Casa De Loco - Newcastle

If Yelp did half stars, I'd give Casa de Loco 3.5. But since we can only do whole stars, I'm bumping it up to 4 because there's just something about this place that makes me like it. We ate here on our wedding night coz we're casual people, this Californian girl was craving some Mexican food, this restaurant was 2 blocks from our hotel. Can you say meant to be? We say at a table on the sidewalk love the tiles on the table; not a huge fan of the backless stools; don't recommend sitting out here if you're tall, like my partner. On the other hand, inside is super noisy, so if you don't mind hunching over a bit it may be worth it so you can hear your dining partner speak. The waiter recommended the spicy goat tacos, which instantly called out to me, the Charlie Sheen cocktail sloe berry gin, tequila, grapefruit juice, bitters or something, egg whites. Egg whites? In a cocktail? Yuck. But to my face of skepticism, he said everyone responds that way ends up liking it. So I figured why not, gave it a try. So glad I did! It was a beautiful cocktail. The tequila complemented the grapefruit juice perfectly, the light froth on top was delectable. This is why waiters should give recommendations, why Yelpers should listen to these recommendations. You never know what you'll discover that you actually like! Now, the food. We started with the potato chorizo empanadas (4 to an order . They're unlike other empanadas I've had before a flakier pastry that was puffy from being deep fried (which is not a bad thing, just different from what I'm used to . And the filling was kind of... chunk of potato, chunk of chorizo. I like my empanadas with filling that's more mixed together. The roasted capsicum sauce that they were served on was fantastic. My partner didn't like the spicy goat tacos, but I thought they were great. The meat was tender and shredded, with a texture like pulled pork. The creamy sauce (an aioli of some kind? balanced out the spiciness of the meat, the greens rounded it out nicely. Soft, warm corn tortillas made it just right. The Butcher's Cut shared main was... okay. The meat was quite tender cooked on the rare side, with good flavour, but as my partner commented, it probably would've been more enjoyable if it were hotter. The roasted capsicum, again, were a lovely accompaniment, the warm corn tortillas were great. I quite enjoyed the salad, too. Take into account the complimentary chips we were given when we sat down (with a very spicy, very delicious dip ; then take into account that we finished off our water quickly were never brought more (to be fair, we didn't ask for more... but I feel it should've been at least offered ; and that the ambiance is great the servers were knowledgable friendly: A solid 3.5 with room for improvement, but they're trying hard like I said, something about it just makes me like it, so let's round up to 4 see if I get a chance to give it another go sometime.

Staying overnight for business on a Wednesday, read a review that it was as good as any Mexican they had ever had. So decided to try it, nice atmosphere friendly staff. Ordered the half chicken and share size salad, both good sized portions. Salad was tasty and would order again. The chicken was dry and tasteless you know like the one you get on special at Coles that has been sitting there for a couple of days. This was accompanied with corn salsa which was great and what I thought was like a bubble and squeak, which was also dry and bland. The place was busy so maybe I was unlucky?

I was excited when this place opened and enjoyed my first meal there BUT it went sharply down hill from there. My next visit was on Taco night . No choice but tacos only so I ordered one. It arrived cold and tiny. A ridiculously small portion. So last Friday night against my better judgement I tried it again with some out of town friends who were staying in a motel nearby. Just as bad as before. Before ordering the pulled pork tacos I enquired if they were served cold and told, no, the wrap is cold but the filling is hot . Nope, cold again, stone cold and tasting weird, it had a chemical type of medicine taste to it. Our waitress was friendly but uninformed and the other staff didn 't acknowledge us. Never again. In fact this place is so bad it drove me to take the trouble to sign up to this site so I could warn the public.

Finally ate here after numerous friends raved about it. Left pretty disappointed. No complaints about the staff or the ambience of the venue. Food was average though. Don't usually send things back, but my taco came out cold, as in I wondered if it had been heated in the first place cold, rather than just luke warm. I specifically said i didn't want a replacement, but got one anyway. My companion had the ribs, and i didn't really get the impression they blew him away. Ordered one beer, got delivered another (which luckily turned out to be nice)... Wouldn't rush back.

Great atmosphere, the staff are lovely, food is pretty good, drinks are always interesting,and the music is always good.