making it onto the bottom of the list.

I had asked the first server about the veggies and was told they had a medley only (cauliflower, broccoli and carrots). I don't like cooked carrots or cauliflower so asked if they could just give me broccoli. I've been doing that for as long as I can remember and never had anyone at any level restaurant say no. At The Crazy Crab the stand-in and the regular server both said no. Our 'official' server said he'd try when I did a little bit of wheedling

I did have a little more broccoli than carrots and cauliflower as compared to the others, so maybe he got the cook to kinda-sorta try.

However, since I sent the entire plate back, it ended up not mattering! My Mahi Mahi was chewy, tough and ultra dry.

Mahi Mahi is supposed to have a sweet, mild taste, be firm but have large flakes. If you like swordfish you'll probably like Mahi Mahi. This piece was flat-out overcooked and stringy. I tried a bite and thought maybe I'd work my way through it. I tried a little nibble from the other end of the piece, then asked our caterer for her opinion as she loved Mahi Mahi, too. She scrunched up her face and said nope, not right.

I sent it back, something I rarely, if ever, do. I asked for a bowl of She Crab Soup instead.

I'd had a cup of She Crab Soup for lunch at another restaurant but didn't mind a repeat. Once I received it and took a taste, I wasn't impressed. It had a pepper and sweet taste, but still managed to be bland without much of a crab flavor. I ate it though as I was hungry.

Neither of our troupe who tried the Stuffed Flounder were happy with it. One ate half, the other ate less than a third of it. It was dry, the stuffing had more bread than fish and was dry also. It tasted to me like it had sugar in it, but I'm rather sensitive to sweet and could be wrong. We were disappointed to say the least.

The vegetables were all overcooked, almost mushy. That kind of made me feel good in a weird way given I'd sent mine back. I love broccoli!

One positive note about the meal - the fried shrimp was excellent! We all munched on that one plate of shrimp.

We asked to the manager, or maybe the owner, after we'd finished. We simply wanted to share our displeasure in a very, positive way. We didn't ask for, or expect, to receive any discount. We discussed it prior to calling him over --- should we or should we not share our experience? Most people who are unhappy simply pay, leave and never come back. We decided we should share. He was nice, said thank you for sharing, said he hadn't had any complaints all day. Now, given the light crowd, not having any complaints all day didn't really mean a lot, but we just smiled politely and let him move on. I usually don't complain unless things are horrific so it was an interesting experience.

When we received the bill we noted he had removed the Mahi Mahi I sent back from the total and that I had not been charged for the soup. That's a good thing for any restaurant to do.

I doubt that my bit of sharing is going to have much of an impact on The Crazy Crab. They are in an outstanding location, have a great view and the tourist crowd on Hilton Head Island is overwhelming during the season. There will always be large groups frequenting the restaurant after wandering around the beautiful area.

I'll share some of the better experiences we had at restaurants on Hilton Head later, just had to get this one off my list of things to do as it's the only negative on the list! Hilton Head is a fabulous place to visit. I think I probably prefer it off-season when the crowds are light, but there is a lot more to do during the tourist season so it's a trade-off. Of course, prices go up, too...

- jmd

Chinese, If You Please

Over the last several months, we've had the opportunity to visit several of the Chinese restaurants in the area. Some of them have been crossed off my list as we believe their quality of food has gone down. Some of them we've been frequenting for years.


We were on a hunt recently for something to eat. We didn't want to go too far so we looked around and thought we would try the Wok Express in Peachtree City. The restaurant is small, but clean. We were seated immediately and were delighted to find those fried noodles on the table. When the bowl emptied, more bowls were brought by servers with a smile on their face. Now that was the beginning of a most pleasant meal.

For appetizers, we opted to have both the hot and sour soup and the wanton soup. Both were chock full of ingredients in the soup. It was so very pleasant to have more than broth in the bowl.

We ordered the moo shu, kung pao chicken, and chicken with broccoli dishes. All of the dishes were excellent. Plenty of meat and veggies. Cooked just right and not runny. The broccoli in the chicken dish was not overcooked as it still had that brilliant crunchy green appeal.

When we finished eating and had filled up our to go boxes with the leftovers, the servers delivered an extra treat with the fortune cookies. There was a plate of sugared hot small doughnut type treats. They disappeared in a flash.

We give it a definite thumbs up.

Campbell's Chunky Healthy Request New England Clam Chowder... m' m' bad...

I love New England Clam Chowder. Being on a perpetual low-fat, low sodium diet I was very happy to run across Campbell's Chunky Healthy Request New England Chowder. Until I got home and took a bite.

It is 97% fat free and has 45% less sodium, which is a good thing. However, either the can I purchased is getting ready to be on the recall list, or it simply tastes bad.

I tried a bite and grimaced. Knowing Campbell's soups I thought it must be MY taste buds. I sipped some water and tried again. Then I tossed the bowl down the disposal.

I can't begin to describe the taste. It was not good. I drank some soda to get the taste out of my mouth it was that horrible.

I know not to expect a taste that matches the 'real deal' which has so many calories just looking at it adds inches to my hips. But I did think it would be palatable. Especially since I've had other Healthy Request soups and thought they were great.

My suggestion if you're craving New England style clam chowder? Make it yourself and cut whatever corners you can or eat a smaller portion of the regular clam chowder.